Page 19 - Autumn 18

experience and the feelings of many colleagues’. My view does not help any of you at all in daily practice and may well make things more difficult. But is it the purpose of the IAVH to make thing easier for its members?
...is it the purpose of the IAVh to make thing easier for its members?
I am absolutely convinced that making sure homeopathy gains its rightful place in mainstream medicine will take quite some effort. Practicing homeopathy on cases that are
also treated conventionally is very difficult i
support of my view, I will recount for the n-ieme time my meeting with the MEP Stuart Agnew (UKIP and farmer), who came to my practice to find out about veterinary homeopathy. In a nutshell, he wanted to find out the following: that I was also a ‘normal’ vet able to use conventional medicine, that I did homeopathy because it was an extra tool (not because I was against something) and that I was well regulated. (He also wanted to understand what homeopathy was.) He went away saying he now could promote homeopathy and two months later signed a letter in the EU in support of research in CAM.
It must be possible for us to each practice medicine to the best of our knowledge, sensitivity and convictions and, at the same time, come together in the IAVH and work towards finding the rightful place for homeopathy in ‘modern medicine’. The word will be integration. Replacing may come later.
We will also be taking part in a concerted effort with our human colleagues to create a benchmark for the education in homeopathy that will be published by the WHO. The bar will be set quite high. This will be another way how homeopathy will be able to put itself on the map and show how it is a serious type of medicine.
There have been voices saying that we (the IAVH) do not put enough time in talking ‘homeopathy’. Indeed, most of the noise coming from the officers in the last 3 years had to do with the change of the running of the organisation, the political work, relating to the anxiety and the attacks and the participation in meetings with other organisations. It would indeed be good to see more ‘homeopathy’ happening in the IAVH. It actually is a necessity. Here I ask you as members of the IAVH to participate in the homeopathy part of our organisation: use the forum, participate in the MMHV and send articles to the MAG.
That is how you all can help us.
ndeed. In
Edward
The user’s guide to the MMVH
The Veterinary Materia Medica project started with the work of Jacques Millemann. Jacques collected his knowledge of the Materia Medica and the knowledge of colleagues to produce a Veterinary Materia Medica, which is available in the french language. A large part has been translated into german and published as a book.
When a plan was made to produce an english version, some thought went into what form this Materia Medica would take. It was decided that instead of producing a finite work it should become a dynamic space, where information is collected from all homeopathic veterin- arians for use by the members of the IAVh. Instead of producing a ‘hard copy’, the project would become a website for collection and diffusion of information on the use of homeopathic remedies in animals.
Although many use the synthetic Materia Medica as an aid to prescribe, in reality a Materia Medica is a resource for studying and learning about remedies. The IAVh has decided to make its MMhV a database to study remedies, where all members can contribute and benefit.
The project is divided in three sections:
1. AdatabaseforcompletedMateriaMedicastudies.In this part, fully prepared remedy studies will be published. These remedy studies can take the shape of a classical remedy presentation, such as those we can find in many (synthetic) human Materia Medicae. They may contain a mix of classical (human) symptoms enriched with veterinary information about the remedy and information about the substance. The remedy studies may also be produced according to the technique of the thematic Materia Medicae. In fact any form or shape of Materia Medica study will be accepted for publication. Anybody is invited to send in his or her work - we will not limit ourselves to produce one Materia Medica for each remedy. When five people send in studies of the same remedy, we will publish all five versions in this part of the database; because every remedy study will highlight a different aspect of the remedy, they will all contribute to the knowledge of this remedy. please take time every so often to study a remedy and send us the results and your thoughts. preparing a remedy for presentation to others is an exercise that will help you to become a better homeopath. At the same time others will also benefit from your efforts. There is no right or wrong way of preparing a remedy: as long as you have made sure you have found reliable sources for the information you use.The submitted remedy studies will be published in the language they are sent to the IAVh database.
17
continued on p20