Page 20 - Winter 20-21

“Investment advice"
“There is a time”, when one is ready to notice and to grasp opportunities.
Seven years into my NHS practice in semirural Chiddingfold, I was mentally restless about what I was doing. I had been informed by a wealthy lady patient that my prescription for her menopause symptoms was not as good as the treatment from her Chichester homœopath. A similar story came from a lady with subclinical hypothyroidism. My mother’s successful chiropractic treatment was another indication that, ‘Fringe Medicine’, could provide healing for disorders where I was not successful.
In 1979 the patient uppermost in my mind was getting worse with a progressive neurological condition. Her disease was getting worse and she was suffering the usual severe side effects from my monthly consultant-led injections of long-acting steroids.
Primed by the experience of the previous two patients and of my mother, I was ready for the article written by Dr Ann Clover, consultant physician at Tonbridge Wells Homœopathy Hospital. It came in a free magazine sent to GPs called, ‘World Medicine’. Practical and down to earth, it gave an outline of the tenets of homœopathy, described the continuing patronage of Royal family and discussed a case or two. Importantly, Dr Clover stated that homœopathic medicines were (then) included in the NHS Drug Tariff and that introductory courses were available. That very day I contacted the Royal London
by Dr David Williams, UK
Homœopathic Hospital (RLHH) Queens Square and booked on.
Just four weeks later I was in the Boardroom at the Royal London Homœopathic Hospital attending the five day introductory course, along with about 40 other doctors, mainly male GP's. (How the gender balance has changed!).
The calibre of the lecturers, and the information they presented, was impressive and convincing. Although Dr Marjorie Blackie, then physician to the Queen was the most senior British homoeopath, she gave only one lecture that week. The most impressive teacher was Dr Alistair Jack, a GP in Solihull. He described the way he wrote NHS prescriptions for three medicines at a time to provide families with a set of domestic medicines.
The most important piece of advice for we tyros, was not to be too ambitious in our homœopathic infancy. All the lecturers sang the same tune. We were advised, and emphatically warned, to prescribe a homœopathic medicine for a patient ONLY where there is strong correspondence between the presenting symptoms and the materia medica of the medicine (in those days we called them ‘remedies’). To be too ambitious would be to see the prescription fail with consequent loss of interest in homœopathy.
The second, no less important, warning was to remember our medical training. “You are medical doctors first, homoeopaths second”. Sadly, some doctors have come to regret forgetting that aphorism.
On the final day of teaching we received a pocket sized pack (see photo) of twenty-two medicines in small glass
tubes (Dr. Jack’s choices); each tube containing one gram of fine sucrose crystals in content.
The prime indications of the medicines were on a printed foolscap sheet. Those indications were also printed as ‘GP Labels’ on over-counter 50 tablet tubes (no longer permitted because the indications are ‘unsubstantiated’). The pack came with compliments of Stephen Kayne,
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