Words: Vishal DUBEY
This is the edited version of the essay that won the Second Prize in ThinkWellness360 Essay Writing Competition 2022 for Homeopathic Medical College Students.
Introduction
Over five million people used homeopathy in the year 2012, according to Health Survey Assessment on alternative health therapy usage in the United States. Homeopathy was used by 1.8 per cent of children polled in 2012, despite the fact that only 0.2 per cent of children saw a homeopathic practitioner. According to a poll, conducted in 2016, a majority who used homeopathic remedies were adolescents.
A Harvard poll, published in The American Journal of Public Health, reports that homeopathic medicine has seen a 15 per cent growth in the US. In addition, the majority of users rank homeopathy as one of their top three alternative and integrative treatment options.
Results are from the National Health Interview Survey conducted in 2012 also compared homeopathic medicine usage with that of other forms of complementary and integrative medicine and found that it was more commonly used by adults in the US. The same survey had found in 2002 and 2007 that 1.7 per cent and 1.8 per cent of the adult population used homeopathic medicines, principally for respiratory, ear-nose-and-throat ailments, as well musculoskeletal pain syndromes.
Homeopathy may be paradoxically less popular in the United States today than it is in several European countries. Statistics from Italy and Germany suggest homeopathic usage of 8.2 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. A 2012 poll by a homeopathic producer, in Italy, indicated that nearly one-sixth of adult Italians used homeopathic remedies.
Harvard reports that people who consulted a professional homeopath had far more favourable views about homeopathy in contrast to people who bought from homeopathic pharmacies, or health-food stores, and self-prescribed. A high percentage of people who sought expert advice regarded homeopathy as “extremely important in preserving health and well-being.” People who sought the advice of a homeopathic practitioner were also clearly more satisfied with the results of their treatment than those who self-medicated.
India
Homeopathy was suggested to reduce the severity of COVID-19 and shorten the period of hospitalisation in India.
With homeopathic treatment, useful results can be achieved cheaply for conditions, such as bronchial asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis too.
There are useful homeopathic remedies for dengue fever, H1N1, influenza, and other illnesses. The use of a Genus epidemicus — a remedy that is determined to be curative in the majority of instances of the same illness — has also provided useful results in preventing such illnesses.
At the time of writing this essay, over 1,114 million got infected with the new coronavirus variant and 86,269,184 [77.3 per cent], who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 recovered.
For more than two centuries, homeopathy has been used to treat people with a wide range of illnesses and ailments. Clinical studies, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews have demonstrated the usefulness of homeopathy.
Homeopathy has a great history of successfully managing epidemic diseases, but it is not one-size-fits-all mode to treating any condition. Homeopathy is based on the individual patient’s physical, mental, and emotional symptoms, and remedies are tailored to each individual patient, taking into account their distinctive traits and reactions. Furthermore, each patient typically takes a suitable remedy, prescribed by the physician, in order to achieve a full recovery. Patients’ responses to homeopathic medicines vary. This makes randomised clinical trials [RCTs], the gold standard in conventional medicine, not appropriate for studying their efficacy in the treatment of a single condition with only one possible outcome: improvement in symptoms.
Case studies proving the efficacy of patient-centric, customised homeopathic treatment are emerging. Clinical Files Collection [CLIFICOL] has tracked the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients who were provided homeopathic medicines by the Tuscan Homeopathy Outpatient Department. Patients with COVID-19 treated at Nehru Homeopathic Hospital, New Delhi, also found a group of homeopathic remedies suitable for their condition.
Homeopathy is a viable option in the event of a pandemic, because it is efficacious, safe and affordable. In the past, during epidemics and pandemics, homeopathy outperformed other treatments. It was able to treat glandular fever, yellow fever, and cholera, among others, when traditional medicine was unable to do so.
Homeopathy has been employed in the past during fiery outbreaks of Spanish flu, scarlet fever, hepatitis, typhoid, and other illnesses with impressive results.
Epidemics: Success Stories
In Andhra Pradesh, a three-year regimen was used as a preventative for Japanese encephalitis [JE]. This reduced JE mortality and morbidity rates [1999].
It was found that Eupatorium perfoliatum, or a combination of therapies, tailored to the epidemic picture considerably reduced the number of dengue fever outbreaks in Brazil [2001-2012] — up to 90 per cent.
Eupatorium perfoliatum was found to prevent chikungunya in 1,061 [82.19 per cent] patients in Kerala who had been exposed to the epidemic in 2006.
Current Pandemic
Arsenicum Album 30C was recommended by the AYUSH Ministry for prevention.
Additionally, homeopathy was adopted in various countries amidst the COVID-19 crisis.
Cuba distributed homeopathic medicines. More than a million people in Brazil were given Camphora 1M as a preventative by city officials.
The Kerala government is believed to have distributed approximately four million vials of the homeopathic medicine as a preventive treatment.
Pune’s Police Commissioner K Venkateshan revealed that a homeopathic medicine was given to police personnel. There was a ‘very low incidence’ of the illness among 9,000 police officers who received the medication.
The Maharashtra police also administered Camphora 1M to all of its employees.
COVID-19 workers, including police, were given homeopathic medicines by the Punjab government. The results were encouraging.
Future Medicine
Homeopathic medicine developed as a contradictory approach to health compared to the orthodox view of mainstream medicine. As Dr Todd A Hoover, MD, DHt, who has practiced homeopathic medicine, emergency medicine, family medicine, and occupational medicine, for over thirty years, puts it in an article published in Homeopathy [May 2020], “Over the past two centuries, this form of healthcare has maintained its heterodox position under continued attacks from the established order. Modern medicine is being pushed by materialism and the drive to generate profits by large pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations. Whilst homeopathy has also enjoyed economic growth in many markets around the world, rising popularity of this type of treatment has been shown to generate regulatory concerns on some fronts. Recent pressures from regulatory authorities have resulted in both setbacks and improved situations for homeopathic prescribers, varying by country where they are located. Despite widespread attacks in the press and from some governmental authorities, users of homeopathic therapies remain staunchly attached to this form of treatment.”
This augurs well for homeopathy, whose popularity will only expand, thanks to its personalised, or bespoke, approach to treatment, as also efficacy and safety.
