Presentations at JAHC Discuss Relationship of Homeopathy to Allopathic Medicine

by John Otrompke

The relationship of homeopathy to allopathic practices has always been complex. Two presentations at the recent Joint American Homeopathic Conference discussed the relationship. Homeopathy has a better track record than conventional medical practice, especially in the context of epidemics, according to Andre Saine. However, the homeopath need not forego consideration of all other forms of treatment, even when the systemic cure eludes grasp, according to Lia Bello, but may instead consider integrating treatment with other modalities.

While homeopaths have historically been the subject of criticism by allopaths, especially in times of epidemic, homeopathy has a much lower mortality rate, especially in periods of epidemics, according to Andre Saine, DC, ND, FCAH, dean of the Canadian Academy of Homeopathy.

“In over 25 years in private practice, I only had one single death due to pneumonia in patients under homeopathic treatment, a child with a brain tumor who had surgery twice. It took three months to bring him out of complete paralysis, and eventually he swallowed vomit in his sleep. I kept him alive for six weeks,” related Saine, who gave his presentation, “Homeopathy in Times of Epidemics,” in Reston, Virginia, on April 20.

Data over the centuries indicate that homeopathic treatment offers better results than allopathic medicine during epidemics, related Saine. He gave as an historical example the case of Dr. Carl Heinrich Rosenberg, who in 1843 reported collections of cases of pneumonia treated in allopathic and homeopathic hospitals in major cities in Europe. Out of 1159 cases, those treated by allopaths had a death rate of 37.6%, whereas the mortality rate for those treated by homeopathy was only 3.59%.¹

As a more recent example, Saine discussed an epidemic of meningitis in Brazil in 1974, in which more than 11,000 people died.

In the city of Guaratingueta, 18,000 children received one drop of Meningococcinum, a homeopathic treatment made from the bacterium that causes meningitis, and only five fell sick, resulting in a failure rate of 0.021% compared with 10 cases in a control group of 6364, according to Saine.

In his presentation, Saine gave another example from Cuba, that of a leptospirosis epidemic in 2007. “This disease is common in the tropics where it’s humid; it’s associated with rain and floods,” Saine explained. The disease causes meningitis, pneumonitis, hepatitis, nephritis, mastitis, myocarditis, hemorrhagic crisis, and multiorgan failure, with a reported mortality varying between 4% and 50%, according to the presentation.

During the epidemic, 88% of the population living in three high-risk provinces (amounting to over 2 million people) were innoculated with Nosolep, a homeopathic preparation of the spirochete that causes the disease.

Incidence of the disease decreased by 84% in the provinces which received the homeopathic treatment, while the incidence rose by 22% in the regions that did not receive the homeopathic intervention.

Materia Medica to be Updated

The practice of homeopathic providers may be aided by a very old tool that is being upgraded, according to Saine.

“Since 1885, the Materia Medica Pura, a written document listing medical results from homeopathic provings and other scientific evidence, has not been greatly updated,” said Saine. About 20 authors have been updating the digital version, adding data from about 200 homeopathic journals since 1880. The new version will be about three times larger, he added.

“We intend to have it available to all homeopaths in the world, but the person who was working on this died in 2010, so it has been temporarily suspended,” Saine said. However, at some point, the new work should come out produced by Kent Homeopathic Associates, he added.

Integrating Treatments with Homeopathy

While the ideal treatment in homeopathy is a constitutional remedy, it isn’t always easy to find the right individual one out of 5000 homeopathic remedies on the books, so it may sometimes be necessary for a homeopath to turn to integrated treatments, according to Lia Bello, FNP, CCH, who administers continuing education to nurses and other providers.

“For example, herbs have several effects on the body; they can be a tonic to the organs and help the body do a better job of staying healthy, but in many cases people take them to suppress symptoms like a migraine headache. If you take white willow bark, it might reduce the congestion or the headache, but it doesn’t really get to the cause, which is an imbalance of the vital force of the governing system,” explained Bello, who presented her talk, “Integrating Homeopathy with Nutrition, Herbal and Allopathic Medicine,” on April 21.

When she was unable to find the homeopathic constitutional remedy, Bello has used integrated modalities to treat patients with conditions suc as chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), and osteoporosis, she said.

“I didn’t cure her of the CLL, but I helped her with a lot of other things, and at the end of the story, the CLL was better,” Bello said of the 75-year-old patient with recurrent infections, arthritic knees and peripheral neuropathy.

Bello stressed that while treatment of symptoms is not part of the homeopathy philosophy, it may be necessary to develop an acute remedy when a constitutional treatment is evasive. (See sidebar.)

Nonetheless, some conditions remain difficult to treat, even with integrated therapies, Bello said. “Fibromyalgia is one of the newer diseases. Whenever you feel the press of your muscles, you have these pains. It’s not easy to treat, and I don’t have the answers. It’s a pretty big breakdown of the vital force,” said Bello, who noted that clinical trial reported in one journal concluded that individualized homeopathic treatment for the condition is superior to placebo.²

[SIDEBAR]

Remedies

Integrative Rx for Menopause

 Constitutional Rx

 Oophorinum (also called folliculinum)

 herbal treatment – dong quai, dietary soy wild Mexican yam applied in the form of progesterone cream

 bioidentical or synthetic hormone replacement

Integrative Rx for Osteoporosis

 Constitutional Rx

 Calc Phos 6x bid ongoing for postmenopausal

women

 Exercise, sunshine

 vitamin K, vitamin D, calcium, boron

 Herbs – alfalfa, horsetail, oat straw,comfrey

Integrative Rx for GERD

 Constitutional homeopathy

 Acute remedy •Cell salt – Nat Phos 6x

 Diet – eat less, no food after 7 p.m., bland

 Apple cider vinegar, baking soda

 TCM, bodywork

Notes

1. Rosenberg CH. Fortschritte und Leistungen der Homöopathie in und ausser Ungarn nebst einer Darstellung ihrer Grundsätze von ihrem gegenwärtigen wissenschaftlichen Standpunkte und Hinweisung auf die Vortheile, die daraus für Staat und Staatsbürger resultieren. Leipzig: Verlag von Ludwig Schumann; 1843:233–236.

2. Fibromyalgia – a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial of individualised homeopathic treatment (LM potency) versus placebo concluded that individualised homeopathy is significantly better than placebo in lessening tender point pain and improving the quality of life and global health of persons with fibromyalgia. Bell IR, Lewis II DA, Brooks AJ, Schwartz GE, Lewis SE, Walsh BT, Baldwin CM. Improved clinical status in fibromyalgia patients treated with individualized homeopathic remedies versus placebo. Rheumatology. 2004;43:577–582. Available at http://rheumatology.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/keh111.