Page 19 - Winter 18

How Homeopathy lost to Pharmacy
Recollections of a Veterinary Homeopath ’ artificial but standard chemical medicines were better than
It was in 1965 when I went to Liverpool Veterinary School. Our year was the last one to use the horse as the type animal for anatomy, and also the last year to have a practi- cal pharmacology exam. We were given prescriptions and then made the appropriate medication: pills using a pill board, cutter and cup; a lotion; a cream and a medicine. Points were gained for using the correct bottle or other con- tainer, sticking the labels on two thirds of the way up the bottle, and also for incorporating the correct materials. The Sub-dean called it ‘applied alchemy’. It will come as no sur- prise to you that homeopathy was never mentioned offi- cially. If the topic was ever raised it was as a source of humour.
Although the use of antibiotics and steroids was firmly established in veterinary practice by the time I qualified, the use of Galenicals and herbals had not died out. I still remember using tabs digit leaf. They were small white tablets in which small pieces of leaf material could be seen quite clearly. They were extremely effective and could be given to dogs of all sizes without any side effects being noticed. However a pure glycoside was isolated in 1875 and declared to be “the active principle”. It’s full structure was not determined until 1962 when pharmaceutical chemists were able to manufacture it.
That is when things started to go wrong for the medical professions. The chemists claimed that digitalis leaves varied, one from another, and contained a multiplicity of ingredients so that each batch would be chemically differ- ent from each other. In contrast, their compound (digitoxin) was pure and so each batch could be standardised. So in spite of there being no practical troubles or “side effects” with the use of the natural leaf, the artificial chemical ought to be a much better choice even though it had the effect of causing vomiting in 1% of users.
The professions bought into this argument, namely that
natural but slightly variable ones, even though they caused more adverse reactions.
These were swiftly renamed “side effects” which sounded less damaging to the patient.
The medical professions bought into this new scientific – sounding approach to medicine production, not realising its full implications, i.e. you couldn’t patent a naturally occur- ring substance but you could patent a manufactured equiv- alent of an active principle. It was this ability to patent their products that lead eventually to the development of the modern powerful pharmaceutical industry
In the 60’s most medical cases were given a 3-day course of Streptopen injections, i.e. a penicillin/streptomycin mixture, usually in conjunction with Betsolan. The rationale was that the antibiotics would deal with any infection, whilst the steroid would stop any serious inflammation developing; or if inflammation was the prime concern the steroid would prevent infection developing whilst the immune system was suppressed.
In the late 1960s oxytetracycline began to replace Pen and Strep and the initial injection followed by a 5-day course of tablets began to emerge.
During the 70s and 80s not only did more, stronger antibiotics come on to the scene but so did more power- ful and longer acting steroids appear.
In spite of this my clinical results barely improved at all, but the treatment costs were beginning to grow. A simultane- ous side effect of that being the profit on drug sales increased.
continued
17