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Homoeopathy-FAQ

Question:

: They may be given as liquids or, more usually, as sugar pills or powders. : Sometimes they are given as a single long-acting dose, or else they may be : given once a day or more frequently for days or weeks. They should : be allowed  to dissolve in the mouth. It is often said that patients : taking homoeopathic  medicines should avoid drinking tea or coffee, : but there is no good evidence  that these substances really : interfere with cure. It is therefore probably  enough to avoid : eating or drinking for 10 or 20 minutes before and after taking  the : medicines. You should talk to some of my friends! Interfering with a remedy is no fun, and should definitely be avoided. Tea tree oil, coffee, camphor, dental work are all common interferers. Mint, often considered an interferer, and tea, don’t seem to be big problems. —

Response:

: I hope this is the right venue for some information.  I’ve been taking : homeopathics three years herein the States for Lyme disease.  I’ve got a : serious case and am not cured.   Your treatment is not classical. Heaven knows what the status of your case is. Go to London and find a real homeopath. —

Response:

I hope this is the right venue for some information.  I’ve been taking homeopathics three years herein the States for Lyme disease.  I’ve got a serious case and am not cured.   My homeopathic doctor has been using Reckenweg formula R1, Gallium Heel, Lymphomyosot.  I also take Valeriana and Brellia Nozode from Germany.  But I have little improved. But I have faithin the homeopathy, am well read, and am contemplating seeking Homeopathic help in Europe where the training seems more advanced.  Can you help me as to whether i should head for London, France, Germany or Switzerland.   We have friends and family in France and are fluent, as well as some recommendations.  Do you at the institute have experience in chronic Borreliosis treatment, especially with CNS involvement? I would reallly appreciate your help.  Thanks – Laura in New York

Response:

First compiled 6 September 1995 Compiled by Dr Anthony Campbell, Consultant Physician at The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. Purpose: To give a brief overview of homoeopathy. It is  a personal view of the subject and should not be read as an official statement of position on the part of The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. It is in three parts: Part 1: The historical background of homoeopathy. Part 2: Homoeopathy in practice today. Part 3: Research in homoeopathy. Contact address: Questions, suggestions for inclusion, and other contributions PART 3: RESEARCH IN HOMOEOPATHY CONTENTS 1. Background to research in homoeopathy, 2. Recent research papers. 1. BACKGROUND TO RESEARCH IN HOMOEOPATHY Homoeopathy developed long before the rise of modern scientific medicine and the placebo-controlled double-blind trial. Some defenders of homoeopathy have claimed that it cannot be investigated in this way, but in fact there have been several studies in recent years which have conformed to objective scientific studies. The majority of these have shown homoeopathy to have a measurable therapeutic effect; in other words, homoeopathy appeared to work better than an inert placebo. 2. RECENT RESEARCH PAPERS: List compiled by Dr Peter Fisher, Director of Research, Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. A. CLINICAL TRIALS. Reilly  D, Taylor M, Beattie N, Campbell J, McSharry C, Aitchison T, Carter R, Stevenson R.  Is the evidence for homoeopathy reproducible?  Lancet 1994; 334: 1601-6. Double-blind study of allergic asthma treated with homoeopathic dilution of individualised allergen.  Also metanalysis of 3 linked studies (2 hayfever, 1 asthma). Positive results. de Lange de Klerk ESM, Blommers J, Kuik DJ, Bezemer PD, Feenstra L.  Effect of homoeopathic medicines on daily  burden of symptoms in childeren with recurrent upper respiratory tract infections. Br Med J 1994;309:1329-1332. Non- statistically significant trends in favour of homoeopathy for all parameters, including symptoms, antibiotic use, tonsillectomy etc.  Inadequate recruitment (170 patients, target 300). Equivocal. Jacobs J. Jimenez M, Gloyd S, Crothers D, Casares F, Gaitan M. Treatment of acute childhood diarrhea with homeopathic medicine: a randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua. Br Hom J 1993; 82: 83-6. Jacobs J. Jimenez M, Gloyd S, Gale J, Crothers D. Treatment of acute childhood diarrhea with homeopathic medicine: a randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua. Pediatrics 1994; 93: 719-25 Two double-blind placebo-controlled trials  of homoeopathic treatment of childhood diarrhoea in Nicargua.  Positive results. Shipley M,  Berry  H,  Broster  G,  Jenkins  M,  Clover   A,  Williams I.   Controlled  trial  of  homoeopathic treatment  of osteoarthritis (1983)   Lancet 1, 97-98. Rhus tox 6x v Fenoprofen v placebo, 3- way cross-over.  Little or no patient selection.  Negative result. Fisher P, Greenwood A, Huskisson EC, Turner P, Belon P.  Effect of homoeopathic treatment on fibrositis (primary fibromyalgia). Br Med J. (1989) 299 365-366. Similar to Shipley et al, above, cross-over method, with patient selection.   Positive result. Taylor-Reilly  D, Taylor M,  McSharry C, Aitchison T.  Is homoeopathy a placebo response?  Lancet 1986 2 881-886. Mixed pollen 30c v placebo in hayfever, double-blind. Positive result. Mayaux MJ, Guihard-Moscato ML, Schwartz D et al.  Controlled trial of Homoeopathy in post-operative ileus. (letter) Lancet 1988 1 528-529. Large- scale, double-blind study conducted in (non-homoeopathic) french hospitals, no patient selection. Negative result. Ferley JP, Zmirou D, D’Adhemar D, Balducci F.  A controlled evaluation of a homoeopathic preparation in influenza-like syndromes.  Br J clin Pharmac (1989) 27, 329-335. Large scale epidemiological study of a proprietary medicine, Oscillococcinum in a flu epidemic.  Positive result. Brigo B, Serpelloni G.  Homoeopathic treatment of migraine: a randomised, double-blind controlled study of 60 cases (homoeopathy v placebo).  Berl J Res Hom 1991 1 98-106. Double-blind study with limited range of remedies (8).   Positive result. Lkken P, Straumsheim PA, Tveiten D, Skjelbred P, Borchgrevink CF.  Effect of homoeopathy on pain and other events after acute trauma: placebo controlled trial with bilateral oral surgery.  Br Med J 1995;310:1439-42. B. REVIEW ARTICLE: Kleijnen J, Knipschild P, ter Riet G.  Clinical trials of homoeopathy.  Br Med J (1991) 302 316-323. Criterion-based systematic review of 107 controlled clinical trials of homoeopathy.  Positive conclusions. Anthony Campbell                       The Royal London Homoeopathic                                Great Ormond Street, London WC1N 3HR                    Tel: +44 (0)171 837 8833  Fax: 44 (0)171 837 7229

Response:

Compiled by Dr Anthony Campbell, Consultant Physician at The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. Purpose: To give a brief overview of homoeopathy. It is a personal view of the subject and should not be read as an official statement of position on the part of The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. It is in three parts: Frequency of posting: every 2 weeks. Part 1: The historical background of homoeopathy. Part 2: Homoeopathy in practice today. Part 3: Research in homoeopathy. Contact address: Questions, suggestions for inclusion, and other contributions PART 2: HOMOEOPATHY IN PRACTICE TODAY CONTENTS 1, How is homoeopathy practised today? 2. What is the homoeopathic consultation like? 3. What are the medicines like? 4. How are they prescribed? 5. What about conventional drugs? 6. What is the scope of homoeopathy? 7. Are there any dangers? 8. But what about aggravations? 1. HOW IS HOMOEOPATHY PRACTISED TODAY? There are several different approaches to homoeopathy today. The Kentian approach (see Part 1) is still influential in Britain and has also been taken up in a number of other countries, especially South America. It makes use of high potencies and pays a lot of attention to the patient’s *constitution* (see below). In France, low potencies are generally used. There is also so-called complex homoeopathy, popular in Germany, in which mixtures of homoeopathic and sometimes other medicines are combined. All these methods of prescribing are said to be homoeopathy but there are considerable variations among them. You should therefore not be surprised if you visit a homoeopath and receive a rather different form of consultation from that described below. 2. WHAT IS THE HOMOEOPATHIC CONSULTATION LIKE? The underlying idea of homoeopathy is that the prescriber doesn’t focus narrowly on the disease, as conventional doctors are said to do, but instead takes a *holistic* approach. If the prescriber is a conventional doctor he or she will start by taking an orthodox medical history and examine the patient in the usual way, but will then change gear, as it were, and go on to take a homoeopathic history as well. Here the emphasis is on those features with distinguish this particular patient from others with the same conventional diagnosis. Two patients, both suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, say, might well receive different homoeopathic prescriptions. The professed aim of a homoeopathic consultation is *to find the totality of symptoms*. It is how this is understood that determines the course of the consultation. For example, one prescriber might attach importance to the physical manifestations of disease, while another might prefer to concentrate on psychological aspects. This is particularly true of the Kentian method, where the consultation often takes the form of a characterological analysis, with numerous questions about the patient’s moods, food likes and dislikes, reactions to various kinds of weather and so on. The aim here is to find the patient’s *constitution*, which can then be matched against the various remedy pictures described in the homoeopathic literature. White arsenic, for example, is supposed to be associated with chilly, excessively tidy people; sulphur is associated with untidy unkempt people. Although this is often called *classic homoeopathy* it was not used to any extent by Hahnemann but developed in the USA and later in Britain. 3. WHAT ARE THE MEDICINES LIKE? The main homoeopathic medicines are derived from vegetable, mineral, or animal sources. Some of these are highly poisonous in their original, undiluted form and patients who learn that they are being given medicines derived from such sources sometimes feel apprehensive, but the homoeopathic method of preparation yields such extremely high dilutions that there is no danger. Another important group of homoeopathic medicines is the *nosodes*, derived from disease products. They can be given for symptoms that persist after recovery from the disease in question – the *never well since* clinical picture. Some of the nosodes have been used so widely that they have taken on the status of independent homoeopathic medicines and are prescribed on the basis of symptoms even when there is no history of the disease they are related to. 4. HOW ARE THE MEDICINES PRESCRIBED? They may be given as liquids or, more usually, as sugar pills or powders. Sometimes they are given as a single long-acting dose, or else they may be given once a day or more frequently for days or weeks. They should be allowed to dissolve in the mouth. It is often said that patients taking homoeopathic medicines should avoid drinking tea or coffee, but there is no good evidence that these substances really interfere with cure. It is therefore probably enough to avoid eating or drinking for 10 or 20 minutes before and after taking the medicines. 5. WHAT ABOUT CONVENTIONAL DRUGS? There is no good evidence that conventional drugs interfere with homoeopathic medicines. In any case, it is always undesirable to stop conventional treatment without the approval of your doctor. There are no dangerous interactions between homoeopathic medicines and conventional drugs. 6. ARE THERE ANY DANGERS? The principal claim made by homoeopaths is that their treatment is safe, and this is true, provided that no serious disease has been overlooked and conventional treatment is not withdrawn unadvisedly. As noted above, there are no dangerous interactions between homoeopathic medicines and conventional ones. 7. BUT WHAT ABOUT AGGRAVATIONS? Hahnemann taught that if the right homoeopathic medicine was given the patient would always become a little worse before improving. This is the so-called homoeopathic aggravation. Some modern homoeopaths also believe this and report that they quite often see aggravations of this kind. Others, equally experienced, hardly ever see them. In any case, even if aggravations do occur they are short-lived and never cause serious or long-lasting damage to health. 6. WHAT IS THE SCOPE OF HOMOEOPATHY? Hahnemann believed that homoeopathy was a complete system of medicine and was destined to replace conventional medicine entirely. A few modern homoeopaths would still adopt this extreme position today, but most – and certainly almost all medically qualified homoeopaths – recognise that there are many illnesses that demand orthodox treatment. Even Hahnemann recognized that surgery would be necessary in some cases. Nevertheless, because it is prescribed on the patient’s symptoms, homoeopathy can be prescribed as a supplementary treatment in almost any situation. Homoeopathy lends itself well to self-treatment, especially for acute disease. It is possible to buy an emergency kit containing medicines that can be used to treat colds, coughs, sore throats, and minor burns, bruises and sprains. Another field of application is psychological problems. There is certainly a place for homoeopathy in the management of mild to moderate anxiety, depression, and other mood disturbances, but it is not suitable for severe depression or schizophrenia except in the hands of a suitably experienced doctor or psychiatrist. Children seem to respond particularly well to homoeopathy and they enjoy taking the medicines, which are sweet. Animals, too, can be treated successfully in many cases. Anthony Campbell                       The Royal London Homoeopathic                                Great Ormond Street, London WC1N 3HR                    Tel: +44 (0)171 837 8833  Fax: 44 (0)171 837 7229

Response:

by Dr Anthony Campbell, Consultant Physician at The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. Purpose: To give a brief overview of homoeopathy. It is a personal view of the subject and should not be read as an official statement of position on the part of The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. It is in three parts: Part 1: The historical background of homoeopathy. Part 2: Homoeopathy in practice today. Part 3: Research in homoeopathy. Contact address: Questions, suggestions for inclusion, and other contributions PART 1: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF HOMOEOPATHY. CONTENTS 1. How did homoeopathy begin? 2. What was new about Hahnemann’s system? 3. What about the use of tiny doses? 4. What did Hahnemann teach about chronic disease? 5. What happened to homoeopathy after Hahnemann’s death? 1. HOW DID HOMOEOPATHY BEGIN? The story of homoeopathy begins with Samuel Christian Hahnemann (1755-1843). He was an orthodoxly qualified German physician who, understandably, became dissatisfied with the medical practices of his day, which consisted largely in bleeding and the use of large doses of dangerous drugs. He therefore looked for alternative forms of treatment that would be better, but for a long time he was unsuccessful, and for many years he abandoned the practice of medicine altogether. Towards the end of the 18th century, however, he conducted an experiment on himself; he took some cinchona bark (quinine) to see what would happen. To his surprise he experienced, for a few hours, the symptoms of malaria. Perhaps, he thought, quinine cures malaria because it can produce the symptoms of malaria in a healthy person. This idea was the germ of homoeopathy. He did not make this theory public initially, but by 1805 he was practising according to his new system, which quickly brought him success. Between 1811 and 1821 he was in Leipzig, where he lectured at the university and built up a small but devoted band of followers. In 1821 he was forced by the hostility of the Leipzig apothecaries to leave the town; he moved to the small principality of Kothen to act as physician to the Duke. He was now famous and patients flocked to him from all over Europe, but his practice became pretty much confined to the treatment of chronic disease. His wife died in 1830, when he was 75; in 1834, to everyone’s surprise, he contracted a second marriage, to a fashionable young Frenchwoman called Melanie. She soon took him off to Paris, where he established a prosperous practice. After his death his wife continued to practise homoeopathy, which she had learnt at his feet. 2. WHAT WAS NEW ABOUT HAHNEMANN’S SYSTEM? The essential characteristic of homoeopathy as propounded by Hahnemann was the similia idea, which he encapsulated in a Latin tag: *similia similibus curentur* – let likes be cured by likes. For example, belladonna (Deadly Nightshade) produces a hot, dry, flushed skin and hallucinations, both of which may occur in scarlet fever. Belladonna was therefore used by Hahnemann to treat, and prevent, scarlet fever. Another example is the use of a medicine derived from onions to treat the common cold, because onions cause the eyes and nose to discharge profusely. Other features of homoeopathy were that the medicines were given singly and the medicines were not repeated routinely but only when the patient’s symptoms demand it. These principles were at variance with those of the orthodox practice of his day but could certainly be said to be more scientific. 3. WHAT ABOUT THE USE OF TINY DOSES? Although this is often thought to be the defining characteristic of homoeopathy, it was really a fairly late development in Hahnemann’s thinking. At first he had used small doses, certainly, but not tiny ones. Not until 1817 did he mention what later came to be called the potency idea; and the seemingly paradoxical notion that the more you dilute a medicine, the more powerful it becomes, was never accepted by all homoeopaths. Most did allow that highly dilute substances do have a therapeutic action, but not all of them believed that the action becomes stronger as dilution continues. The method of preparing the medicines described by Hahnemann consisted in making serial dilutions alternating with violent shaking, called succussion. (Insoluble substances were first ground in a mortar and together with increasing quantities of sugar of milk.) The grinding or succussion were thought by Hahnemann to be very important for bringing out the medicinal properties of the substances. The same method of preparation is used today. The starting point is usually an alcoholic extract, which is serially diluted with an alcohol-water mixture on either the decimal (1:10) or the centesimal (1:100) scale. Commonly used dilutions in Britain today are the sixth centesimal (1:a thousand billion) and the 30th centesimal (1:5 thousand billion); different dilutions are used in France. There is also the M range, which allegedly gives rise to enormously higher dilutions, though these medicines are prepared in a different way. The obvious difficulty with the idea of potentization is that there can presumably be no molecules of the original substance left once we get beyond about the 12th centesimal dilution. Given that potentization is a real phenomenon, as homoeopaths claim, how can it be explained? The assumption has to be that information is somehow transferred from the original medicinal substance to the surrounding water and that this persists throughout the subsequent dilution steps. There is certainly much that is still unknown about the structure of water and various theories have been advanced to explain potentisation, but it is not yet possible to present a complete explanation. 4. WHAT DID HAHNEMANN TEACH ABOUT CHRONIC DISEASE? While at Kothen Hahnemann produced a theory of chronic disease called the miasm theory. He identified three miasms, the most important of which he called psora. Psora behaves very much like an infection and is supposed to be the cause of the great majority of chronic disease. He introduced a number of new medicines to treat psora, including cuttlefish ink (Sepia) and quartz sand (Silicea). Like the potency idea, the miasm theory gave rise to a lot of controversy among the homoeopaths. 5. WHAT HAPPENED TO HOMOEOPATHY AFTER HAHNEMANN’S DEATH? Homoeopathy spread widely throughout Europe and also reached India, where it is still widely practised. It also crossed the Atlantic to the USA, where it prospered exceedingly and indeed began to look likely to become the dominant form of medicine. It reached its greatest popularity after the Civil War, in the decades 1865-85. In 1900 there were still 22 homoeopathic colleges, 56 purely homoeopathic general hospitals, 13 mental asylums, 9 children’s hospitals, and 21 sanatoriums. But partly because of hostility from the conventional doctors, and partly owing to in-fighting among the homoeopaths themselves, homoeopathy began to decline after about 1885; by 1918 there were few homoeopathic colleges left, and the last of them closed in 1930. American homoeopathy introduced some new ideas into the subject, some of which were due to the 18th-century Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Swedenborgianism was very influential on the east coast of the USA in the later 19th century and most of the prominent American homoeopaths of the time were Swedenborgians. As a result there developed two schools of homoeopathy in America: a low-potency group, who were not extreme and eventually quietly switched over to orthodox medicine, and a small but influential high-potency group. The last represetative of this group was James Tyler Kent, whose reputation remains high. In the early twentieth century Kent’s ideas were brought to England and there quickly became established as the standard version of homoeopathy – so-called classic homoeopathy. Different versions of homoeopathy continued to be practised in other countries. In Britain the homoeopathic hospitals were incorporated into the National Health Service when it was set up in 1947. Soon after this the Faculty of Homoeopathy was established by Act of Parliament to supervise the academic standard of medical homoeopathy in Britain. Anthony Campbell                       The Royal London Homoeopathic                                Great Ormond Street, London WC1N 3HR                    Tel: +44 (0)171 837 8833  Fax: 44 (0)171 837 7229

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