When you belong to a Pakistani household, the approach to healthcare is like navigating through complexity and uncertainty. As a patient, you will encounter a variety of opinions from relatives, friends, small-town doctors, and city doctors. (Yep. Your location dictates the treatment you will receive.) Each of these will be confident in their opinions and suggestions, but the truth is that their suggestions come with ambiguity, risk, and uncertainties, much to the patient’s dismay.
Of course, the situation comes with another pathway: choosing an orthodox yet much-appreciated option- Homeopathy, a deeply rooted practice in orthodox medicine.
So let’s dive into the depths of Homeopathy, an area of medicine that has been able to survive despite the stigma and criticism surrounding it. It was the backbone of Medicine before the mid-nineteenth century, after which a revolution began in the field of Healthcare, transforming the world as we know it today.
Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, homeopathic doctors specialized in various areas such as bone setting, assistance of asthma through homemade remedies, and removal of certain cancers without operations. Interestingly, High German Dr Symon had a display of cancer of the armpit which was 12 and one half ozs weight, which he claimed to have removed without an operation.
The practice of Homeopathy can be defined by the famous aphorism ‘ like cures like’ also referred to as ‘the principle of similars’ which was founded by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843)He believed that if a person suffered from a condition, they should be treated with a medicine that would cause the same symptoms in a healthy person but to a slightly less degree. If someone suffered from malaria, they would be given cinchona or quinine, resulting in a fever of mild degree in a healthy person. However, one idea that was frowned upon by mainstream physicists was Hahnemann's belief that drugs should be given in a dose that only just produced the slightest symptoms of the disease that was being treated. To achieve this, the dilutions were kept at 1:100000000. Furthermore, Hahnemann declared that all chronic diseases were caused by the itch ( scabies)
Despite the initial setbacks, Homeopathy gained recognition in the mainstream health system. The first institution devoted to Homeopathy was the American Institute of Homeopathy, established in 1844. This coupled with legislative support through the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1939 allowed homeopathic medicine to be sold openly on the market. Five Homeopathic hospitals were founded in Britain, which offered treatment for asthma, depression, otitis media, allergic rhinitis (hay fever), headache and migraine, neurotic disorders, non-specific allergy, dermatitis, arthritis, and hypertension. During the 1960s to 1970s, there was a huge jump in the integration and acceptance of Homeopathy in Modern Healthcare.
So is Homeopathy really effective or is it just pseudoscience?
There are a sufficient number of cases that prove the effectiveness of Homeopathy, with many supporters who endorse the practice with blind faith. Perhaps, it is because the system is easy to understand by simple minds, unlike the complexities of modern healthcare systems. The patients might also find it convincing because most of the diseases treated by Homeopathy are temporary, mild, or attack spontaneously, so whenever the smallest improvement was seen, the credit went to Homeopathy.
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