Homœopathy

Alternative Medicine and Complementary Medicine are all-embracing titles, which imply many separate disciplines, usually involving a common theme: a) natural medicines, b) holistic principles. There are three major 'systems' of medicine included under this headingIn the first of a series of articles on Alternative Medicine, Chris Day from the Alternative Veterinary Medicine Centre, looks at veterinary homœopathy Veterinary Homœopathy Veterinary homœopathy is based on the same principles as its human medical counterpart, ie. the principles discovered and worked out by Samuel Hahnemann in Germany in 1790 (over two hundred years ago!). The earliest references to veterinary homœopathy are found in a little known manuscript of a lecture by Dr Hahnemann, given in Leipzig in or about 1813.

Homœopathy is the science of medicine based on the principle 'similia similibus curentur' (let likes be cured by likes). Samuel Hahnemann discovered that Peruvian Bark (or Cinchona which gives us the drug Quinine) was able to produce signs and symptoms in a healthy body (his own) quite indistinguishable from those of malaria, a disease which it is singularly well able to cure. This apparently paradoxical effect he named 'homœopathy', which means (from the Greek) 'similar to the suffering'. The same phenomenon is observable for an infinite variety of substances, whether plant, animal or mineral in origin. In other words, in order to cure a disease syndrome we must select a substance most able to produce similar signs and symptoms in a healthy body. The substances used are commonly known as remedies. Their properties are listed in books called "Homœopathic Materia Medica".
Hahnemann found, in addition to this startling discovery, that if he serially diluted his curative substances (and succussed or violently agitated the solution at each stage), they were less and less able to produce any harmful effects and became (paradoxically again) more and more powerful curatively. We now know, from molecular and atomic physics, that his common dilutions were beyond the point at which we would mathematically expect the last molecule or atom to remain.

This 'sub-molecular' nature of the remedies means that we are using energy, not drug material, as a curative force. This rules out any chance of 'side effects' and hence rules out any damage that ensues from such side effects. We call these dilutions 'potencies'. The level of potency is denoted by a number, written after the remedy name, and representing the number and scale of dilution undergone by the solution.
Homœopathy treats the animal as an 'energetic whole', not as a collection of symptoms or signs with a specific 'scientific' disease name. For this reason, since we are treating the animal itself, not the disease, we need to know a great deal of information about the patient and about its medical history, its background and its home environment. This entails asking seemingly strange questions, which appear often to be quite unrelated to the specific problem.
Homœopathy is a force for good in the animal world, since it is able to treat so many diseases ranging from simple to serious, and acute to chronic, quite without the risk of side effects and without the need for laboratory animal experimentation. Humans have already volunteered as 'guinea pigs' and have done the work of determining the effects of the substances in healthy bodies! All species respond, from mice to snakes, from cats to horses, from birds to tortoises and in the farm animal context there is no risk of drug residues in milk or meat. 'Organic' farmers are showing a great deal of interest in the use of homeopathy, for their livestock, for this reason.

Homœopathy works in the body by stimulating the body's own powers of healing. The final outcome of treatment by homœopathy depends both upon the prescriber's ability to select the correct remedy and upon the animal's ability to respond. If no mechanism exists in the body, to heal the disease effects, then necessarily no cure can result. Even so, many so-called 'incurable' diseases can respond.