Book Review

[Charlotte Gilruth]

Dear Friends,
I have just finished this review, which I am submitting to Homeopathy Today
for publication.

Warm regards,
Charlotte Gilruth
Homoeopathy and the Irish Potato Famine, by Francis Treuherz. (London: The
Samuel Press, 1995.)
A Reflective Review with Historical Perspectives

Reviewed by Charlotte Gilruth, CCH, RSHom(NA)
It is heartening to see how the homeopathic community has rallied since the
September 11 disasters. Many practitioners have wondered how they can be of
service in the resulting trauma, and in the event of further terrorism of
any kind. They are studying the principles of applying homeopathy in
epidemics and they are networking and organizing for a focused response.
For example, the National Center for Homeopathy has added a new place to its
web site (www.homeopathic.org), ³Homeopathy Responding to Crisis², exploring
the role that homeopathy can take in addressing natural disasters, terrorism
and epidemics. A committee has been formed to research the genus
epidemicus, or most specific remedies indicated for any epidemic, which will
then be posted for public access, and practitioners are enlisting in an
emergency response team, ready to travel to disaster sites and volunteer
their help.

Yet the situation raises many questions as well. While it is understandable
that there would be alarm at the anthrax scares and the future attacks they
imply, it is also valuable to look more closely at the underlying dynamics
to keep a sense of proportion. Some colleagues point out that the line is
fine between being prepared and helping a fearsome possibility manifest by
giving it undue attention. The efficacy of prayer has been proven,1 and
focusing intensively on anything, whether a worst case scenario or an ideal
possibility, is effectively a prayer for that outcome, like placing an order
with the universe. James Redfield quotes studies ³indicating that our
general assumptions act on the world just like our more conscious intentions
or prayers.²2 Homeopaths are familiar with the workings of the Law of
Similars; it is also crucial to become aware of other universal laws. As
J.T. Kent said,
³That which we see about us is only the world of ends, but the world of
cause is invisible. It is possible that we may perceive the innermost and
it is important also that man may know and look from within upon all
things in the physical world, instead of starting in the physical world and
attempting to look upon things in the immaterial world. He will then
account for law and perceive the operation of law. It is in the realm of
cause that we must look for primaries in the study of Homeopathy.²3

Needed now more than ever, wisdom and measured action can flow from such a
centered perspective.
Time for Homeopaths to Mobilize in Epidemics

Organized response to epidemics is long overdue, even if no bioterrorism had
ever happened. Drug-resistant strains of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and
malaria are already a concern. The World Health Organization issued a press
release on September 11 of 2001 saying, ³The emergence and spread of
antimicrobial resistance increasingly threatens the success of infectious
disease treatment and prevention in the 21st century.²4 Because homeopathy
does not work by killing microbes, but rather through the tuning of the
vital force, its effectiveness is not diminished by the spread of
drug-resistant ³super germs². Besides, conventional medicine has little to
offer in the treatment of viral diseases, whereas homeopathy can be helpful
through safely strengthening the innate defenses, just as it does in
bacterial illness. In a 1985 study, ten homeopathic remedies were tested on
viruses that infect chicken embryos. Eight of the the medicines curbed
virus growth by 50 to 100 per cent.5

Homeopathy is poised to prove itself again as it did in the epidemics of the
1800s and early 1900s. In outbreaks of cholera, typhus, yellow fever,
malaria, pneumonia, diphtheria, smallpox, dysentery and diarrhea, influenza,
measles, and scarlet fever, the mortality rate of those treated
homeopathically was impressive: from one-eighth to one-half that of
patients treated with conventional medicine. 6

Homeopaths also had significant success in giving remedies to prevent
infection in some epidemics, including scarlet fever, smallpox, influenza,
diphtheria, and cholera. Several examples from smallpox epidemics
illustrate the efficacy of homeoprophylaxis. In a paper read at a 1907
meeting of the American Institute of Homeopathy by Dr. Charles Eaton
reported on the results his Iowa colleagues achieved with homeopathic
³vaccines² in a smallpox epidemic: Of the 2,806 people protected by the
homeopathic remedy, 547 were definitely exposed to smallpox, but only 14
were subsequently infected--a 97 percent effectiveness rate.7 Dr. W.L.
Bonnell, in a similar report before the International Hahnemannian
Association in 1943, describing his experiences with another smallpox
epidemic and ³internal vaccination², said, ³Not one case receiving
homeopathic care died, while the "old school" doctors lost twenty percent of
their cases. I gave about three hundred internal vaccinations [he used two
different remedies].... All of these people, exposed daily, [including
Œmothers who slept with their children while they had smallpox in its
severest form¹] were immune.²*8 One of the remedies to prevent smallpox
was given to ³great numbers² at a free clinic, another doctor stated, and
³as far as ascertained, no case of small-pox has occurred amongst those who
had taken it.² He went on to describe a surprising bonus: none of the
children who had taken the remedy were afterwards known to have contracted
whooping-cough!9

Of cholera, John H. Clarke said its ³appalling feature...is the suddenness
of its attack and the awful rapidity of its course. If efficient treatment
is not put in force at once, the patient may be beyond help before the
doctor arrives.²10 A person could seem well on going to bed at night and
be dead in the morning. ³Clergymen, missionaries, and district visitors²
prevented cholera from taking hold by distributing thousands of doses of
homeopathic Camphor, along with printed instructions. Rev. Lowder said of
Camphor in the London epidemic of 1866, ³When this was used in time, on the
very first symptoms of the attack, it seldom failed to arrest the disease;
of this we had numberless proofs....²11

Such outstanding success led to the conversion of many former skeptics, even
allopaths. One such physician, Dr. William H. Holcombe of New Orleans,
remained dubious, despite impressive cures from his first experiments with
homeopathy, such as the overnight recovery of one of his cholera patients.
Even so, he said, ³...it was two long years of doubting and blundering
before I was willing to own myself a homoeopathist...we really divest
ourselves very slowly of lifelong prejudices and errors.²12

Though immensely popular for many decades, homeopathy fell into a period of
dormancy through a complexity of influences. Happily, homeopathy is in
vigorous resurgence now all over the world, as it proves it can offer
healing and relief when the usual methods don¹t work. Practitioners should
be preparing now to step into service as opportunities arise, as they most
certainly will.

In this regard, Francis Treuherz¹s book, Homoeopathy in the Irish Potato
Famine is instructive and inspirational. (Julian Winston has already
published his review of this book in a 1996 issue of Homeopathy Today;
another review seems timely now.) While the book contains Benoit Mure¹s
proving of rotten potato (Solanum tuberosum aegrotans), and an account by
Dr. Joseph Kidd of ³The Last Illness of Lord Beaconsfield² (Benjamin
Disraeli, prime minister of England), of most interest to me was the account
of Dr. Kidd, as an inexperienced 25-year-old homeopath, volunteering his
services in the area of Ireland most devastated by the epidemics of typhus
and ³continued² fevers and dysentery following the potato famine of 1847.

Starvation and Disease Strike Ireland

The onslaught of the famine was sudden and brutal: ³the food of millions
was destroyed in the course of a very few days.² A priest who had passed
through the countryside on July 27 reported that the potato crop ³bloomed in
the luxuriance of an abundant harvest,² yet when he returned on August 3, he
³beheld one wide waste of putrefying vegetation. In many places the
wretched people were seated on the fences of their decaying gardens,
wringing their hands, and wailing bitterly at the destruction that had left
them foodless.²

As potatoes were the staple food for most of the people, starvation quickly
ensued. People sold their clothes for money to buy food, which soon ran
out, and as the cold weather came on, the weakened populace was viciously
attacked by epidemics of typhus, continued fever and dysentery. Conditions
were the most miserable imaginable: the healthy, sick and dying, even
corpses, were crowded together in tiny, filthy, underheated and smoky hovels
with cold dirt floors. Some of the dead bodies were left to rot outside the
huts, as the ill inhabitants had no strength to deal with them. The death
rate was so high that coffins with sliding bottoms were constructed, so that
they could be reused again and again. Horse carts carried loads of corpses
to be buried in mass graves. One pit contained almost 500 bodies before it
was covered over. It was common to encounter dead people along the sides of
roads.

A Field to Test Homoeopathy

In March of 1847, accounts started appearing in journals of the extreme
suffering in Ireland. Joseph Kidd, a native of Ireland practicing as a
physician in England, read these stories ³until the whole thing seemed a
mass of exaggeration, drawing the crowding horrors of all other centuries
into one hapless period and locality.² He determined that such a situation
would be an ideal one to test the efficacy of homeopathy, ³in the full
confidence that at all times Homoeopathy wants nothing but a field in which
it may be tested, to prove triumphant.²

Accordingly, he volunteered his services in the worst-affected counties,
planning to stay as long as he was physically able. Though he had read
about the horrors in store for him in Ireland, he was still unprepared for
the ³ghastly sights² encountered at every turn, especially the ³half-naked
and emaciated forms with starvation depicted on their wild and haggard
faces,² who swarmed around the soup kitchen waiting for their meager
allotment of porridge, the sole daily sustenance for most.

Seeing right away the impossibility of an organized schedule, he simply set
off across the countryside, visiting those he remembered from his first trip
through as being most in need. By the end of a week, the number of patients
being treated reached nearly a hundred; Joseph Kidd kept close track of all
of them in his notebook. He was out visiting the afflicted for about seven
to nine hours a day, most of the time spent in
³...the most intimate contact with fever and dysentery, being frequently
obliged to remain nearly half an hour in one single hovel, crowded with
poor sufferers, till human nature could hold out no longer, and an
instinctive and almost convulsive effort would cause me to escape from the
close atmosphere of peat-smoke and fever-miasm to the open air.²

He worked like this for almost ten weeks, during which time he treated 192
people with typhus, continuing fever, and dysentery. The mortality rate of
those he treated was very low, even compared with the nearest hospital,
where conditions were much more healthful, providing adequate food and
drink, hygiene, ventilation, assistance, heat, and clothing. (He had a
mortality rate of 1.8% for fever, compared to 13.5% in the hospital. Of
those he treated for dysentery, 14 36% died, while the hospital lost 36%.
Homoeopaths working with epidemics all over the world were simultaneously
achieving similar results.)

Though the outstanding merits of homeopathy were well-proven through his
efforts, Dr. Kidd afterwards remarked that the most gratifying part of his
work in Ireland was the continuing gratitude of those he had treated. A
correspondent relayed to him that his former patients, many months later,
³continue to bless the means and the instrument which proved so useful to
them in the time of their melancholy need and suffering.²

Heroic Servant to the Sick

I was profoundly moved by Joseph Kidd¹s report. The kind of selfless
service he undertook, especially as such a young man, amounts to heroism of
the highest kind. He gave the gift of his expertise and confidence in
homeopathy to those in desperate need. While the future may hold similarly
challenging circumstances for us practitioners to offer healing, we can even
now carry such an attitude to every person we treat, remembering our ³high
and only mission², to ³restore the sick to health.² Though chronic
conditions are not as dramatic to treat as acute diseases, and are slower to
respond, in fact the depth of disease and suffering is great and deserves
the same wholehearted consideration.

I am impressed as well with the determination and zeal with which he
undertook his mission, despite attempts by a couple of pessimistic
colleagues to discourage him. His confidence unshaken by naysayers, he went
to Ireland and dug in with full effort, observing symptoms and giving the
most suitable remedies, tirelessly repeating his rounds for 67 days.

Tried and True Remedies

It is noteworthy that the remedies that proved so effective were not obscure
remedies, but those with which even the beginning student of homeopathy is
familiar, including Aconite, Arsenicum, Belladonna, Bryonia, China,
Mercurius, Nux vomica, Phosphorus, Rhus tox, and Sulphur. This makes me
optimistic that genus epidemicus remedies may be found without undue
difficulty, especially through homeopaths working cooperatively. Dr. Kidd
was interested to learn that the remedies he found most useful in typhus,
Bryonia and Rhus tox, were the same ones used successfully in typhus
epidemics by Hahnemann in 1813 and by Dr. Quin in Moravia in 1831, though
at the time Kidd did not know about the earlier cases. Clarke describes a
lay homeopath who volunteered his services during a cholera epidemic.
Medical aid was scarce, so the authorities assigned him a district. He
found Arsenicum the most useful remedy, and had a mortality rate of only 5
percent,13 compared to the mortality rate of cholera patients treated
allopathically was between 30 to 80 percent.14

The Question of Susceptibility

The issue of susceptibility was clearly illustrated in these epidemics.
Even with the horrendous conditions and pervasive mortality, it is
significant that at the epidemics¹ peak, the percentage of the population
affected by the diseases was less than 10 per cent . Unquestionably
dreadful as it is for so many people to be inflicted with contagious
disease, it is hopeful at the same time, because there are many measures
one can take to be part of the majority of people who are not affected in an
epidemic. Anything that increases immune strength will be helpful in this
regard, including regular ongoing ³tune-ups² with each individual¹s
constitutional remedy. Joseph Kidd said that at the end of every day
working with the sick, he¹d go home, ³hands and clothes begrimed with smoke
and dirt.² Yet ³notwithstanding such exposure to the most fruitful sources
of contagion, I escaped most perfectly, although the only precautions
observed were, an hour¹s walk, every morning over the hills of that
beautiful country, and moderation in living.²

The emotional state is worth mentioning as well as a factor in
susceptibility to contagion. Homeopaths are constantly alert to the
mind/body connection in their clients, and this connection is as operative
in acute illness as it is in chronic diseases. John H. Clarke relates the
old story of the Plague and the Philosopher: On entering the city, the
Plague told the Philosopher that he had to take 3,000 souls. However, when
6,000 died instead, the Philosopher reproached the Plague: ³You said you
had only three thousand victims, and you have taken six.² ³Oh, no!² replied
the Plague, ³I did kill only 3,000; fear killed the rest.²15 Here too,
with emotional distress that increases susceptibility to disease, homeopathy
has proven highly effective, as every practitioner can attest.
Interestingly, one of the most common remedies used to prevent smallpox
infection has often cured the fear of smallpox as well, showing the broader
potential of homeopathic treatment. In one of several cases described by
Dr. Samuel Swan in 1870, ³Lucy,...a waiting-maid, Œhad great fear of the
small-pox; heard there was a great deal of it in the city; feared to go out
of doors lest she should catch it; felt very well; had ...never felt the
same fear of the disease before; had been near the disease previously, but
had no fear of it.² After two doses of the remedy, she had one day of
chills and fever, dull headache and severe pain in the back, after which she
³...was quite well, and all the fear of the small-pox had vanished.²16 By
the same token, Arsenicum is often indicated when ³Fear of cholera² is
strong.17

Real Medicine

Vivid historical anecdotes of epidemics impart great confidence in the power
of homeopathy. Growing up in an age of antibiotics overuse, we tend to
become hesitant about testing homeopathy in severe infectious disease. How
many of us, when encountering such an acute situation in our practices or
our families, have heard the internal tape that immediately declares: ³It¹s
time to stop fooling around and use real medicine!²

While I was studying for my certification exam in 1994, I developed a severe
infection when I stepped on a needle and a broken piece got embedded in my
foot. Not only my regular physician but also my homeopath urgently advised
me to take antibiotics, as there was the risk of losing a foot or a leg!
Sufficiently alarmed, I did begin taking the antibiotic prescription.
However, as my doctor had told me it could take up to 72 hours for the drug
to kick in, I decided to search for a homeopathic remedy in the meanwhile.
When several doses of Apis 30c significantly reduced the redness and
swelling and pain within ten hours, I discontinued the antibiotics. The
swelling was down to 50 percent by the next morning, Sunday, and the redness
had subsided to pink. By Monday morning, sooner than the antibiotics would
have begun to take effect, the redness was gone and the swelling was
minimal. With doses of higher potency Apis--which I had to prepare myself
as I was unable to procure remedies on a weekend--I continued to quickly
progress and my foot healed without complications.17 It was a fitting
practical lesson while preparing for certification, that homeopathy truly is
Real Medicine, as homeopaths have proven before and will prove again in
their dedicated work in epidemics.
(Julian: I thought the below could be on the bottom of the same page as the
information cited in reference #8, to remind people of the need for adequate
information in taking remedies prophylactically):
*Warning about Self-Prescribing Homeopathic Prophylaxis
An experience of one of Dr. Bonnell¹s patients underscores the need for
qualified professional guidance in using homeopathic remedies for
prophylaxis: This sensitive person ³proved² the remedy, meaning he
developed symptoms similar to smallpox after the second dose. He was
diagnosed with smallpox by the health officer and was removed to the city
³pest house² to be quarantined. However, eighteen hours after he stopped
taking the homeopathic medicine, the eruption completely disappeared.

Though homeopathic remedies are non-toxic in the usual sense, they are
powerful energetically, and can cause disruptions in a person¹s energetic
field if used incorrectly. For instance, those taking too-frequent doses
can experience symptoms similar to those they are trying to prevent or cure.
These ³proving² symptoms can be long-lasting and difficult to remove. Most
people would hesitate to insert needles into themselves after reading a few
paragraphs or a booklet about acupuncture. Similar respect for expertise
should be used with homeopathy: Please consult a qualified practitioner.
(Lists are available at www.homeopathic.org or
www.homeopathicdirectory.com.)
References

1. http://www.holisticonline.com/Prayer/ho ... _proof.htm ³The Proof
That Prayer Works² ICBS, Inc. Last modified: September 29, 2000.

2. Redfield, James. ³The Responsive Universe². The Celestine Vision.
New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1997. P. 67.

3. Kent, J.T., M.D. Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy. New Delhi, India:
B. Jain Publishers Pvt. Ltd. P. 75-76.

4. www.who.int/inf (Website of the World Health Organization).
Information on world epidemics.

5. Singh, LM and Gupta, Girish. ³Antiviral Efficacy of Homeopathic Drugs
Against Animal Viruses,² British Homoeopathic Journal, 74 (July 1985). P.
168-174; Ullman, Homeopathy, Medicine for 21st Century. Berkeley,
California: North Atlantic Books, 1988. P.128

6. Bradford, Logic of Figures, p.59; Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy.
Berkeley, California: North Atlantic
Books, 1982. Vol. 3. pp.298-305; Ullman, Dana. Ibid. P. 42

7. Anshutz, ³Variolinum--Introduction². Anshutz¹s New Remedies.
Reference Works

8. Bonnell, W.L., M.D. ³My Experience with Smallpox and Internal
Vaccination.² from French, A.C., M.D. The Conquest of Disease. Texas:
Corpus Christi Printing , 1943.

9. Swan, Samuel. ³Vaccinine as a Prophylactic Against Small-Pox.²
Hahnemannian Monthly. Nov., 1870. P. 172.

10. Clarke, John H., M.D. Cholera, Diarrhoea, and Dysentery: Homoeopathic
Prevention and Cure. New Delhi, India: Jain Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1996.
P. 26.

11. Clarke, John H. Ibid. P. viii

12. Coulter, Harris. Ibid. P. 104-106.

13. Clarke, John H. Ibid. P. 15-16

14. Hoyle, E. P., M.D. ³The Proof of Homoeopathy (Which anyone can
test).² Compton Burnett, J., M.D. Fifty Reasons for Being a Homoeopath.
India: Indian Books and Periodicals Syndicate. P. 14-16.

15. Clarke, John H. Ibid. P. 14-15.

16. Swan, Samuel. Ibid.

17. Clarke, John H. Ibid., p. 15.

18. Gilruth, Charlotte, C.C.H. ³Apis to the Rescue.² Homeopathy Today.
January, 1996. Volume 16, Number 1. P.10-13.
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[Minervabks]

Dear Minutus,
I noticed the last posting concerning the Francis Treuherz 'Potato Famine'
book. Please note that this book has just gone out of print - Francis has no
more to sell. I spoke to him last week and he does not think that he will
re-print.
Sorry for the news.
Stewart McOwan

Minerva Homoeopathic Books
173 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
London W6 8QT
Tel 00 44 020 7385 1361
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