Vet Geoff Johnsonlooks at thedevelopment ofhomeopathy and theparallels it has wÍth thepioneering advancesthat have been madein modern medicine.TWo hundred vears ago

I hor"oputhy pre-dateo theI cuttinq-edge advances oí

modern medicine. These conceptsare individualised medicine, theability of emotional distress to causeserious chronic disease, like treats like,epigenetics and the Vital Force.

On the 2 November 2017 the RoyalCollege of Veterinary Surgeons councilissued a statement asserting thathomeopathy is not based on "soundscientifi c principles'l This demonstratesthat the council does not understandwhat science is, namely: observationof phenomena; hypothesis; predicting;testing, experimentation and datagathering; refi nement and alteration;expansion or rejection; and theory.íThis is exactly how the principles ofhomeopathy were realised, and whyit expanded to become according toWHO the second most widely used

medicine in the world.2t is not "science" to say that

phenomena that do not fit theaccepted paradigm should be rejected;that is anti-science and stifles progress.

We do not actually understandmost of our universe. Consider basicquestions such as why do we sleep,how do animals migrate, how doparacetamol and many anaestheticswork, and how did life begin? We havetheories but are short on answers. Wedon't know what makes up B0% of thematter of the universe - the so ca leddark matter. After spending trillions ofdollars we may be beginning to get a

glimmer of how the most obvious thingin the world works, namely gravity.

It is ridiculous to say, "lt is notsound science because we don'tknow honr it works." The fact that"science" has yet to understand themechanism of homeopathy is likelyto be due to two things: homeopathyacks the billion-do lar profits ofthe pharmaceutical industry forresearch, and it works by an advancedmechanism, as yet undetectable by 21st

century homo sapiens.To quote Brian Cox: "l'm comfortable

with the unknown - that's the pointof science. There are places out there,billions of places out there, that weknow nothing about. The fact thatwe know nothing about them excitesme, and I want to go out and find out

about them. That's what science is. SoIthink if you're not comfortable withthe unknown, then it's difficult to bea scientist. I don't need answers toeverything. I want to have answers tofind."

The establishment has routinelylJrneo or those who go againstaccepted dogma. Copernicus andDarwin are obvious examples. Anotheris Einstein who turned the Victorianmaterialist universe on its head. His

concepts were so revolutionary thatr;ch of rhe sciertific con,nJn tyinitia ly rejected them as beingtoo outlandish. lhe conpari:orof Einstein with Hahnemann, thefounder of homeopathy, is totally valid.Hahnemann was probab y the mostextraordinary genius in the historyof medicine, and his ideas were farahead of his time; also in many areasoutside of homeopathy, such as in thecompassionate treatment of the insane.His homeopathic theory was originaland revolutionary.

Homeopaths are criticised forreturning to the work of a man from200 years aqo, but physicists delightir studying I insleir. Geniuses are i'short supp y. Fortunately there are a

few working currently in homeopathy,which has enabled it to undergo greatadvances in the ast 30 years.

The five homeopathic conc..ptswere initially ridiculed, but subsequently

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all ofthem except one are nowaccepted by modern medicine, whichhas only caught up with two of them inthe |ast few years.

Let us look at homeoPathicprinciples in the lBth and lgth centuries.

lndividualised rnedicine

This is a medical procedure thatseparates patients into specific geneticgroups. N/edical decisions, practices,interventions and products are thentailored to the individual patient, basedon their predicted response to or risk

of disease. To quote Professor PeterJohnson from Cancer Research UK:"Personalised medicine is the mostexciting change in cancer treatmentsince chemotherapy."

Unlike "conventional" medicine fromthe lSth to the end ofthe 20th century,homeopathy was always about theindividual. There is no such thing as a

homeopathic remedy to treat chronicarthritis in a dog. Each individual dogmay require a different remedy. Thechoice will be based on the exactobjective symptoms, character,behaviour, phenotype and a detailedhistory. This why homeopathy is notsuited to unsophisticated double blindtrials; future conventiona medicinewon't be either.

Serious chronic disease is causedby mental stÍessIt has been accepted for a few yearsin human med c'ne ihat srress is an

important factor in the developmentof chronic disease, and recently theveterinary world has begun to comeon board. However, in 2010 theVeterrnary Ilmes published a case otosteosarcoma successfu lly treated

using homeopathy, leading to annoyedletters being sent by some vetswondering why the character of thedog and the stresses it had experiencedwere relevant. One author describedthe possibility of homesickness causingosteosarcoma as "farcical". At thattime few people knew about AdverseChildhood Experiences (ACE). Thesedemonstrate an association of stresses

experienced as a child with healthproblems when an adult. This has beena notable landmark in epidemiologicalresearch, and has recently producedmore than 50 scientific articlesand 100 conference and workshoPpresentations 3,4'5

Hahnemann realised very earlY

on in his homeopathic practice thatunderstanding mental stress andemotional history was crucia in thechoice of remedy. There are no drugsin conventiona practice that takeinto account the physica pathologytogether rnrith the menta andemotional state,',.','hlcl- 'r-ay De whythis area iras ':e :- pJor Y s1P ored bY

modern r':a : '-ÉIt i: :: . r,,s :o a vet taking a

hor-r-:::-::- : consuLtation that:- -: : ,r: ailected bY sPecific

=-- .-. :'al stresses, and subsequently-i-. = lp disease in exact Y the same. .. as 'J.tans. t he r pre-, ,ot ort

'eflect this. All remedies treat mentaand emotiona symptoms as we I

as physical. lt is only recently thatmainstream science has accepted thatanimals experience emotions.6' 7 AnimaL

emotions were never mentioned in mysix years' studying veterinary medicineat Cambridge.

Like treats likelhis rad actually beer a orteor i

medicine for centuries, referred to byHippocrates and Paracelsus.s'e HoweverHahnemann, through exPeriment andobservation, was the first to developa system that reliably employed theprinciple. ln 1790 he grasped the law ofLike Treats Like, or the Law of Similars,when he observed that the symPtomsproduced by eating cinchona bark(containing quinine) were very similarto the symptoms of malaria. Hepostulated that this was likely to be whyquinine could successfully treat malaria.He then conducted his "Provings"(e{pe"ime.Lsr on'nedicines. Cro;ps ofhealthy volunteers took many different

ïhe establishrnent hasroutinely turneC cnthose who go againstaccepted dognraCopernicus and Darwinare obvious examples.Another is Einstein whoturned the Victorianmaterialist universe onits head.

l..lay 2C18'ïhe Facult;, of Honrcopatiy

medicines and recorded the mentaland physical symptoms theyexperienced with each. These drugswere then given to patients displayinga similar symptom picture. Thesewere the first systematic drug trialsperformed in the history of Wesrernmedicine. Nine years later, againthrough a process of observalion,Edward Jenner proposed vaccinaiion.

While the principle is the same,homeopathy is only broadly similarto vaccination. Jenner used doses ofa sinilar disease rco,t

1

smallpox. Hahnemann used medicineswhich caused specific symproms inhealthy humans to preveni and treatdiseases with a similar symptom picture

Epigenetics and miasms

Epigenetics is the recent ground-breaking study oÍ changes in organismscaused by modification oígeneexpression, raiher than alterationof the genetic code itself, and hastransformed the way we think aboutgenomes. Darwin wrote in On theOrigin of Specles (1859) that speciesarise and develop through the naturalselection of small inherited variationsthat increase the individual's abilityto compete, survive and reproduce.Previously in I801, Jean-Baptiste Lamarkhad proposed his theory of the inheritanceof acquired characteristics, which waslater rejected. i\lodern observation andaccurate recording has revealed that inprinciple Lamark had a point. Theenvironment (e.9. exposure to toxinsor chronic stress) can cause epigeneticchanges, and these changes can beinherited, at least for a few generations.Stress and disease in the mother orfather impacts the health of theiroffspring before they are even conceived.

ln one study, female rats wereexposed to a fungicide (vinclozolin) andit was found that epigenetic changesLhat occurred in the frrst generaiionmale offspring were faithfully passed onthrough at least four generations.ío

Scientists now think epigeneticscan play a role in the development ofcancer. Uncontrolled cellular growthcan result from epigenetic changethat silences a tumor suppressor gene.Another example is an epigeneticchange that "turns off" genes that helprepair damaged DNA, leading to anincrease in DN,\Qamage, which in turn

-: :a:es CanCer riSk11,12

c sum up: an individual's qene

=,rression, health and susceptibi ity.: Cisease are changed by adverse:cnditions in the environment andtnese changes can be passed to

,b eo-er t gelerdtiorr i^ a ror-Darwinian manner.

Epigenetics, or the equivalentn homeopathy, N/iasm theory, waslu y understood by Hahnemann ande ucidated in his opus Chrontc Drsease,published in 1828. À,4iasm theory wasan attempt to find a cure (as opposedto simp y suppressing symptoms usingLfe-long medication). Hahnemann

came to his theory by spending yearsporing over his patients'case files. Heobserved many did well with acuteproblems but returned ill with chronicailments. He discovered by detai edhistory taking and observation that thediseases -o which his patierr: weresusceptible, and the way each individuaexpressed disease, was determinedby the iilnesses that their parents andgrandparents had suffered, especial yiÍ these il nesses were suppressed bymedication. Using these observationshe developed a method of treatingchronic disease. The story is a long one- Chronic Drsease is 1,600 pages iongbut it was epigenetics 200 years aheadoÍ its time.

The Vital Force

Homeopathy uses so utions which havebeen serially diluted one in a hundredmany times and vigorously shaken ateach stage. This means that in mostremedies there is none of the originalmateria substance left. Homeopaths-ndersrand t he>e nedicines \o^[ainan energetic pattern of the originalsubstance. Homeopathy states that inall iving organisms the ultimate controlof the functioning of the body andmind, including the immune system,iies with a dynamic energetic forcecalled the Vital Force. To interact bestwith this force, an energetic medicineis preferabie. The material body andall its chemical functions are simp ythe hardware. The Vita Force is thesoftware, and is not detectable byearly 2lst century science. However,in one form or another this force hasbee^ assuned ro p'ist o) eve,y ra(p orhumans as far back in history as we candetermine, and is variously called the

q spi111, astral and other bodies, soul,p':ra, ka, hun, atman and others.

pledict that the greatest scientificc s.o',.,ery of the 2lst century wil be the\rila Force lln;onder if homeopathy andl-lahnemann wi I be acknowledged asthe irst to realise the action of this forceln disease and cure? Somehow I doubtit, as a though all the other cutting edgetheories of Hahnemann have beencompletely vindicated by, and are centralto, the most modern developments inmedicine, the attacks on homeopathyby the so called sceptics continue. Thatis unsound science.

GeoffJohnsonN/B i\lA IVRCVS VetFF-Hom PCH

References

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1. The Scientific 1\4ethod Hypothesis, Predictiona n d T-.st www.sc i e nt u s.o rq /5c ie n celt4 et h o d.html

2. Trerney Ll\4, 2003. Current À,4edical Diagnosis&Treatment Revised Appleton & Lange. Page1741

3. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)

Study.cdc.gov. Atlanta, Georgia: Centers forDisease Control and Prevention, NationalCenter for lnjury Prevention and Control,Division olViolence Prevention. N4ay 2014.

4. Stevens, Jane Ellen (B October 2012). TheAdverse Childhood Experiences Study - theLargest Public Health Study You Never HeardOl The Huffington Post

5. Felitti, Vincent i;Anda, Roberr F; et al.(lt4ay l99B). Relationship of Childhood Abuseand Household Dysíunction to I\,4any of theLeading Causes of Death in Adults: TheAdverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.American Journal of Preventive À,4edicine.1414) )45-258

6. Animal Emotions: Exploring PassionateNatures: fu1arc Bekoff BioScience, Volume 50,lssue 10 Pages B6l 870

7 Yes, Animals Have Feeling, JonathanBalcombe, Humane Society lnstitute forScience and Policy December 10,2014

8. www.zephyrus.co-uk/paracelsus.html9. Hippocrates' Oath and Asclepius'Snake:The

Birth oí a N,4edicai Profession p15 T. A.Cavanaugh

10. EpigeneticTransgenerational lnheritance ofVinclozolin lnduced lvlouse Adult OnsetDisease and Associated Sperm EpigenomeBiomarkers, Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna

11. Cancer Epigenetics: From lVechanism toTherapy, N.4ark Dawson Tony Kouzaride

12. Carcinogenesis, Epigenetics in Cancer,Shikhar Sharma.