Alternative 101:

HOMEOPATHY

 

BY HEATHER PEAKE

Here’s some Latin you can
pull out to amaze your family
and friends: simila similibus
curentur. Or in English, “let
likes cure likes.”

In either language, this is the
guiding principal of homeopa-
thy, a 200—year-old system of
medicine that treats symptoms
by prescribing tiny amounts of
animal, plant, or mineral sub-
stances that, taken in large
enough doses, would cause the
same symptoms in a healthy
body, thus stimulating the body
to put up a defense.

What happens when you
chop an onion? Your eyes
water and your nose runs.
Maybe you develop a sore
throat or a cough. When the
same symptoms occur and
there’s no onion in sight, it’s
probably an allergy. To treat an
allergy homeopathically, you
might take allium cepa, a
derivative of red onion. In the-
ory, at least, your symptoms
will stop.

Around --l 800, upon noting
that the popular malaria reme-
dy cinchona caused malaria-
like symptoms when ingested
by a healthy man, Samuel
Hahnemann decided that the
Greek physician Hippocrates’
1,200-year-old dictum “like
cures like” had been correct.

Collecting a group of will-
ing volunteers, the German
physician began testing, or
“proving,” a variety of com-
pounds and making careful
observations of the symptoms.
These provings became the
basis for the book that would

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Erin Rhoades, MD

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eventually become the bible of
homeopathy, the Materia
Medica.

Much to his surprise, when
Hahnemann began trying these
substances on the sick, he
found that the more diluted the
substance, the more powerful

thing put sugar pills. Because
the dilutions retain no trace of
the original substance, there is
almost no way it could possi-
bly have any effect on the
human body. Most traditional-
ists chalk homeopathy’s suc-
cesses up to the placebo effect

ed the 18th century. By mid-
century, one in five American
doctors were homeopathic
practitioners, and dozens of
schools were training physi-
cians.

h With the growing profes-
sionalization of medicine and

Homeopathy sees health as a state of freedom,

where a person is physically  mentally able to

pursue his or her life as they choose.

the healing results. He termed
this “the Law of Potency.”

Is Less More?

When you look at a Vial of a
homeopathic remedy, you will
often see a notation like 6X,
6C, 12X, 12C, 30X, 30C or so
on. This is an indication of its
dilutionifactor. For instance, to
begin" making a remedy, pro-
ducers mix one drop of, say, a
plant substance with 99 drops
of alcohol and shaken vigor-
ously. This makes a 1:100 ratio
of 1C.

But it doesn’t end there. If
something at 1C is then mixed
with another 99 drop of alcohol
and shaken, this makes it 2C.
By the time the product reach-
es 3C, the dilution has reached
one part in one million. To
form pills, globules made of
sugar and starches are coated
withthe dilution and dried.

Traditional doctofs scoff at
the notion that these are any-

or the illness simply having run
its course...in short, coinci-
dence.

Homeopathic practitioners
point to studies that show their
remedies to have a better rate

of cure than placebos. Nor does

the placebo effect explain the
efficacy of remedies on infants

or the unconscious. They claim 8
that their compounds retain a up
“trace, memory” of the sub-

stance, and that this faint
imprint touches off a cure. It
really isn’t as far—fetched as it
sounds. What is vaccination,
after all, but a highly diluted

“strain of virus or bacteria that

stimulates the body’s immune
response?

Hahnemann lived long
enough to see his work become
one of the most popular forms
of medicine in Europe and the
United States. People wel-
comed the change from the
harsh practices of bloodletting
and purgatives that so dominat-

the shift to a more mechanical
and pharmacological view of
the treatment of disease, home-
opathy began to lose its footing
in America. By the middle of
the 1950s, all the schools were
closed, and practitioners were
hard_to come by.

But within the last decade,
Americans have begun to reex-
amine Hahnemanr_i’s philoso-
phies. According to the
National - Center for
Homeopathy, sales of homeo-
pathic products surged from
$170 million in 1995 to $400
million last year. Between the
1997 and 1998 flu seasons
alone, sales of Oscillococ-
cinum, remedy made from the
liver of Barbary ducks, grew
40 percent.

Good and Good For You 8
The attraction of homeopa-
thy lies not only in its use of
safe, gentle, natural remedies,
but in its philosophy of healthy

8” Maayzooio Out’ in the Mountainsi. 25

health & wellbeing

    

living.

Traditional medicine looks
to suppress or mask symptoms.
To . the homeopath, symptoms
represent the body’s attempt to
cure itself. Remedies lean
towards stimulating the body
to heal itself more quickly.
Conventional medicine often
looks at heath as the absence of
disease. Homeopathy sees
health as a state of freedom,
where a person is physically
and mentally able to pursue his
or her life as they chose.

Homeopathic medicines are
available without prescription,
and can be found in almost any
natural foods store. (They are
also one of the few such prod-
ucts that do not fall under‘FDA
regulation, thanks to" a 1938
bill sponsored by a homeopath-
ic physician—tumed-senator.)

There are dozens of books
and Web sites that can show
you the proper way to choose
your medicines. This can be
tricky, as medicines have to be
carefully matched to symp-
toms; to the homeopath, all
coughs are not the same. If you
don’t want to go the do-it-your-
self route, practitioners can be
found through the National
Center for Homeopathy’s Web
site at homeopathic.org.

The usual caveat: homeo-
pathic medicine is safe for
minor illnesses, but if you are
suffering from injury or a
potentially serious medical
condition, you need to see a
traditional doctor, and use
homeopathy for supportive
care. V