Dr Mohammad Qasim, a Homeopath with a practice of over 40 years at Nizamuddin, Delhi, is writing about his experience in medicine. It is a book still in the works, but I had the good fortune of reading the manuscript. I got to the text with almost no knowledge at all of Homeopathy, and after having read the manuscript once in the past few months, now feel utterly fascinated by how all the drugs in Homeopathy are drawn from nature – from mineral or plant sources.
In the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was this huge rush for finding a cure; and several doctors pointed to the efficacy of ivermectin, when used in early stages of infection. However, this is news that powerful interests appeared to want suppressed. Chief Scientific Officer Soumya Swaminathan of the World Health Organization warned over Twitter that ivermectin was not adequately tested and should not be used to treat Covid-19 infection. The Indian Bar Association served her notice for suppressing useful information in a pandemic, and she promptly deleted the tweet.
Ivermectin has been described as an “enigmatic, multifaceted, ‘wonder’ drug." It was first discovered in soil samples in Japan, and has been used to treat a host of conditions caused by parasites over the past nearly 40 years. In 2015, its discoverers William C Campbell and Satoshi Omura were awarded the Nobel Prize for their research.
As the search for the cure for Covid-19 began, Australian researchers found that Ivermectin works to prevent infection. Yet, this humble drug – obtained from soil, out of patent and priced low, at Rs 115 for a strip of 10 tablets, was never widely adopted." The Hindu" newspaper reported that despite WHO warning against its use, doctors in India were continuing to use it.
In the middle of all this, it was instructive to remember that all traditional forms of healing drew from nature – whether Ayurveda, Tibetan or Chinese systems. Chris Kanthan in a 2015 article, describes how a deliberate strategy by oil magnate John D Rockefeller (1839-1937), America’s first billionaire and monopolist, worked to dislodge nature as the world’s pharmacy.
Around the time that scientists first discovered petrochemicals, it was found that all kinds of chemicals could be manufactured from oil. What was more, these could be patented and sold at high profit. Here was the chance to monopolize oil, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, all at the same time!
In this pandemic, though, more and more people are finding solace in using natural cures and beginning to be suspicious of Big Pharma and Big Tech, both of which have collaborated to hold states to ransom and capture decision-making power across the world.
The increased centralization of control through surveillance – sometimes called ‘contact-tracing’ – and the pressure to undo the conventions and laws that draw from the Nuremberg Code, adopted after World War II to prevent human beings from ever again becoming subjects of evil experimentation, have all eroded in this crisis. It is now assumed that human beings who do not wish to get vaccinated also do not know what is best for themselves. The Nuremberg Code holds informed consent necessary for anyone subject to a medical intervention.
Researchers and medical practitioners with long and illustrious work behind them came out to warn the world of the dangers of mass vaccination, but their voices were stifled; the mass media would not cover them, and YouTube and other channels on the internet were quickly removing interviews with such doctors. Vernon Coleman, who had long served in the National Health Service of the UK, also listed the problems.
Yet, that appears not to make a difference, although the counter-narrative to the vaccine too now has a home in websites like Bitchute and Rumble. Governments across the world continue to treat the viral outbreak as a law and order problem, not a medical one.
It is in times like these that reading Dr Qasim’s manuscript offered insight and comfort – there were reports that arsenicum album, a drug drawn from arsenic that is renowned for being poisonous, was an antidote to the virus. What is interesting to note, though, is that Homeopathy works differently – even when the disease might manifest with similar symptoms in two different people, the Homeopath will also study the character and personality of the patient, and attempt to match the remedy to the profile of the patient.
Gold, silver, the root, bark and stems of plants, even infected fluid drawn from a blister, serve as medicine in the Homeopathic system
There is thus no standard remedy according to disease, because a reading of the personality of the patient too is important in prescribing the medication to be followed. Homeopathy is also known as a system of experimentation – at different phases of the disease, different remedies are used.
Gold, silver, the root, bark and stems of plants, even the infected fluid drawn from a blister – all these serve as medicine in the Homeopathic system, first codified by German doctor Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Hahnemann lived before the invention of the advanced microscope, but he surmised that there was living material in air that was causing sickness – he called that “miasma”. He started conducting experiments on himself and on family and friends who trusted him.
Hearing that the bark of a certain tree would cure malaria, he tried it on himself and discovered that by ingesting the bark, he would get the symptoms of malaria. From that, he proposed what has come to be called the foundational principle of Homeopathy – ‘Like cures like’. A substance that induces the symptoms in a healthy body could cure the disease. So what is unique about Homeopathy is that the experiments are conducted on healthy people, not sick ones.
One time, when travelling in a horse carriage with some medicine, he noted that the potency of the medicine increased substantially after the journey – that led to what is now termed “potentization” in Homeopathy. And that is just giving the medicines a good shake, so that the potency increases.
Homeopathy encourages one to take charge, to learn about oneself and to examine the poisons in nature for those too are remedies for disease. The snake venom, for instance, is diluted for use as the antidote to snakebite.
“If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool,” said Hippocrates. Homeopathy allows you a better chance to be your own doctor than “allopathy” – that term too was first used by Hahnemann; “allo” means other, and Hahnemann was indicating a system of medicine that worked differently from the one he recommended.
Gold, silver, the root, bark and stems of plants, even the infected fluid drawn from a blister – all these serve as medicine in the Homeopathic system, first codified by German doctor Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Hahnemann lived before the invention of the advanced microscope, but he surmised that there was living material in air that was causing sickness – he called that “miasma”. He started conducting experiments on himself and on family and friends who trusted him.
Hearing that the bark of a certain tree would cure malaria, he tried it on himself and discovered that by ingesting the bark, he would get the symptoms of malaria. From that, he proposed what has come to be called the foundational principle of Homeopathy – ‘Like cures like’. A substance that induces the symptoms in a healthy body could cure the disease. So what is unique about Homeopathy is that the experiments are conducted on healthy people, not sick ones.
One time, when travelling in a horse carriage with some medicine, he noted that the potency of the medicine increased substantially after the journey – that led to what is now termed “potentization” in Homeopathy. And that is just giving the medicines a good shake, so that the potency increases.
Homeopathy encourages one to take charge, to learn about oneself and to examine the poisons in nature for those too are remedies for disease. The snake venom, for instance, is diluted for use as the antidote to snakebite.
“If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool,” said Hippocrates. Homeopathy allows you a better chance to be your own doctor than “allopathy” – that term too was first used by Hahnemann; “allo” means other, and Hahnemann was indicating a system of medicine that worked differently from the one he recommended.
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*Freelance journalist based in Pune
*Freelance journalist based in Pune
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