Homeopathy - What is Alternative Medicine?

In his book, Health and Healing , Weil describes how he once developed sudden attacks of pain starting in the center of his chest that eventually radiated to the center of his back, left shoulder, throat, and jaw. The pain was accompanied by difficulty in swallowing, as if something were lodged in the bottom of his esophagus. After consulting with several orthodox physicians who were not able to relieve the pain, Weil visited a friend who was a homeopath. The friend asked him a number of questions not directly related to the specific pain, including questions pertaining to lifestyle and sleeping patterns.

The homeopath then diagnosed Weil as having symptoms provoked by elemental sulfur and gave him a vial of tiny white pellets which were lactose (milk sugar) covered with a drop of a dilute suspension of sulfur. After Weil took the pellets, the pains completely disappeared, and never returned again.

Homeopathy was founded in the late 18th century by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann, who became discouraged by prevailing medical techniques such as bloodletting and blistering to treat illness, and the use of toxic substances such as mercury. He began experimenting with cinchona bark which contains quinine, then a well-known medicine for fever and malaria. He found that while cinchona produced fever in healthy individuals, it relieved fever in people with malaria. Based on these experiments, Hahnemann stated, “A substance that produces a certain set of symptoms in a healthy person has the power to cure a sick person manifesting those same symptoms.” He coined the name homeopathy, joining the Greek words “homoios,” which means like, and “pathos,” for suffering or sickness. Hahnemann maintained that the presence of an illness stimulates the body's defense system to combat the illness. That defensive reaction produces symptoms, which are part of the body's effort to rid itself of the underlying disease. The symptoms are not the illness, Hahnemann claimed, but part of the curative process. This contrasts with traditional views that symptoms are the manifestation of the disease itself.

Once a homeopath has diagnosed a disorder in a patient, a diluted solution to treat the problem is prescribed. This is done by matching (“proving”) symptoms with the one substance that most closely reproduces these symptoms in a normal person.

Since Hahnemann's pioneering work, homeopaths have kept detailed clinical records of the results of giving small amounts of many different substances to volunteer subjects in good health. As Weil relates, these substances contain chemicals, minerals, plant extracts, dilute preparations of animal and insect venoms, disease-causing germs, and some standard drugs. Matching the patient's symptoms with the one substance that most closely reproduces them is crucial because a single dose of that substance, highly diluted and properly prepared, has the capacity to cure the ailing patient.

To date, there have been an extensive number of controlled clinical studies evaluating the effectiveness of homeopathic treatment. The April 1991 issue of Health Facts reports an exhaustive review of 107 controlled experiments in which homeopathic remedies or placebos (dummy pills) were prescribed. The researchers concluded that the homeopathic remedies were more effective than the placebos in treating a variety of common problems, including migraine headaches, dry cough, and ankle sprains.

Since Hahnemann first published his findings in 1810, millions of people have relied exclusively on homeopathy for the treatment of all types of illnesses. According to the National Center for Homeopathy, sales of homeopathic medicine grew 50% between 1988 and 1990, reaching $150 million. Despite homeopathy's documented effectiveness, however, the American Medical Association (AMA) does not recognize homeopathic medicine because it believes it is not based on scientific principles. Currently, only three states (Arizona, Connecticut, and Nevada) license homeopaths, and in these states, a homeopathic practitioner is licensed under one of the other accepted forms of medicine, such as a medical doctor, acupuncturist, osteopath, or chiropractor.