In my previous posts, we discussed the earliest ideas around the infinitesimal dose. In recent years, these ideas and the pharmacy techniques stemming from them have been advanced considerably. This advance has mostly stemmed from the work of a German, Witold Ehrler (1)

 

Witold was a german student who was dating a homeopathic pharmacy student in the 1990s after a period of spiritual growth and exploration. After reading one of Catherine Coulters books (2) he became fascinated by the idea that substances had psychological profiles (as described in the last post : The state). Using his girlfriend’s homeopathic pharmacy textbooks, he began making a well known homeopathic remedy, called calc-carb.

 

Little did he know, Witold was using a textbook that had a minor error specifying four rounds of grinding and scraping with milk sugar (known as trituration), rather than the three specified in the organon (3). As he began the trituration, Witold began experiencing a number of unusual mental symptoms, such as fear he was going insane, all of which were quite typical of cal-carb. Homeopaths have known since the 1800s that people who triturate a remedy will often prove it ( see previous post on provings). The first example of this was that of the great homeopath Constantine Hering, who triturated and proved the remedy lachesis in 1828 (4). Up until Witolds triturations however, homeopaths usually stopped at the third round of trituration.

As Witold began the fourth level of trituration ( or C4 level) he began noticing that he developed an insight into the delusions and symptoms that had occurred in the previous three levels. He specifically described moving to a place where the conflicts in the mentality of the previous levels (C1,2,3) were overcome, and no longer an issue.

 

Witold repeated this process a number of times, finding the same pattern again and again in the experiences of triturators in each of the following levels:

C1: The physical symptoms, aches, pains and syndromes

C2: The emotional symptoms, angers, sorrows, hurts

C3: The mental symptoms, delusions, thought processes and ideas
C4: A new level, resolution of the previous levels, and an awareness of the lesson behind them.

 

Over time, Witold and other people (myself included) began doing these triturations at higher and higher levels, noticing subsequently broader and more advanced levels of sensation, which will be described in subsequent posts.

Most interestingly, when people are given remedies from C4 and above, they tend to pick up the awareness of the solutions to conflict that the higher levels of the remedy embody. The clinical use of c4 homeopathics is still undeveloped, and will itself be a topic of a future post.

 

Take care of yourselves!

 

1. Hogeland, A. & Schriebman, J. The Trituration Handbook: Into the Heart of Homeopathy. 2008 Homeopathy West: El Cerrito, CA.
2. Coulter, C. Portraits of Homeopathic medicines. Vol 1-3. Ninth House: Arlington: Mass.
3. Hahnemann, S. The Organon of Medicine. Trans O’Reilly, WB. 1996. Birdcage: Palo Alto, CA.
4. http://www.homeoint.org/clarke/l/lach.htm

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As discussed in previous blog posts, homeopathic medicines go through a process known as proving. The proving will show us what symptoms the remedy can produce in a healthy person, and thus what symptom complex they will be able to cure.

 

One of the interesting features noted in the provings was that physical symptoms were not the only ones produced. Often emotional symptoms or mental fixations were produced. These entered into the list of symptoms attributed to each of the remedies (the materia medica), and so became part of the total pictures used when selecting a remedy for a particular patient.

Over time many practitioners using homeopathy used the proving symptoms to treat many emotional disorders successfully, including serious mental illnesses, as demonstrated by the number of homeopathic asylums in the United States in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries (see http://history.tomrue.net/mpc/middletown_homeopathic_hospital.htm for an example).

For much of this period it was simply on the basis of these collections of symptoms that remedies were prescribed. However in the mid 20^th century the insights of psychodynamics began impacting homeopathics. The idea of the subconscious suggested that there were symptoms which patients could not consciously and the increased psychotherapeutic emphasis on mental illness originating from that realm suggested that such symptoms were the key to treating mental illness.

 

The track record of homeopathic medicine in treating mental illness suggested that homeopathic medicine had an impact there, but what that impact was remained mysterious. However it wasn’t until the early 21^st century that the Homeopathic Doctors of the Mumbai school in India ( particularily Dr. Divya Chhabra, my teacher) began actually exploring this realm. Through her casetaking methods, which disengage the conscious mind and allow the patient to explore what he is subconsciously perceiving, she began to notice that an underlying sensation, or feeling linked all aspects of a patients case together. Their physical symptoms, their emotional symptoms, their delusions, everything about that persons experience matched that core sensation ( see http://wholehealthnow.com/dchhabra-1.mp3 for a podcast of Divya explaining her method).

 

What was also discovered was that that sensation was identical to the sensations described in the deepest level of provings. This sensation matched up with the characteristics of the thing being proved at a deepest level. The experience of that animal (or plant, or mineral, or other thing) was the experience of people proving that remedy, and it was the experience of people who were cured by that remedy.

 

So, using this new method, the patients subconscious mind can be accessed, and their state, the deepest inner sensation, can be determined and removed, to the benefit of their mental and physical health.

Now for a moment, lets look inward. Let us look at our own minds. Most of us can in fact identify a feeling, a deep inner feeling that troubles us, that is unacceptable to us, and bothers us. Sometimes hugely, sometimes not hugely.

Imagine this feeling gone.

This is what is possible with homeopathy.

 

I hope to see you all for a homeopathic visit soon!

 

Take Care of Yourselves!

 

Dr. Paul.

Hi Everyone!

 

Last time we discussed Hahnemanns insights into the law of similars and how this led to the proving, the first systematic attempt to describe the impact of a medicine on the organism and, more importantly, how to apply this information in medical practice.

 

This contrasts with the practice of allopathic medicine (commonly called conventional medicine in Canada) in which remedies are designed to oppose the disease progress.

 

This however is not what most people associate with homeopathy. In truth very few people understand this aspect of homeopathy. The idea most people have of homeopathy is that of the ultramolecular dose, or the dose of a medicine that contains no molecules of the substance it was originally made from.

 

When Hahnemann was in practice (1790’s to the 1840’s), the medicines were generally very toxic, and used in extremely high doses. Typical medicines were Cinchona bark, mercury, tartar emetic and others, most of which had profound side effects and, in the allopathic medicine of the time, very vague indications for use (indications are the reason a physician has for use of a medicine).

Hahnemann equipped with his new discovery of provings now had excellent indications for use of these medicines. But the side effects, even when the medicines were correctly used, still troubled Hahnemann. What good was it to have a patient get better from a medicine if they were troubled afterwards by permanent toxic effects afterwards? In addition to this, he began noticing that a patient was peculiarly sensitive to their similar medicine, and thus would respond to much lower doses than were normally used.

 

So Hahnemann began using smaller and smaller doses of his medicines. Due to the impracticality of giving microscopic doses of medicines, he began triturating his medicines with lactose and then after 3 triturations began diluting the triturated mixtures with alcohol. In order to provide for an easier administration method, he would drip the alcohol onto lactose pills and administer these pills to his patients.

 

The critical factor here was Hahnemanns methodological rigor in pharmacy. In order to ensure equal distribution of the medicines he was working with he triturated and scraped the remedies, and shook the remedies repeatedly when working with alcohol dilutions. In contemporary homeopathic pharmacy, these two steps are seen as essential to developing the medicinal power of an ultramolecular medicine. This will be discussed further in a later blog.

As Hahnemann began working with these new triturated and diluted remedies, he noticed his patients responded more strongly to medicines that had been through the process of trituration and dilution. Over time he began serial dilutions of his remedies, that is, he began taking 1 part of alcohol from his remedies, and further mixing that one part with fresh alcohol, then using this further dilution of the remedy to soak the lactose pills used in therapy. These new further diluted remedies produced even more powerful responses.

 

Eventually Hahnemann started using a notation system to count how many triturations and diltuions he had preformed. C referred to a 1 to 100 dilution level. A remedy of 12 C had been triturated, diluted and shaken 12 times, each time diluting it in a 1 to 100 ratio.

 

At the level of 12C there is statistically very little chance that any molecules of the orginial substance are left in the remedy.

Contrary to popular opinion, Hahnemann was a contemporary of Avegadro, the chemist who determined that mass was not infinitely divisible. In all likelihood Hahnemann was aware of the fact that there was almost none of the original substance left in the remedies. Hahnemann did not ascribe the curative powers of remedies to their physical or chemical properties. In his own words: “Our life force , as spirit like dynamis, cannot be seized and affected by damaging impingements on the healthy organism (through inimical potencies from the external world that disturb the harmonious play of life) other than in a spirit-like dynamic way. In like manner the only way the medical art practitioner can remove such morbid mistunements (the diseases) from the dynamis by the spirit-like (dynamic, virtual) tunement altering energies of the serviceable medicines acting upon our spirit-like life force” (Aphorism 16, the Organon by Hahnemann, Trans: Wenda Brewster O’Reilly).

 

Hahnemann though disease was a dynamic vital process which could only be cured by the energetic process of medicines on the vital force. The vital force, while present in a crude substance, was vastly developed by the process of dilution and trituration that Hahnemann stumbled upon and later embraced. This idea makes clear that Hahnemanns idea of disease wasn’t dependant upon material or chemical causes, but upon the “spirit-like dynamis” and can only be affected by the dynamis of medicine, developed and amplified by the process of trituration and dilution.

 

This insight, and the technology that goes along with it are completely separate from Hahnemanns insight into the law of similars. Either discovery on its own would have been impressive, but to make two such discoveries in one life was an amazing achievement.

 

Now, in medicine, it was possible to both have accurate knowledge of the curative properties of medicines, and to utilize them in such a fashion as to arouse the curative ability of the vital force without the risk of extensive side effects of crude doses.

 

This principle has become further developed over time through the development of the concept of the state, and in the new development of the trituration movements. Both these subjects will be covered in future blogs.

 

Take care of yourselves!!!

 

Dr. Paul

 

References:

 

Coulter, H. Divided legacy Volume 4. Twentieth-Century Medicine: The Bacteriological Era. North Atlantic: Berkeley.

 

Hahnemann, S. The Organanon of Medicine (6^th ed.). Trans by Wenda Brewster O’Reilly. Birdcage. Palo Alto, CA.

 

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Provings are the system through which homeopathy determines the curative properties of its medicines. It is difficult to explain the homeopathic tradition of provings without a reference to the history of medicine from which it emerged.

 

At the time of Hahnemann there were two great schools of medicine.

 

The rationalist school of medicine believed that it understood the disease process with its advanced scientific knowledge, deriving from the new fields of physics, chemistry and hydraulics. Thus, the duty of the physician was to determine what disease the person had and, thus, what process within the body was malfunctioning. Knowing this, the physician would administer medicine to oppose the effect of the disease on the body. How instance, if a disease provoked fever, anti-fever drugs were given (antipyretics). This approach has continued essentially to this day. Its descendants are modern day Mds, or allopathic doctors.

 

The second school, or the empirical school, had a different approach. Rather than focusing on the disease to be cured, the empirical school focused on what each individual medicine could cure. Very detailed manuals were created of cured patients symptoms, and what remedies relieved them. An absolutely exquisite pharmacology was developed, and very intricate indications for the various medicines used were developed.

 

However, each school had its weaknesses. The rationalist school of therapy was dependant on its theories about the nature of disease in order for therapy to be decided on. If the theory was incorrect ( for instance, as in the theory that syphilis was due to insufficient stimulation of the body) the resulting therapy ( often mercury) would often not help, and at times when medicines were largely toxic, and used in large doses, would often irrevocably harm or kill the patient.

 

The empirical system, with its emphasis on the actual experience ( ie, remedies that actually had cured things in the past) avoided this problem. However, the process of acquiring this information was painfully slow, due to the need for trial and error in trying out medicines for patients with unusual conditions, or for new diseases. Many times physicians would simply try one remedy after another, with no guide toward what might be useful or not.

 

This however changed with the experience of Samuel Hahnemann. Hanhnemann was an MD who had removed himself from practice in the late 1780’s due to his disgust at the inability of the allopathic practitioners to aid, or even not harm, their patients.

 

He made his living at this time as a translator of medical texts. One day he translated a text on the then commonly used cinchona bark. During the translation, he noticed that the symptoms of overdosing of the bark were identical to the symptoms of malaria, which cinchona bark was indicated to treat.

 

Over a time of pondering this, Hahnemann wondered if these two facts were connected. He began taking doses of cinchona himself, and did indeed experience the symptoms of malaria. Over time, Hahnemann developed the idea that the reason why cinchona was so active against malaria ( which the medical science of his day was unable to explain) was in fact due to this similarity.

Hahnemann suspected that the inherent curative ability of the body (which was a long standing idea within the empirical school of medicine) was aroused by the action of the cinchona bark, and then acted against both the malaria and cinchona bark jointly. The two diseases could be dealt with at once because of their similarity.

 

This idea of similar diseases became stated as “like cures like” that is, a medicine producing a symptom complex that is similar to the symptom complex the body has will provoke the body into reacting, and purging itself of both diseases, the one induced by the medicine, and the one inherent to the body.

 

This doesn’t mean, as is often stated, that medicines producing similar symptoms will cure those symptoms. The symptoms complex, or disease as a whole, is the key term here. Hahnemann found that a medicine caused the whole organism to react. Symptoms of any particular part were simply a manifestation of the state of the whole body ( as has recently been confirmed by teh groundbreaking work of Divya Chhabrha, soon to be discussed). As such, the entire picture of the patient, the whole complex of their symptoms, were significant to determining the curative medicine.

 

Hahnemann began to experiment with more medicines, eventually adopting the term proving for these trials. He indeed began to discover in his restarted clinical practice that these medicines are indeed effective in patients with similar symptom complexes and demonstrated in homeopathic practice, and some of the trials of homeopathy recently published. He named this method Homeopathy, or “similar suffering”, in recognition of the centrality of the law of similars to this practice of medicine.

 

With this idea and method, suddenly empirical physicians could proactively test medicines, and had reliable methods for doing so, and a consistent theory for applying them. This discovery alone would have been enough to ensure Hahnemann’s place in medical history. However, another discovery of his also ensured his fame, as well and the infamy of his system. That discovery was a technology, the infinitesimal dose. This will be the subject of my next blog.

 

Most of the ideas written in this blog are the general knowledge of homeopathic medicine and history. The more specific data come from the excellent analysis of medical history, Divided Legacy, by Harris Coulter, listed below.

 

Take Care of Yourselves!

 

References

 

Coulter, H. Divided Legacy, A history of the schism in medical thought. Volume 3. The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association. 2ed. North Atlantic. 1999.

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Hi everybody. Just a quick explanation here about my website being down for a day, and slightly different.

 

It was hacked yesterday, I however backed everything up quite well, and my website is now resurected.
I look forward to continuing our journey together.

 

Take care of yourselves.

 

Dr Paul.

One of the most frequent criticisms of homeopathy is that it lacks a research basis. While perhaps true several decades ago, this criticism is no longer accurate. Homeopathic research has advanced considerably in the past several years. Methodological issues in homeopathic research however continue to distort this debate.

 

Despite these issues however, positive research continues to accumulate in favor of homeopathy.

 

In this blog post I will be going over some issues in homeopathic research, and some of the new homeopathic research taking these issues into account.

 

Methodology:

 

Due to differences in availability of research funding, very little homeopathic research is actually done by homeopaths. It is, quite frequently, conducted by researchers with very little understanding of how homeopathy works, or is practiced.

 

Quite frequently such studies would involve a procedure based on the prevailing pharmacological research model. This usually involves administering a given homeopathic remedy for a given disease. These trials, for the most part, are negative, with a few exceptions (for example arnica for post operative pain). Some examples follow below:

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20233176

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18251757

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17362845

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17105693

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17227743

 

 

 

This research model in now way reflects homeopathic practice. In normal homeopathic practice the clinician will compile an individualized picture of the symptoms of the patient. This individualized picture is arrived at in a very different way from allopathic diagnoses( for a more complete view on this I refer the reader to Divided legacy vol 1-4 By Harris Coulter). More recent research has taken this selection process into account, and this has led to an increase in the positive findings of the trials. Much of modern research ahs also included homeopathics with multiple ingredients, which tend to be more successful, as they have more efficacy for a wider variety of patiens. Examples follow below:

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20129178

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20807867

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19647206

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19305007

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19135954

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17310359

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17335565

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16781624

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16338192

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16266440

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16060203

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19091085

 

 

In Vitro research:

 

In vitro research is conducted in a test tube or petri dish, and involves altering the environment of a research organism ( usually bacteria, plants usually) and observing how they react.

 

Very interestingly, in vitro research tends to show an very good efficacy rate for homeopathic medicines, showing alteration of multiple physiological variables in multiple organisms. Some examples follow below:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22489193

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22226318

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21978221

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21962197

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21962196

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20043074

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18066110

 

 

 

And very interestingly, as in human clinical trials, there appears to be an increase in sensitivity to homeopathic interventions when the cells under question are sensitised in some way, or made more responsive to thier environment through disruption of their normal homeostatic ( or balance inducing) mechanisms.

 

For instance, in Benevinistes landmark early study, he discovered that basophils ( a white blood cell type) would react when exposed to what could be described as a homeopathic solution of their triggering chemical. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2455231). This study was replicated, but the replication level remained at about 30%, that is about 30% of attempted replication attempts succeeded ( personal conversation with Dr. Peter Fisher 2009). However when the model was changes slightly, and highly sensitised basophils were used, the reproducibility improved considerably ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19945674)

 

And lastly the shang et al Meta-analysis:

 

The last issue to address in homeopathic research is the shang et al meta-analysis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16125589) . Shang did quite a large meta-analysis comparing trials of homeopathy and allopathic medicine. He obtained 110 trials each of allopathy and homeopathy and obtained a conclusion that that the effects of homeopathy are not statistically greater than those of placebo. However this conclusion is called into question by the methods by which the lancet obtained this statistical conclusion.

 

Firstly, in reaching this final conclusion, the lancet did not compare all 110 trials of allopathic medicine and homeopathy. Shang actually compared 8 studies from each branch of medicine. Moreover, in this comparison he did not identify which studies he used. Shang has, to this day, in personal interviews and public correspondence, refused to identify the trials he used. This precludes any analysis of the methodology of the trials used, as disscussed above. Moreover, it is quite dishonest of Shang to not disclose the full sources of his statistical analysis. It essentially stops any reasonable or rational criticism of the analysis because there is no basis for academic criticism without knowing the exact data Shang bases his meta-analysis on.

 

The purposes of the study become quite clear when one examines the editorial accompanying that metanalysis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16125567). This editorial was entitled “The End of Homeopathy” and proclamation that based on this analysis, homeopathy it was no longer viable or defensible to use homeopathy, or ascribe any effects beyond placebo to homeopathy.

 

I strongly suspect that the editorial and this omission in the meta-analysis were not coincidental and I highly doubt that the editorial was meant to be disputed. I suspect is was intended by the author and lancet editorial committee as the final blow against homeopathy as a medical system in the academic role.

 

However, with great effort, other researchers have managed to reconstruct, or to get the same results that Shang obtained with his analysis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18834714 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19371564). These papers showed that the results of the Shang meta-analysis greatly depended upon which set or clinical trials that were used to obtain the data used in the meta-analysis. Specifically, the inclusion of one study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9758072) caused the meta-analysis to reach a negative conclusion. This study is precisely the type of study I described in the methodology section above, in which a remedy is given in the same manner as an allopathic drug, with no attention payed to the actual methods homeopaths use with their patients. The truly ironic part of this is that one of the researchers in the arnica study which tilted the meta-analysis was Dr. Peter Fisher, the most voracious critic of the Shang meta-analysis. Fishers account of the meta-analysis and the coordinated nature of the intended blow to homeopathy are shown on this website (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1375230/)

 

When the fisher study is removed, the Shang meta-analysis is positive.

 

Conclusions:

The broad scope of research, taking into account issues of methodology does overall show that homeopathy has a greater effect than placebo. Very little of this research focuses on how homeopathic remedies work, or their mechanism of action. This mechanism of action remains mysterious.

 

However the actual relevance of all this research to the daily life of someone practicing homeopathy, or someone who chooses it as their system of healthcare is minimal. Almost all homeopathic research is focused on the question of whether or not homeopathy actually works, and not on anything that would helpful in the clinic.

 

However that does not mean that there is no tradition of knowledge gathering in homeopathy. There is, and it is a very large and dynamic one. This tradition is called the proving. It will be the subject of my next blog.

Take care of yourselves!

 

Dr. Paul..

Hi everybody. This month i would like to discuss the basics of the most hated and controversial of the naturopathic modalities, homeopathy.

 

Homeopathy was invented in the 19^th century by a man named Samuel Hahnemann. He was a medical doctor who grew dissatisfied with the medical practice of his day, which was imprecise and involved many harmful practices such as large doses of toxic materials and nihilism regarding the curability of chronic disease.

 

Hahnemann withdrew from medical practice for these reasons. He began translating medical texts for a living. In one text he translated, he noted that the overdose symptoms of a drug used to treat malaria, were in fact almost identical to the symptoms of malaria itself. Hahnemann obtained a sample of this drug ( extract of cinchona officinalis, or the remedy cinchona) and confirmed this observation.

 

He began formulating this idea further, and utilizing it in practice. Over time he refined his ideas, and by the time of his death, the system he created became known as homeopathy. The most important features of this system are:

 

1. An idea: Like cures like. The idea that substances causing similar symptoms to a disease can assist the body in healing that disease. This will be covered in a later post.
2. A second idea: Miasms: Miasms are an early idea of the origin of disease. This set of ideas would later evolve into microbiology. However the miasmic thoery of Hahnemann would later evolve into a fascinating idea of the progression of disease after his death. This too will be covered in another post
3. A technology: Succussion and dilution. This actually was almost an accidental discovery> Hahnemann discovered that by diluting the toxic remedies in common use i medicine of his day, the toxic reactions of his patients could be lessened. He continued this process, finding that the more dilute the remedy, paradoxically the more powerful its therapetuic effect. This too will be covered in a following blog post
4. A methodology: the proving: The logical outgrowth of the idea of like cures like is the idea that substances may be examined, and their medical potential discovered, by giving them to healthy people and observing the resulting effects. Again, this will be disscussed in another blog post.

 

This description only covers the basics of this system. As I say many times, I intend many blog posts to cover various aspects of this system.

 

I would like to thank Harris Coulter and Gerard Geuniot for their education in homeopathy, without which the insights into Hahnemann’s system would be impossible.

 

References:

 

Coulter, H. Divided Legacy. Vol 1-4. North Atlantic Books

Geuniot, G. Seminar disscussion: East meets West: Integrating the Foundations of traditional Chinese Medicine with modern Occidental Natural Medicine. Toronto Nov 7-9 2008.

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Hi Everybody!

Thank you so much for following me, and visiting my new website. I look forward to sharing many of the insights I’ve gained in my Naturopathic medical practice here with you all! I am writing this blog both for Naturopathic Doctors, and any other medical practitioners who are interested, and for member of the public. If you have any comments (and please do comment, it helps me write more effectively), please email them to me at drpaultheriault.nd@gmail.com

 

I think the first thing I would like to share is a small discussion of the difference between naturopathic and conventional (or allopathic) medicine. I wont discuss this in terms of which medicine is more effective for what condition (that would take a book, or perhaps a PhD).

 

However the differences in how each of these medical systems approaches disease are quite simple and easy to understand.

 

Allopathic (or conventional) medical doctors diagnose and treat disease. If you go into an MDs office with a problem, your MD will either preform an examination or order some tests, such as X-rays, lab studies or others, in order to determine which disease is present in your body. Once the disease is determined, your MD will prescribe a treatment in order to either cure or control the disease.

 

This approach is so common, that it is often difficult to see exactly what it involves. Like many of the things in our everyday lives, the smaller details of this approach only become apparent when we sit and think about it.

 

The allopathic approach rests on two assumptions.

1. Disease exists, as a thing in and of itself
2. The way to help people, and improve their lives is to treat disease.

 

When you sit down and think about this viewpoint, a number of consequences become apparent. For instance, if a person doesn’t yet have a disease, there is very little that can be done, outside of very general measures, to help the person improve their lives.

 

Secondly, this approach doesn’t directly involve prevention. Many of the preventative measures in allopathic medicine are either the general lifestyle advice mentioned above, or making the assumption that people will develop a disease eventually, and treating them preemptively.

 

Lastly, the approach of controlling disease tend to push practitioners into a rather controlling view of human physiology. Rather than allowing physiology to balance itself out, or achieve homeostasis, there is a temptation to constantly regulate. With advances in pharmacology that allow us to affect nearly every major body system, it is not uncommon for this logic to lead to patients being given many medications to “correct” every physiological function that is outside of the normal range.

Now that we know what allopathic medicine sees disease as, we can clearly examine what naturopathic medical approach to disease and healing is.

Naturopathic medicine does not see disease as a thing, in and of itself. Naturopathic medicine sees disease as physiology that has become twisted in upon itself in a self destructive pattern. The question that has occupied naturopathic medicine since its creation, is “what is causing this disruption”. By removing what is causing this disruption it is thought (and generally seen in practice) to heal the disease in question.

 

This view of disease also has several implications.

 

Firstly, you don’t need to have an advanced disease to deal with what is disrupting your physiology. Over time, naturopathic doctors have developed increasingly precise methods for measuring physiological disruption. Learning that a physiology is disrupted, and what is disrupting it, means that Naturopathic Doctors can treat diseases in very early stages.

Secondly, this viewpoint is less controlling of the physiology than allopathic medicine. Naturopathic treatment may be demanding, but it is unlikely to ever result in the body being micromanaged by a physician.

 

Allopathic medicine and naturopathic medicine both have strengths and weaknesses. Understanding this, and which medicine is better suited to what conditions, is key to making the best choice for your own health. More Posts on this topic will follow..