Double duplo 1 Dana Ullman's The Present Status of Homeopathy Internationally 2 Exercise 13 Ranunculus bulbosus (ran-b.)

The Present Status of Homeopathy Internationally

By Dana Ullman MPH
Since its inception 200 years ago, homeopathy has attracted support from European royalty, the educated elite, and leading artists. It was thus no surprise that the most expensive painting ever sold was that of a portrait of a homeopathic physician, Dr. Gachet, drawn by her personal friend and patient, Vincent Van Gogh. Although homeopaths use exceedingly small doses of medicines, it seems that people greatly value portraits of them. In this case, the portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for $82.5 million.¹
Homeopathy is considerably more popular abroad than it is in the United States. Homeopathy's popularity in Europe and Asia is particularly impressive.

The Explosion of Homeopathy in Europe

According to recent surveys in France, an astounding 40% of the French public have used homeopathic medicines, and 39% of French physicians have prescribed them.² At least six French medical schools offer courses leading to a degree in homeopathy, and homeopathy is taught in all pharmacy schools and in four veterinary schools.³
In a prominent French news magazine President Francois Mitterand and six medical school deans called for more research on homeopathy, and the author of this article editorialized, "It is a fact that homeopathy obtains results, sometimes spectacular results."⁴
One further bit of evidence for the growing acceptance of homeopathic medicines as a household items in France is that the most popular cold and flu medicine is not Contact or any other conventional drug; it is a homeopathic remedy.⁵
Homeopathy is not as popular in England as it is in France, but according to an article in the British Medical Journal, 42% of British physicians surveyed refer patients to homeopathic physicians.⁶ Another survey of British physicians discovered that 80% of recent graduates wanted training in either homeopathy, acupuncture, or hypnosis.⁷
The Scots hate to be overshadowed by the English, and this is true in homeopathy too. According to The Times of London, homeopathy is now the fastest growing alternative therapy in Scotland. The number of Scots who have used homeopathic medicines have more than doubled from 1985 to 1990, increasing from 5% to 11%. Similarly, in 1985 23% of those Scots interviewed in 1985 said they would "seriously consider" going to a homeopath, and in 1990 this figure grew to 40%.⁸
Homeopathic medicine is very popular in Germany as well. One respected author estimated that 20% of German physicians use homeopathic medicines occasionally.⁹ At present, the most popular hay fever remedy in Germany is a homeopathic medicine, and other homeopathic medicines for the common cold, sore throats, and circulatory problems are in the top ten of their respective categories.¹⁰
To further aid the growth of homeopathy, the late President of Germany, Karl Karstens, and his wife, Dr. Veronica Carstens, who is a medical doctor and a homeopathic physician, recently started a homeopathic research foundation.¹¹ Numerous new research efforts in Germany and throughout Europe have begun in the past couple of years.
It is also interesting to note that homeopathy is gaining such respect in medical and business circles that one of the leading German homeopathic manufacturers is owned by the same company that owns the BMW car company.
In addition to homeopathy's popularity in France, England, Scotland, and Germany, it is also very popular in The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Greece.

Homeopathy Goes Mainstream in India

Despite homeopathy's impressive popularity in Europe, it is even more popular in India. Presently, there are over 100,000 homeopathic doctors and over 100 four- and five-year homeopathic medical colleges in this country. Considering how many more trained homeopaths there are in India compared with the U.S., perhaps one day India will send a Peace Corps team of homeopathic physicians to America.
Homeopathy has achieved such respect that in 1987 the government established homeopathic drug detox clinics in six different police stations in New Delhi. A recent conference in India which described impressive results in the homeopathic treatment of drug addiction received accolades from India's Minister of Health and Family Welfare, the Finance Minister, and the Chief Justice.¹² In addition to the Indian government's support of homeopathic drug detox clinics, they have also supported various research projects and homeopathic hospitals and clinics.
Even Mother Teresa, who for many decades has served India's poorest citizens with medical care, has added homeopathic care to the services offered at her missions. Mother Teresa has a special interest in homeopathic medicine because of its effectiveness and low cost.
At present, four charitable homeopathic dispensories are run under the guidance of the Mother's Missionaries of Charity. One of these dispensories primarily provides homeopathic medicines to poor and sick children in Calcutta, while the other three provide homeopathic medicines to anyone who needs them. Considering the serious health problems that poor people in India experience, it is truly miraculous that homeopathic medicines are so effective as the primary method of treatment for many children and many adults.
Mother Teresa opened her first charitable homeopathic dispensory in Calcutta in 1950. She is known to prescribe homeopathic medicines herself sometimes.
Dr. (Sister) M. Gomes, a physician who has worked at the Mother's Mission in Calcutta since 1945, notes that one of the obstacles to the spread of homeopathy in the Mother's work is inadequate funding for homeopathic hospitals.

Homeopathic Peristroika in the Soviet Union ¹³

Homeopathy is even relatively popular in the Soviet Union. Although there are only about 500 homeopathic physicians, they are popular enough that most of them charge for their services. Since most Russians receive free conventional medical care, it is indeed a tribute to homeopathy that a growing number of Russian citizens are paying for homeopathic care.
Because Russian homeopaths charge for their services, they have become part of the new entrepreneurial "peristroika" that is presently occurring.
Even Izvestia recently published a series of articles on homeopathy in which they reported that a homeopathic clinic established for factory workers in 1984 resulted in a 10.1% decrease in days lost due to sickness. The series of articles concluded with an editorial that advocated further support for it from the Ministry of Health.
As a further sign of homeopathy's growing acceptance, President Gorbachev awarded a medal to Dr. Demyan Popov for his work in popularizing homeopathy in the USSR.
Homeopathy is also relatively popular throughout South America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. Homeopathy has become a bit of a legend in Argentina because its greatest hero in the 19th century, General San Martin, was known to carry a homeopathic medicine kit when he travelled.
Homeopathy is also quite popular in Mexico there are five homeopathic medical colleges, including two in Mexico City.

Homeopathy in America

At the turn of the century there were over 20 homeopathic medical schools in America, including Boston University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and Hahnemann College in Philadelphia. There were also over 100 homeopathic hospitals and over 1,000 homeopathic pharmacies. In 1900 homeopathy was more popular in America than anywhere else in the world.¹⁴
However, as the result of a concerted effort by the American Medical Association and the drug companies, homeopathy went into a sharp decline. By the 1950s there were less than 200 homeopathic physicians.
Although homeopathy in America is presently lagging behind the rest of the world, Americans hate being second to anybody. Lucky for us all, homeopathy is growing at an extraordinary rate. According to the F.D.A., sales of homeopathic medicines grew by 1,000% from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.¹⁵ According to the Washington Post, the number of physicians in the United States who specialize in homeopathy doubled from 1980 to 1982.¹⁶
In the past two years homeopathy has received more media coverage than it has in the past 50 years. More research on homeopathy has also stimulated its growth, and more and more new books have been published that have updated old homeopathic knowledge.
Homeopathy may be more popular in other countries, but because America is just waking up to homeopathy's impressive healing potential, we can all expect a tremendous resurgence of this marvelous healing art and science.

REFERENCES

¹Suzanne Muchnic, "Van Gogh Painting Sells at Record $82.5 Million," Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1990.
²F. Bouchayer, "Alternative Medicines: A General Approach to the French Situation," Complementary Medical Research, May, 1990, 4(2)4-8.
³Poll I.F.O.P., February, 1989.
⁴"Medecines douches: La revanche de l'homeopathie," Le Nouvel Observateur, April 12, 1985, 36-41.
⁵"Herbal and Homoeopathic Remedies: Enhanced Status for Alternative Medicines," OTC News and Market Report, July, 1990.
⁶Richard Wharton and George Lewith, "Complementary Medicine and the General Practitioner," British Medicine Journal, 292, June 7, 1986, 1498-1500.
⁷David Taylor Reilly, "Young Doctors' Views on Alternative Medicine," British Medical Journal, 287, July 30, 1983, 337-339.
⁸"Take a Little of What Ails You," The Times, November 13, 1989.
⁹Lynn Payer, Medicine and Culture, New York: Holt, 1988.
¹⁰"Herbal and Homoeopathic Remedies."
¹¹Berlin Journal on Research in Homoeopathy, Universitatsklinikum Steglitz, 1000 Berlin, Germany.
¹²"National Congress on Homoeopathy and Drug Abuse," New Delhi, India, Sponsored by the Foundation for Medical Research and Education and the Dehli Police Foundation for Correction, Deaddiction and Rehabilitation, March 16-18, 1990.
¹³"A First for Homoeopathy in USSR," Homoeopathy Today, Winter, 1987-88, 17-20. Also, a personal report from Yuri Sidorenko.
¹⁴Dana Ullman, Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century, Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1988.
¹⁵"Riding the Coattails of Homeopathy," FDA Consumer, March, 1985, 31.
¹⁶Ann Chase, "Options: Homeopathy," Washington Post, April 28, 1983, 31.

Exercise 13 Ranunculus bulbosus (ran-b.)

It is famous for its affections of the chest wall and also in delirium tremens. There are stitching, stabbing and shooting pains in different parts of the body, especially in the chest. Sore, bruised feeling in chest which is aggravated by touch, motion, and turning the body. Pains are so severe that they bring tears. There is also feeling of coldness, esp. externally in the chest, which may occur when walking in the open air. Sometimes feels as if there are cold wet clothes upon the chest. Because of the above symptoms it is a good remedy for post-herpetic neuralgia. One of the most important modalities is worse in wet, stormy weather. It is also a good remedy to remove the bad effects of alcohol, and also symptoms of delirium tremens such as spasmodic hiccough and epileptiform attacks.

Ranunculus bulbosus (ran-b.)

Exercise 13 - EH Analysis
In the following graph, taken from the Encyclopedia Homeopathica (EH) software analysis, each symptom included in the search is represented by a different color. The length of the bar for a particular symptom (represented by a color), indicates how many times this symptom was mentioned in the materia medica for that remedy.
You will notice that, for the most part, only characteristic symptoms were chosen. This allows for easy differentiation of the correct remedy. The first remedy on the left is the correct remedy and the answer to the exercise. Usually, it has the longest bar of the graph, and comprehensively covers all the symptoms.
The EH screenshot is followed by a list of the RADAR Keynotes of that remedy, and a link to a query file that users may download and install into their own EH program in order to duplicate the analysis.

 

RADAR Keynotes for Ranunculus bulbosus

* Rheumatic complaints. Skin conditions. Affections of nerves.
MIND:
- Intellectual properness, wants to do everything the way they find it
'decently', even sex. Rigid.
- Closed people. Careful.
- Respectful. Want to be treated with respect and do this also with you.
- Aversion to be touched.
- Irritable, easily offended, censorious, discontented.
- Aversion to responsibility, no ambition, out of a sense of weakness.
Their usual tasks become heavy. A feeling of inability.
- Anxiety about health, trifles. Fear of ghosts.
- Concentration difficult. Complaints from thinking.
- Alcoholism.
GENERALITIES:
- < COLD AND WET WEATHER, CHANGE OF WEATHER,
COLD AIR, DRAFT.
- < Touch, evening, left side.
- Pain is spots, circumscribed (Kali-bi). Cold spots.
- Sudden weakness.
FOOD AND DRINKS:
- < ALCOHOL.
HEAD:
- Rheumatic or neuralgic headache, < right side, change of temperature
cold and wet weather, alcohol.
- Headache with dullness.
- Pain over left eye with intercostal neuralgia.
EYE:
- Photophobia.
- Herpes around eyes. Herpes, vesicles on cornea.
NOSE:
- Hayfever.
FACE:
- Herpetic eruptions.
STOMACH:
- Spasmodic hiccough after alcoholic drinks.
ABDOMEN:
- Pain in right or left hypochondrium on inspiration, touch.
- Pain from right hypochondrium to back.
CHEST:
- Pleurisy.
- INTERCOSTAL OR NEURALGIC PAIN: < LEFT SIDE,
MOTION, inspiration, LYING ON PAINFUL SIDE, touch, cold,
change of weather.
- Pain or coldness in small spots.
- EXTERNAL COLD SENSATION, of sternum.
Cold sensation internally, < walking in open air, inspiring cold air.
- Herpes zoster < left side.
BACK:
- PAIN ALONG LOWER MARGIN OF LEFT SCAPULA extending to chest.
- Rheumatic pain between shoulderblades, < writing, sewing.
- Back pains, sciatica.
- PAIN AND STIFFNESS OF THE CERVICAL REGION (Cimic,
Rhus-t), ext. to head.
- Burning or coldness in small spots.
- Herpes zoster.
EXTREMITIES:
- RHEUMATIC PAINS with stiffness < cold and wet weather, change
of weather or temperature, touch, motion, coldness.
- Eruptions in the palms and on fingers.
SKIN:
- HERPES ZOSTER with neuralgia, < wet weather, touch.
- Deep blue vesicular eruptions with hard scabs.
- Violent burning and itching.
- Callous and horny skin. Sensitive corns.
DD: Bry, Calc, Dulc, Kali-c, Mez, Rhod, Rhus-t.
 

EH Query File

Here is the EH Query file for you to install in your own program.

1. To download the file, right click on this link and choose "Save File As", "Save Link As", or "Save Target As", depending on your browser.
2. Many browsers will change the file extension to .htm when you download. Be sure that the file name ends with .qry. If your browser has changed the extension, change it back to .qry
3. Open EH, go to the Find Window (F4) and chose the Search pull down menu. Select Recall the Query.
4. Double click on the query file you would like to open. You will then find the same query that was used to create the analysis screenshot for that remedy.
5. To view the analysis in EH, hit the function key (F8) and you will see the analysis for that query.
Note: EH owners who download these queries may get different results, based on the database of books they own. In particular, the Vermeulen books seem to be of great help in answering these exercises.