The World Homoeopathy Day is observed throughout the globe on April 10 to commemorate the birth anniversary of the founder and architect of Homoeopathy, Dr Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann. It’s also a day to understand the challenges and future strategies to develop homoeopathy even further.
The World Homeopathy Day seeks to bring the community together to establish, reinvent and modernize the system of medicine so that more people can reap its benefits.Samuel Hahnemann was a physician born in Germany, who was a great researcher, linguist and applauded scientist. Born on April 10, 1755, he was qualified in traditional system of medicine. But his scientific bent of mind, keen observation and analytical thought made him to finally quit that system and founded a new system of healing homoeopathy.
More than 200 years ego, Homoeopathy took its birth amidst criticism and controversy. But with time passing by, it has undergone a lot of experiments, observations and interferences.
Time has tested it on suffering humanity. And that’s why it has become the second most widely accepted alternative method of treatment with due patronage by the Government. It has taken a smooth ride meeting all challenges on the way; mitigating innumerable, inveterate number of chronic diseases among the patients; proving that it is one of the holistic and natural approaches for the treatment of the sick.
It is holistic because it treats the person as a whole, rather than focussing on the particular diseased part; and natural because its medicines are prepared from natural sources of vegetables, minerals, animals etc and stands on a solid footing of Therapeutic Law of Nature; built on some cardinal principles like Law of Similar, Law of Minimum, Doctrine of Vital Force. Its Doctrine of Drug Dynamisation has made inert substances active, poisonous substances non poisonous with arousal of its latent therapeutic value. Its wide popularity at the present time is due to some innate qualities that this system has.
Its unique approach of holistic treatment is novel in the art of healing. It treats the sick human being, the patient as a whole and not the disease. It gives credence to the mental symptoms. Most of the chronic diseases originate in mind first and then the symptoms appear in body.
The modern school is slowly coming to this stand and now a days more and more number of diseases are coming under the banner of psychosomatic diseases. It is seen that a prolonged depression can lead to cancer, a hostility can lead to myocardiac infarction and a long standing anger can lead to a stroke. So while studying a case, a homoeopath gives much value to the mental symptoms. It adopts the novice method of individualisation in the process of treatment.
This is the age of adverse drug reaction. There is a saying: “There is no pill for every ill, But every pill is followed by ill.” It has been estimated that 5-10% of all hospital admission are due to adverse drug reaction. But homeopathic medicines are non-toxic and harmless and do not have any adverse side effects. It is cost effective and easy to administer for patients of all age groups. There is no drug resistance issue in homoeopathy. Due to over use and non-judicious use of antibiotics, patients are becoming resistant to a number of drugs.
Time was there when 95% of streptococcal infections was handled by Penicillin. But now 95% of streptococcal infections are resistant to Penicillin. But such issues are not met in this system due to dynamic nature of medicines. Its scope in paediatrics is acid tested. In geriatric too, it has a wide scope in many diseases like osteoarthritis, BHP, dementia etc. In maternity and child health, this system has astounding success rate.With change in life style, climatic variation, massive urbanisation, new and new viral diseases are emerging day by day. And homoeopathy has a novel approach to these diseases.
Many auto immune diseases are on the rise which are well amenable to homoeopathic treatment because of its holistic approach and use of constitutional medicines. Many surgical diseases like warts, corns, BHP, piles, fissures and fistula, renal stones, fibroadenoma breast are well handled by this treatment.
Many incurable cases where palliative treatment is needed, homoeopathy is a very good option. Most of the life style diseases that are on an increasing trend, homoeopathy renders better solutions. So for a common man standing at the crossroads to which therapy he would adopt, homoeopathy definitely scores high.
On this World Homoeopathic Day, the humanity pays tribute to that great soul, Dr Samuel Hahnemann; the inventor of this magnificent science, Homoeopathy.
(The writer is Reader, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Dr Abhin Chandra Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Bhubaneswar)
