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Homeopathy This is a brief summary of my understanding of what Dr. Sunil Saini taught me about homeopathic medicine in Bhagsu. If you have anything to add to it or know of any inaccuracies, please let me know. According to the beliefs of homeopathic medicine, if your vital force is strong, you will never get sick. When your vital force becomes weak, you become sick. Therefore, the first duty of a practicioner of homepathic medicine is to maintain the vital force of their patient. Homeopathic medicine seeks to cure the person as a whole, not just the disease. A useful analogy between homeopathic medicine and western medicine is to see a person as a tree. Western medicine treats the symptoms of a specific disease, a branch of the tree, while the roots and trunk of the tree may continue to have problems. Homeopathic medicine (as well as other non-Western medical practices) see the person as a whole. They treat the root system of the tree, the trunk, and the tree as a whole as it relates to its surrounding environment, rather than focusing on a single branch or leaf. Dr. Saini referred to western medicine as "allopathy". The Oxford dictionary defines allopathy as "The treatment of disease with drugs or other agents having opposite effects to the symptoms." Medicines are used in their pure form, and if a 25mg dose stops working, the dose is increased, to perhaps 50mg or even a gram of medicine. Often a mixture of medicines is used to treat a disease. Perhaps one of the medicines is working well, but the other medicines are causing undesirable side effects. These side effects are accentuated because of the large dosages of medicines in their pure form that are used. In curing one disease, more diseases are often created. Allopathy has trouble treating chronic diseases. The Oxford dictionary defines "homeopathy" as "The treatment of disease by minute doses of drugs that in a healthy person would produce symptoms of the disease." The substance that is causing the disease is used to treat the disease. If a person is having stomach problems caused by too much sulfur in their diet, minute doses of sulfur would be used to treat their illness. These minute doses are VERY minute. According to homeopathy, the smaller the dose of a medicine that is used, the stronger its effect. Homeopathic medicines are measured with the unit of measure "X". With any medicine, such as sulfur, 1X means one drop of sulfur in 99 drops of alcohol. 2X means 1 drop of the 1X potency medicine in 99 drops of alcohol. Thus, a medicine with a potency of 6X would be just one drop of pure medicine in one trillion drops of solvent! And that 6X medicine is considered much less powerful to treat a disease than a medicine with a potency of 10X, 100 million times more diluted still. 30X, 60X, 100X and even 1000X (also referred to as 1M) medicines are common potencies used. Of these medicines, the 1000X medicine would be the most powerful, infinitesimally dilute though it may appear. Small, round sugar pills the size of tiny ball bearings are soaked in these solutions of medicine. A common dosage would be 8 to 10 of these sugar pills soaked in the appropriate potency of medicine, taken once, twice, or perhaps four times per day, depending on the nature of the illness. Dr. Saini described the treatment of fever with homeopathic medicine. Allopathic medicine would treat a fever with aspirin, or perhaps with other drugs to stifle the symptoms that go along with the fever, without looking at what might have caused the fever. Dr. Saini described six types of fever, and a different remedy for each. The first type of fever is characterized by hyperaemia (a red face, and blood congestion in the face), congestion, a chill preceding an inflammatory fever, great heat (the face is hot), dry skin, a violent thirst, and a "full bounding" frequent pulse that sweating relieves. This type of fever also involves anxiety and a nervous restlessness from the violent circulatory storm, an anguished mind, great fear, tossing about in agony, and a cough from dry cold winds or drafts of air. The fever is caused by exposure to a dry, cold wind or from chilling of the body after overheating. It would be treated by a medicine called Aconite Nap., starting with a potency of 30X, taking 5 pills approximately four times a day, or a dose of 5 pills with potency 200X, taken only once or twice per day. Note that the seemingly "less potent" medicine, with a potency of 200X, is used more sparingly than the 30X medicine because it is considered much stronger. This medicine is used for the first stage of the fever. A complementary medicine would be Coffea, used if the fever is coming down but there is sleeplessness or any kind of pain, given at 30X potency, 5 pills approximately 3 times per day. Arnica is another complementary medicine to Aconite Nap., and is used in cases of trauma, when you have an injury - for example, if you fall down in the cold and get a fever. At the last stage of this type of fever, sulfur can be given. Older theories in homepathic medicine held that you can't use more than one type of medicine to treat a disease, but newer theories, as in the above treatment for one type of fever, hold that you can use complementary medicines at different times - say one in the morning, and the other in the evening, or one medicine in the early stages of the disease and another medicine in the last stage. |