Page 7 - Spring 25

“lifting and annihilation.” Are we then saying that such patients cannot be healed? Hereby lies the need to be comfortable with our personal definition of healing; our understanding of this may differ between individuals, and the thoughts presented here are very much the product of my personal contemplations and learning over the years.
Firstly, I would like to make what is, to me, an important point; in my opinion, the words “healing” and “curing” are not the same thing, and are not interchangeable. Hahnemann suggests such when he says “Des Artztes höchster und einziger Beruf ist, Kranke gesund zu machen, was man Heilen nennt”. So, he says our greatest and only job is to make our patients healthy, which we call healing; not “which means healing”, or “is healing”, or “to heal him/her”, but which one calls healing. To me this is consistent with my thought that curing and healing are not identical.
When we are presented with a patient, we are informed, directly or indirectly (depending on whether our patient can verbally communicate) , about the summation of physical symptoms which are making them sick. In some instances modern medical thought has decided that this particular group of signs or symptoms are sufficiently common to be given their own name, so our patient can proudly walk around carrying the name-badge of his diagnosis, or our owner can label his/her animal companion with the learned title. We, as homeopaths, fully understand that these symptoms are the result of energetic disturbance of the vital force, and are reflective of its response, as influenced by miasmatic inheritance, diet, hygienic circumstances etc. From the patient’s viewpoint, however, these physical signs/symptoms ARE the problem, and he/she is suffering because the body has physical disturbances creating the dis-ease. If we can
remove these symptoms in their entirety, then our patient is cured. However, they may not be healed.
There has been much discussion regarding potency selection, repetition of doses, use of more than one remedy at a time, low potency complex homeopathic treatment, and other similar themes. Each method has its advocates, and some seem to adhere to their own chosen doctrine in an almost religious way. So why all the disagreements? It is because we are not working with the same definition of healing! When we use low potency remedies, organ support remedies, tissue salts etc., we are treating at a lower frequency level influencing the physical plane of disturbance in a more direct way. I will give a couple of examples which, sadly, I have to do purely from memory.
I was presented with a very, very sick old dog, who had been treated by my colleague for some time for an advanced, and seemingly chronic, liver disturbance. His blood picture showed very major changes; he was clinically cachexic, visibly weak, had evident jaundice, and was totally inappetant. Liver neoplasia had been suspected, but the age of the patient precluded from further diagnosis. This case hails from the early 1990’s, when I was still a non-qualified homeopathic student, and so many of the modern diagnostic tools were either not yet available or were not readily so. The owner was despondent, very reluctant to let him go at that time, yet despaired that all the vets had said there was nothing more that could be done. Of course, being the new, enthusiastic homeopathic student, I said that we could always try homeopathy; whether I would have made the same offer in my later years in such an advanced case, I have my doubts. Oh, the confidence of youth!
My knowledge of homeopathy at that time was pretty
limited (some may say that it still is!). I had not yet seen any long cases and had no higher potency remedies in my practice. I did, though, have Chelidonium in a low potency, likely a 6x or 6C. The owner jumped in with renewed hope and requested that we try. My thoughts were actually that this dog should probably be euthanised, but something was telling me that this was not yet the time (almost certainly the patient himself). So, I continued with the therapy he was already on, and introduced the Chelidonium 3 times daily. I insisted that he be brought back after maximum 3 days so I could re- assess him, as I did not want him to continue in this severely sick state beyond that if my intervention had not helped him.
After three days, there had been clear progress with the appetite and also his well-being generally, much to my amazement (and the owners). We obviously continued the treatment, and he began to enjoy his life again, albeit in a relatively limited way. After about 3-4 weeks, the improvement was so marked, with even some weight gain. although still visibly jaundiced, that I decided to re- blood test him. I was sure that the liver parameters would be a lot better, and so I could “prove” to my colleagues that homeopathy worked. To my disappointment and confusion, the liver parameters were totally unaltered! There was no indication from the results that this patient should be feeling better, yet he was. He continued like this for some three months or so, before suddenly going downhill, at which point he had to be euthanised; he was then ready. The owner kindly allowed me to do an autopsy, and the degree of hepatic fibrosis shocked me; there was barely, any normal liver tissue left, and I have no idea how this dog kept going, and seemingly contentedly so, for so long.
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