On Homeopathy

(This article was written, perhaps around the year 2002 in response to a request from the
editor of a magazine called MAMAH (New Approaches to Medicine and Health), dealing
with Holistic therapy, published by an ashram connected organization. The italicized
words have been added to update it a bit now, December 2020)

Medicine

The less the better!

I am glad that I am a physician. I deliberately chose the profession while I could have
chosen almost anything I wanted, because I believed at that time that it is the noblest of
professions. Now I do not agree with the cliché about its being more noble than other
professions. Any profession is noble if the practitioner is one. I personally benefit from
being a physician by knowing how far I can push my not wanting to take medicines. I have
been accustomed to take physical discomfort and sufferings in my stride. However, I shall
take a medicine if I feel that it will enable me to go through an activity that will help my
eventual progress. For instance, if I have a mild bronchospasm (asthma), even if I can easily
go through the discomfort, I may prefer to take a bronchodilator and thereby not miss my
intense physical training; because I feel that my improved fitness will help me face the
asthmatic tendency better in the long run. I feel disinclined to take any medicine for pains
and prefer to let my body learn to deal with illness in its own way with judicious guidance
from my mind where necessary. I would like this to be the attitude of all my patients, but it
does not work that way because they are less tolerant to physical discomfort or suffering.
Therefore, I end up prescribing medicines, while in most of those cases I would not have
taken any myself.

My introduction to homoeopathy came through my friend Satya. It is worth a little
digression to talk about him. He is a German allopathic doctor. A huge, tall person who
was in the German National schools team in handball, he did his medicine, but then
realized that he was more interested in philosophy. He took a degree in philosophy and
taught it in a college. Then he bought a sailing boat and started traveling around, parking at
different ports to teach sailing to people and earning a living by that. Then he was
interested in spirituality, came to Rishikesh and was under a guru for a while. That is
where he got the name Satya. Eventually he came to follow Sri Aurobindo and started
living in Auroville. He was a very mental type and used to have the walls of his room filled
with notes from "The Synthesis of Yoga" and charts on the parts of the being and the
planes of existence. He was also studying homoeopathy as a hobby. When he was about
35, he developed a rare type of cardiomyopathy and used to get heart attacks, sometimes
severe. He was admitted for one of those attacks at the ashram nursing home where I was
working then. (Eventually he had to move to Germany where a computerized device was
implanted that would defibrillate the heart when necessary. As I last knew, he had been
revived five times after his heart had completely stopped and he had unique experiences of
the passages to the other side and back, of which he wrote a book in German.)
After Satya began getting these attacks, he started making a more serious study of
homoeopathy. He had bundles and stacks of books on homoeopathy. (By the way, India is
the country where by far the maximum number of books are published on homoeopathy,
and the medicines and books are available at the cheapest.) He introduced me to
homoeopathy and pointed out to me the books that I should read first. He had aroused my

interest. One of the reasons why I left the nursing home was to make a serious study of
homoeopathy. Apart from a little radiology work at the nursing home, I kept myself free for
reading and a considerable part of that reading was on homoeopathy. I used to sleep during
the day and study through the night. I read Hahneman's Organon, Chronic diseases, Kent's
and Taylor's lectures, Clarke's volumes of Practical materia medica, Vithoulkas' Science of
homoeopahy, etc. Though there is place for instinctive work in homoeopathy, the more one
studies (there is an endless amount to study) the better he will be in practice. Though my
study was very serious and extensive for about two years, it has been minimal since then
and therefore I am nowhere near as good as I could be. Ihave not given up on doing better.

I have seen numerous concrete instances that have convinced me that in spite of the
infinitesimal dilutions, homoeopathy does work. The most remarkable case I have treated
is that of a woman, diagnosed in 1981 as a case of Pemphigus vulgaris, confirmed by a
skin biopsy. The dermatologist at the medical college hospital recommended admission for
starting her on high doses of corticosteroids, which she would have to take for the rest of
her life. According to the text books, without the steroids life expectancy in a severe case
such as this was about seven years. And with such high doses of steroids on a permanent
basis, and as a result of them, it was expected to be about ten years. The woman did not
start the steroids, but started homoeopathic treatment instead. She had severe aggravations
as was expected, with almost every dose that was given, and went through great suffering.
The treatment lasted for about eight years. She is in good health now, about 22 years after
the diagnosis, with no sign of the pemphigus. (Now nearly 40 years; She is about 73 now)
Another diagnosed case was that of a young woman operated around 1983 for abdominal
pain and provisionally diagnosed by the surgeon as Crohn’s disease, later confirmed by the
pathologist. She was treated with constitutional homeopathy only and has been in good health
without any relapse till now.

Some people believe that homoeopathy cannot have a quick action. I have seen it act
instantaneously. There is a woman who once developed a severe toothache. She went to a
dentist who injected a strong analgesic that relieved her of the pain in about 10 or 15
minutes. He gave her an appointment for a dental procedure, to be done a few days later.
The next day she got the same pain twice and it persisted until she went to the dentist and
who injected the analgesic for relief as before. The day after, while at work, she was
writhing with a severe attack of the same pain and was preparing to rush to the dentist.
When she was offered a homoeopathic remedy in an effort to relieve the pain in the
meantime, she expressed her disbelief in homoeopathy and was even a little reluctant to try
it. When a remedy in liquid form was put into her mouth, within 2 or 3 seconds she
abruptly stopped the writhing, paused the hand moving to pull her hair and exclaimed
incredulously, "It is gone!" This kind of instant action does not surprise me. Because I
believe that homoeopathy works not by absorption in the GI tract _ the digestive juices and
the food-remnants there would overwhelm the infinitesimal remedy. I believe that it works
by coming in contact with the nerve-endings on the tongue. The neural impulses
transmitted to the brain elicit the appropriate response from the vital centers, based on the
vibratory nature of the remedy. This is why it is important that the remedy should be taken
when there is no trace of anything in the mouth, not even any lingering taste. It may take
several hours after ingesting a strong- tasting substance, for all remnant neural memory of
the taste or the vibration to clear-up, and that remnant could interfere with the remedial
action.

Homoeopathy as practiced commonly is a very superficial, inconsequential affair. Even
when it is not practiced in the ideal manner, but just on routine keynote prescription
(selecting a remedy on specific symptoms rather than on the patient as a whole), it does
help in several cases, though then the treatment falls far short of its potential. Even when it
just relieves the symptoms temporarily without going deep enough to root out the
susceptibility, such relief through homeopathy is better than that obtained from allopathy in
the long run.

Though I said that for the most part improper homoeopathy is inconsequential, I believe
that it is possible to cause trouble, if not lasting damage, in rare cases. This could happen
when a remedy is repeated in the same potency too many times, even while its action is
continuing, especially if it is in a high potency. I know a child, whose mother is an
allopathic doctor. When the child was about 5 or 6, he had frequent allergic tendencies.
There is no lasting cure for this in allopathy. The mother happened to meet a homoeopath
who said he could help, and he prescribed repetitions of some remedies in high potencies.
Sometime later the child developed fever. The blood tests were suggestive of acute
lymphoblastic leukemia. The child was taken to the best hospital in Chennai. The diagnosis
was confirmed and chemotherapy and cranial irradiation was given.
The blood picture returned to normal, but the child was left with considerable residual
damage from the therapy, not rare with such therapy. His speech was almost gone and he
could not walk anymore. He is left with repeated seizures that respond almost every time
to homeopathy. The surprising thing was, that the relapse that is always expected within a
few weeks or months in this kind of leukemia never came; the blood picture has remained
normal through the last 20 years (Now about 38 years). The diagnosis was almost
certainly wrong! Persons with that leukemia simply do not survive that long, leave alone
remaining without any relapse whatsoever with just one session of therapy. My guess is
that the repeated high potencies of homeopathy caused the temporary alteration in the
blood picture, as a part of a constitutional alteration in the immunity status, which would
have probably reversed as the effect of the homeopathy wore off, perhaps with an eventual
improvement of the immunity status. The fever must have been a temporary aggravation
in the process. However, the child has been crippled, bedridden, unable to speak, his life
irreparably damaged. The mother has been guided to rely on homeopathic remedies for the
occasional convulsions that the child – now a man – gets and she says that those remedies
are very effective in controlling the fits most of the times.
Some homoeopaths believe that aggravations, are to be welcome since they are indicative
of a radical cure and show the homeopath that the remedy is acting. But even Hahneman in
his later years, when he revised his Organon, strived for a more gentle cure, and his 50
millesimal (LM) potencies were an attempt in that direction.
Homeopathy would have been the king of medicinal therapy but for several distinct
disadvantages. The practice of Homeopathy entails individualization; it is not a routine,
mechanical application as in allopathy, where the diagnosis is confirmed by radiology,
blood tests, scans etc., and the prescription is about the same for all. In homeopathy the
same diagnosis in different individuals may need entirely different remedies. Further, the
right remedy may work in one potency and not in another. Then the dreaded aggravations:
though it is believed that aggravations throw the deep seated troubles to the surface and are
welcome by some as a sign that the remedy is working, it is difficult to predict how long
they would last or how bad they can get before the curative reversal occurs. Yet another
difficulty is when to repeat a dose, since a case can be spoiled by too soon a repetition. A
well acting remedy may be antidoted by strong tasting or smelling things like camphor or

certain common things like coffee. Attaining a mastery requires a huge amount of study of
the extensive Materia medica, development of great skill in eliciting the relevant symptoms
(which the patient may not complain of or even be aware of) for the selection of the remedy
and its potency, the nuances of repeating the dose, and interpreting the response to
treatment. In short, it entails a life of total dedication to homeopathy. But fortunately, even
if one falls very short of such mastery, he can get wonderful results, far superior and often
less risky than allopathic treatment. From the patient’s side too, especially in chronic cases,
it demands more commitment and co-operation, in providing information that may seem so
irrelevant to the treatment of his complaints, including subtle sensations which he must
observe and especially deeper feelings that he may be reluctant to talk about. The more the
information provided, the likelier that the homeopath can arrive at the right remedy. The
patient may also need to make some life style changes like giving up coffee or even
toothpaste or chewing gum with a mint taste.

(The few months of CoVid Lock-down gave me an opportunity and impetus to re-start my
long pending further studies in homeopathy. At present I am compiling a Materia Medica
from several sources, giving special emphasis to the psychological aspects of the remedies.
I am also in the process of a unique preparatory method of my own for the Homeopathic
remedies, which I expect would reduce the possibilities of aggravation, even more than the
50 millesimal preparations. The method is derived from the lines of research and clinical
work carried out by the Argentinian homeopathic council, which carries the50 millesimal
method further. I had thought that homeopathy is hardly active now in Europe and USA,
where it flourished in the early parts of the 20th century. I was to learn during this period
that it is more active in Europe than I had imagined, especially in England and in France.
In England they have homeopathic medical colleges, where one specializes in homeopathy
after qualifying as an allopathic doctor. Now there are courses of 4 ½ years recognized by
the government in India, where they learn all that an allopath does except the
pharmacology which is replaced by the homeopathic materia medica. Now I am not legally
allowed to practice homeopathy. Nevertheless I go on with my studies since I enjoy it and
consider that it’s worth it even if I use it only for a handful of friends or close
acquaintances. )