Historical Perspective
June 20, 2006
by
Julian Winston
author of The
Faces of Homeopathy: An illustrated history of the first 200 years
In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the Internet is abuzz
with questions about what can be done by homeopaths in the event of a biological
attack on the U.S. We've read of homeopathy's successes in past epidemics,
such as the flu pandemic of 1918, and people are asking, could homeopathy
succeed again? Under potentially very different, man-made circumstances?
The feelings of panic and fear are rising. This is understandable; but it
would do us all well to relax for a minute, take a deep breath, and look
at the situation.
Homeopathy is a system
of medicine used to help sick people. In rare instances it might be used
as a preventative, but the use of the "nosode" (a remedy made from the
infectious agent) might not be the best prophylactic. There is little data
to support the nosode (isopathic) approach. Even if there was, there are
many different strains of the various potential infectious agents, and
who can say if a nosode made from an infectious agent was made from the "right" strain?
We should recall
that when homeopathy's founder Samuel Hahnemann was treating an outbreak
of scarlet fever early in his career, he found that Belladonna was the
remedy needed for those who were ill, and he offered Belladonna as a prophylactic
for those who had been exposed. In paragraph 241 of The Organon of
Medicine, Hahnemann says: "... each single epidemic is of a peculiar,
uniform character common to all the individuals attacked, and when this
character is found in the totality of the symptoms common to all, it guides
us to the discovery of the homeopathic (specific) remedy suitable for all
the cases, which is almost universally serviceable in those patients who
enjoyed tolerable health before the occurrence of the epidemic."
In the scarlet fever
episode, Hahnemann determined the "homeopathic specific" remedy to be Belladonna. Francisco
Eizayaga of Argentina reported having successfully given the remedy Lathyrus
sativus as a prophylactic against polio because it was the homeopathic
remedy that was most like people's manifestation of disease in that particular
polio epidemic.
We are used to looking
for the one "silver bullet" that will solve the problem, and in homeopathy
there is no such thing. There are, however, many "silver bullets" which
might be of use, but to know which one to use, we must first see how the
disease manifests in the patient. We have to find the unique way in which
those affected are responding to the disease, and then find the remedy
that is most characteristic to the case. This means waiting until after
the disease manifests.
In the flu epidemic of 1918,
the remedy most used was Gelsemium - simply because most people
displayed Gelsemium symptoms - overwhelming weakness, loss of coordination,
dullness, and stupor. Yet, there were some who needed other remedies because
they were presenting a different set of symptoms.
The homeopathic remedies that may be useful in an epidemic will only become
known as we see cases, as the disease progresses.
Certainly we can generalize now upon the common symptoms of each potential
disease and determine a group of likely remedies for each disease. But such
a list of remedies is only a potential guideline and offers no guarantees
that the specific remedy for an actual epidemic will even be on the list.
As always, we will need to remember to look at the individual case(s) and
find the remedy that is most characteristic.
Another caveat: antibiotics are the best-known defense for
some of these biological agents, and the window of opportunity for using
them successfully is quite short. Stay in touch with your conventional practitioner
and public health department as well as your homeopath. If a crisis arises,
do not discount the use of conventional medication. Homeopathy is not the
only line of defense.
