OT; more on multiple remedies - The Real Danger to Homeopathy: Pseudo-Homeopathy

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The Real Danger to Homeopathy: Pseudo-Homeopathy

by Luc De Schepper, MD, PhD, DI Hom., CHom., Lic.Ac

from November 1999, Homeopathy Today

Reprinted by permission.

At the dawn of a new millennium, homeopathy is in a unique position, with

the power to rescue our current medical system from its morass of

high-tech, suppressive, alienating and exorbitantly expensive measures.

There is a groundswell of interest and involvement in alternative medicine

in general and homeopathy in particular among both patients and allopathic

practitioners. The most recent study by Dr. Eisenberg of Harvard

Medical School shows 70% of Americans seeking alternative treatment (and

spending billions to pay for it out-of-pocket), while in another recent

survey 49% of primary care physicians stated that homeopathy was the

alternative modality they most wanted to learn about. Insurance companies

are beginning to reimburse for alternative treatments like homeopathy,

recognizing the long-term savings involved.

At this point the greatest threat to homeopathy comes not from allopathic

practitioners or pharmaceutical companies but from self-professed

homeopaths who do not follow the immortal laws and principles laid down by

Hahnemann. Whether out of ignorance or laziness, or the desire to impress

their patients with their gimmicks so that they can charge more money,

these pseudo-homeopaths violate the most basic principle of homeopathy: to

give a single remedy which covers the totality of the symptom picture. Some

give three or four remedies within a single week; others give mixtures of

several or even a dozen remedies at once. In so doing they harm the

patient, which is bad enough, but worse still, they harm the profession and

the reputation of homeopathy.

We are accustomed to patients treating homeopathy as the last resort; they

often come to us after the harmful, suppressive, and invasive measures of

allopathic medicine. In my own practice I find myself in the unenviable

position of the absolute last resort: patients come to me after being

mistreated by other homeopaths. Or other homeopaths refer patients to me

when they are honest enough to admit that they can no longer follow a case.

I have seen hundreds of such patients over the years who have suffered from

bad homeopathy. In addition, I have heard about hundreds more from my

patients. Like typical homeopathy patients, they become missionaries who

zealously try to convince their families and friends of homeopathy, but too

often they come back to me with sad stories of these people who have had

bad experiences at the hands of homeopaths who did not know the most basic

principles of homeopathy.

Typically these patients suffer aggravations lasting weeks or months while

the homeopath offers no succor and even refuses to return phone calls. In

other cases the homeopath actually suppresses the symptoms with the remedy

and fails to recognize that the case is going in the wrong direction, thus

setting the patient up for more suffering later on. In still other cases,

superficial physical symptoms disappear, to be replaced by mental/emotional

ones. Many of these people have suffered so much that they adamantly refuse

to consider consulting another homeopath, and they warn others away from

homeopathy. I am just one practitioner; if I have encountered so many of

these patients, how many more must there be in this country?

With Hahnemann giving us such clear guidance, I am honestly puzzled at how

people practicing in his name can deviate so far from his direction.

I have tried to find out the rationale for these practices of mixing and

alternating remedies. Many practitioners delude themselves that there is no

danger in these practices because the remedies are “harmless.” Apparently

they think that since the remedies contain not one molecule of the original

substance there cannot be any harm in giving several at once, and perhaps

they follow the American belief that “more is better.” I know other such

practitioners who are trying to create for themselves the prestige and

status of allopathic physicians, imitating the lab coats and stethoscopes

as well as the polypharmacy of allopathy.

But polypharmacy (giving many prescriptions at once) is harmful in

homeopathy as well as in allopathy. Remember that the remedies bear a

powerful force. If they can consistently cure the so-called “incurable

diseases,” they must be highly active agents. Each remedy delivers an

energetic “punch” to the Vital Force, and it is the secondary response of

the Vital Force which acts against the illness and heals the patient.

Giving too many remedies at once can leave the Vital Force punched down

like a boxer staggering to his knees. In fact I have seen patients who have

been given so many remedies by previous homeopaths that their Vital Force

no longer responds to the single well-chosen remedy, which could have cured

their case in the first place before they were rendered incurable by bad

homeopathy.

The well-chosen remedy, the simillimum, delivers an energetic impact which

exactly matches the symptom picture of the patient. Any other remedy will

not be a perfect match, that is, it will have symptoms in its symptom

picture which do not match the patient’s. These aspects of the remedy can

stimulate the Vital Force to create new symptoms, called accessory symptoms

of the remedy. It is only logical that if more than one remedy is given at

once or in close succession, only one can be the simillimum and the others

are likely to create accessory symptoms. For example, I have seen a mixture

labeled “Grief” which has every grief remedy under the sun, from Pulsatilla

to Nat mur. There is no way that one patient can need both these remedies;

they cannot be both the weepy, needy, consolation-seeking Pulsatilla and

the stiff-upper-lip, leave-me-alone Nat mur.

The result of these mixtures can be a tangled mess of symptoms which make

it impossible for the homeopath to follow the case. I have seen these

patients too. It is bad enough that we have to sort out the patient’s true

symptoms from those induced by their allopathic medications. We should not

have to sort out symptoms induced by our own colleagues! Speaking of

difficulties following the case, mixtures and alternation of remedies bring

about another problem which we see in allopathic medicine all the time. I

have seen allopathic physicians give my patients several drugs, one of

which might “cure” the case but all of which have serious side effects. The

mixture achieves the desired effect (suppressing the symptoms, which they

call a cure). Then the physician does not know which medication “worked”

and which ones can be discontinued. As a result the patient is kept on the

dangerous drug cocktail indefinitely, with drug interactions compounding

the side effects of the single drugs. When remedies are mixed the same

problems arise. If the patient aggravates it is difficult to tell which

remedy caused the problem; if the patient is improving slightly, which

remedy should be re-administered in a higher potency?

And just as in allopathic medicine, the interactions among the remedies can

bring about harmful effects which the single remedies would not create.

This can even happen when the remedies are alternated. Each remedy has a

long duration of action, usually lasting weeks or months. Giving several

remedies within a single week creates all the bad results of mixing

remedies because their effects will overlap.

To make the problems arising from mixtures more clear, consider remedies

made from chemical compounds containing more than one element, like our old

friend Nat mur. If it were possible to remove the Natrum (sodium) element

from the muriaticum (chloride), the proving results of each one separately

would be entirely different from the combination. It stands to reason that

adding further elements would change the proving picture again. Another

justification for mixing remedies stems from a confusion over existing

remedies like China sulphuricum or Calcarea silicata which seem to be

mixtures. But these remedies were proven as such. Their indications are not

invented by adding the symptom picture of China with that of Sulphur, or

that of Calcarea with that of Silica. Provings were done on the compound

itself so that it can be prescribed confidently according to Hahnemann’s

principles. This type of proved compound in no way justifies creating new,

unknown and unproven mixtures.

Another reason I hear for mixing and alternating goes like this: “The

modern era, with its more complicated diseases, requires more than one

remedy to cover the case.” Again, this answer betrays an ignorance of

Hahnemann’s principles so beautifully and clearly laid out in Chronic

Diseases and the Organon. He has given us powerful tools which enable us to

clearly analyze even the most complicated case. True, we see more effects

of medical suppression in modern times: allopathic medicine has much more

powerful tools at its disposal, including antibiotics, chemotherapy, and

radiation. And it is true that the miasms have become increasingly more

powerful; sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have become pandemic because

of changes in sexual mores and because of the world wars, among other

causes. At the same time STDs have become more effectively suppressed by

antibiotics, thereby creating new miasmatic cases, while existing miasms

are fueled by factors like mandatory vaccinations.

This does not stop us from a clear analysis of our patients’ cases,

however. If we search the patient’s past medical history and family medical

history to find the active miasm, we can give one of the remedies most

strongly active against that miasm, thereby ensuring good results every

time. If we have the patient create a timeline, marking different traumatic

events as well as surgeries and medically-suppressive interventions and

correlating these with the first appearance of different symptoms, we can

determine which are the most recently-created symptoms and therefore which

ones need to be addressed first.

I might mention an error I see even among my true colleagues, the real

classical homeopaths who give a single remedy at a time. Too often they

lump all the patient’s symptoms together, even those created by a long-ago

grief or other trauma, and attempt the impossible task of finding a single

remedy to cover the patient’s entire life. This is not what Hahnemann meant

by the totality of symptoms. We must address the totality of current

symptoms in the current layer, those created by the most recent trauma or

suppressive act, before retaking the case and finding a different match for

the previous layer (as Hahnemann explains in the Organon).

A final argument I hear is that we do not need to limit ourselves to

Hahnemann’s principles because he was senile at the end of his life. I only

wish that these Hahnemann-bashers could read Hahnemann’s Paris case books,

as I have. They would see for themselves that far from floundering in the

dark, as the Hahnemann-bashers claim, he was constantly experimenting to

perfect and refine his system within the framework of the basic principles

which he had so brilliantly laid down.

It was in the last years of his life that he experimented with the higher

potencies (far beyond the 30C which many people claim was his limit) and he

developed the LM potency, the crown jewel of his method. Those who read the

Paris case books for themselves will also debunk the myth that alternation

of remedies is acceptable because Hahnemann himself did it. Hahnemann had

earlier experimented with alternating remedies, but discarded the practice.

He did give some of his Paris patients two remedies, but only because they

had traveled a great distance and he anticipated that at some point they

would need to switch from one to the other.

I look forward to the time when Hahnemann’s case books will be available in

English for all to read. In the meantime, all those who claim to be

homeopaths should read and re-read, study and re-study, Chronic Diseases

and the 6th edition of the Organon. I am shocked that whenever I talk to

professional colleagues at conferences, I find that the great majority have

never read the Organon even once! Each time I study this masterpiece I am

astounded at how Hahnemann was able to anticipate the medical concerns of

our modern world. On each re-reading I gain new insights which help me in

my practice.

I also encourage my colleagues, all those who sincerely aspire to deserve

the title of “homeopath,” to read the old masters—Kent, Hering, von

Boenninghausen, Lippe—and the masters from the earlier part of this

century—Farrington, -Hubbard, Pierre Schmidt, Tyler, Compton-Burnett.

Few if any homeopaths in the world today have the stature of our great

predecessors. By studying their works, we find that they always adhered to

Hahnemann’s principles. In everything they did they harked back to the

master, never questioning his guidance and never accusing him of being

senile. We also find that there is nothing new under the sun: the old

masters and Hahnemann himself lamented the pseudo-homeopaths of their day,

who were harming patients and ruining the reputation of our profession with

their mixtures and alternations.

As practitioners we must remember, as I always tell my students, that we

are not repairing refrigerators. We have our patients’ lives and health in

our hands. We have a responsibility to educate ourselves in the laws and

principles of homeopathy: we must know how to give a single well-chosen

remedy, chosen by the totality of the symptoms, based on the proving

picture of the remedy. We must educate our patients and the public that

anyone who does not follow these laws does not deserve the title of

homeopath. They may call themselves eclectics or anything else they want,

but not homeopaths. In the words of Constantine Hering, one of our most

revered masters, “If our school ever gives up the strict inductive method

of Hahnemann, we are lost and deserve only to be mentioned as a caricature

in the history of medicine.”

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Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

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