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More and more, Americans are turning to complementary medicine to
treat what ails them. Many of these therapies, which are often commonly used
in other countries around the world, have been criticized by the conventional
medical community. Homeopathy, a 200-year-old practice that is based on the
idea that "like cures like," is one such therapy. Below, two
specialists in homeopathy discuss the history, theory, and practice of this
treatment option.
What is
homeopathy?
HAROLD OFGANG, MD: Homeopathy is not about simply treating a disease, it is
stimulating the vital force, or nowadays we call it the defense mechanism, of
the individual patient.
RICHARD
DUSHKIN, MD: We're looking at the whole person, that's one of the things that
makes homeopathy unique. We look at a particular symptom but we look at it in
a much broader perspective, and our goal here is to look at the person in
addition to just that particular symptom. We all are very different. Some
people are morning people, some are night people, winter people, and some
people are summer people. So we look at who this person is and treat them,
not just the symptom.
When I
practiced conventional medicine, people would walk in, tell their symptom and
you'd run some tests. Every person got the exact same treatment because they
had a symptom, a diagnosis. In homeopathy, five people can walk in with the
same symptom and get five different homeopathic medicines because who they
are in their totality can be very individualized.
When did
the idea of homeopathy first come about?
RICHARD DUSHKIN, MD: German doctor Dr. Samuel Hahnemann founded homeopathy in
the late 1700's. He became very dissatisfied with the treatments used at the
time, including bloodletting, toxic metals and heavy cathartics, so he
decided to stop practicing medicine, because he found that it was too dangerous
for his patients.
Instead, he
began translating medical texts from one language to the other. In the course
of translating one particular text from English to German, he described why a
particular bark worked in the treatment of malaria. Hahnemann thought this
treatment was preposterous and couldn't possibly be true, so he decided to
take some of the bark himself and shortly afterwards, he came down with the
symptoms of malaria. It began a whole chronicle of events that made him look
at something more holistic. Hahnemann is also given credit in medical history
as being the first person to actually do systemic drug research on people,
not rats or other laboratory animals.
Why don't
more doctors practice homeopathy and why is it still criticized?
HAROLD OFGANG, MD: Scientists and conventional physicians tend to be very,
very conservative. Anything new takes quite a long time to catch on. By the
1930's, approximately 30 percent of medical schools in America were
homeopathic medical schools and hospitals. But it is still something that is
not well understood by conventional or allopathic physicians, and it is also
something that is perhaps a little bit difficult to understand for a lot of
scientists. This is because you're dealing with very, very small dilutions
and you're using medicines that are totally nontoxic. They are very
effective, and very safe-just different from conventional medicine.
Explain
the idea of diluting things in water as a treatment?
RICHARD DUSHKIN, MD: It's a little more than just that, because if you just
took something and diluted it in water, you'd end up with nothing. Homeopathy
goes significantly beyond that-it's understanding Hahnemann's basic belief
that there was something which he called a vital force. In Chinese medicine
it would be called chi, in yoga it would be called prana, in religion, it
might be called spirit, but everything in nature has this vital force.
So when
diluting a substance, Hahnemann would also do what he called
"succussion". He would shake the dilution a certain number of times
and then repeat the dilution. The theory is that in that shaking, the actual
vital force, the healing vibration of that substance, gets transmitted into
the next series of dilutions. So we're working with what's often called
energy medicine and it's this particular approach that goes beyond
conventional Western medicine. People say, "this can't work and
therefore it doesn't." In the United States, people are still pretty
resistant to homeopathy.
Wouldn't it be
better to start with a remedy that is nontoxic, causes no harmful side
effects, is very, very gentle and very effective and try that first? 
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