Random thoughts on Homeopathy

While there is much in homeopathy that makes no sense to the general medical public (or even to the general public if they stopped to think about it) since it falls so far outside of their experience and the narrowness of their formal education, there is just that much that makes me appreciate homeopathy as a therapeutic modality.

Homeopathy is a very elegant, deceptively simple field of medicine.  With only 4 rules we are given the ability to treat any symptoms in any species without having to make exceptions or rewrite the rules. 

These same 4 rules (the Law of Similars, The Use of Proved Remedies, The Totality of Symptoms, and The Use of Single Doses of Single Medicines - if you are curious about these there is an explanation of each on my website) remain unchanged through time so we don't have to learn and relearn ways of treatment as the fads and fashion of medicine change.

Once you understand the approach of homeopathy, you realize that medicine doesn't have to be fear based.  The symptoms being produced by the sick body aren't something terrible.  They are simply the body's way of telling the astute observer what there is that needs to be treated.  These symptoms also guide the homeopath to the correct remedy for the patient.  Nothing scary there, even if the symptoms may be really terrible in the eyes of the unlearned public.

By taking the fear out of the loop, we are free to treat any set of symptoms in any patient without the pressures and trepidations that so often accompany the therapies of conventionally diagnosed diseases.    Cancer, itchy skin, kidney failure, snotty nose - it doesn't matter.  Each of these cases are approached in the same way based on the 4 rules of homeopathy and without the judgement that commonly accompanies the diagnosis in conventional medicine.

But in this is also part of the downfall of homeopathy.  By making it so simple to treat any disease process and by taking fear out of the situation, homeopathy loses 2 of the big factors common in conventional medicine - the convoluted complexity that seems to elevate the all-knowing doctor to a god-like status and the fear that drives the patient/client to spend what ever is necessary to conquer the evil disease.  

There is money to be made in fear and poorly understood disease.  There is little money to be made in health.  I think as a culture we really have that backwards.