Page 26 - Autumn 19

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compassionate and candid about the cause: human mismanagement, by removing calves at birth and feeding them artificial formula and also causing terrible grief in mothers and calves. He also discussed the much-touted issue of cattle being such a cause of methane production and greenhouse gas problems. Here again it was humans and not cattle who are mostly responsible, as we feed them grains and silage rather than having them forage for grass as they would normally. As he said, “since cows and their stomachs were created on day five and humans on day seven of creation, clearly we must know better what they need.” Or at least we think so, but in the end we don’t know better.
Next, Adriana López and Natalia Jimenez, from Colombia, presented separate provings in horses with Rhus toxicodendron and Opium. These provings were done as students, under the supervision of Dr. Fernando Vargas, the resident pharmacy expert at the university.
With the Rhus tox proving, Jimenez’s group used the 6 CH potency in order to see physical symptoms, and indeed they saw such things as increase in lameness and even increased numbers of eosinophils in the treatment group as compared to the control group. They also saw restlessness and skin itching with changes in the coat in the treatment group. Similarly, López’s group, using Opium 30 CH, saw decreased gut motility and increased respiratory rate as well as sensitivity to noise in the treatment group. Both provings were done with a control group. These provings demonstrated that it is possible to do provings with animals, and also they verified that homeopathic medications do have demonstrable physical impacts.
The behaviourist Dr. Nancy López, also from Colombia continued with a nice lecture on the adaptations animals have had to make in order to survive in a human-centric
world, choosing domestication, in a sense, rather than dying as a species. She continued with the idea that we must help them in this process by making them members of our households and not merely as subservient beings. We need to see that often what we see as behaviour problems result from their attempting to live within a human environment and are not problems per se, other than that we do not like them, such as spraying or scratching furniture in cats. The real problem is how the humans respond to such behaviour, which can create fear and suffering in companion animals.
Mirjam Blatnik of Slovenia presented a nice case of pemphigus in a horse, which responded well over time with homeopathic remedies. The origin was at least in part due to separation from her herd, so Mirjam used Nat mur
as well as Thuja. The mare improved a lot and had good life quality despite all the changes and also despite having a huge mass on her spleen.
Dr. Francisco Nińo continued his talk from the morning, entertaining us as well as giving his top remedies for reproductive issues such as infertility and anoestrus, as well as ovarian cysts and endometritis.
Next, José Miguel Daunas from Colombia gave a complicated but interesting comparison of homeopathic treatment and conventional treatment on his dairy farm over the course of a year. He found that homeopathic treatment was very successful and was much less costly to his dairy than conventional treatment.
After lunch, Dr. Sujit Makker, from India, presented his
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