FAMILY MEDICINE® COLUMN
By John C. Wolf, D.O.
Associate Professor of Family Medicine®
Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine

KEY TO HOMEOPATHY MAY BE IN ëDOING NO HARM'

Question: My neighbor and good friend convinced me to see the homeopath she goes to. I've been going to him for several months and don't seem to be getting any better. I like this doctor very much as an individual, but is homeopathy a good type of health care?

Answer: To fully answer your question, I need to review a brief lesson in the history of American medicine. By 1870, there were three major groups of doctors - allopaths, homeopaths, and eclectics - who were each quarreling over the correct use of drugs. Graduates from schools with any of these curricula received the M.D. degree. At this time, allopathic physicians advocated massive doses of drugs that were supposed to produce effects opposite to those of the disease with which the patient was afflicted. Homeopathic doctors used minute doses of drugs that produced the same symptoms as the disease, and eclectics tended to borrow methods from each of the other schools - using what they found worked and discarding what they discovered didn't work.

Homeopathy was founded by German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). His philosophy was that "like cures like." This meant, for instance, that if a certain drug would produce vomiting in a healthy individual, then very small quantities of that same drug might help cure diseases that produce vomiting. Such reasoning, of course, doesn't differentiate between common "stomach flu" and food poisoning, since both cause vomiting.

In selected cases their treatments might have even worked. More often, though, I think homeopathy worked because the minute dosages of the toxic drugs available at that time were not strong enough to have any effect, thereby leaving the body's usually very effective immune system free to fight off the disorder and restore the individual to health.

Today we know more about the body in both health and diseased states than was known in 1870. I see no rational reason for putting faith in homeopathic treatment theory that is based on an outdated and inaccurate concept.

I need to add one caveat at this point. The subject may not be quite as simple as my blunt answer above appears. This is because there is some interesting work being done at a few German universities testing various homeopathic concepts. This whole "scientific homeopathy" movement, however, is too small and too new to assess if there is any real benefit from its methods.

For the record, my own profession - osteopathy - came into existence in the 1890s, when the battle between these other schools was at its zenith. It is not surprising that in this extremely unscientific climate, osteopathic physicians (who receive the D.O. degree) initially shunned the use of all drugs - except the anesthetics and antiseptics needed for surgery. As scientific drugs were introduced, of course, this stance changed radically.

Your homeopathic physician may be a fine person, but I'd prefer to have him as friend rather than as a doctor. I'd advise you to seek your health care from a physician who uses the knowledge base we've accumulated by the late 20th Century not just that of the 19th.

Family Medicine® is a weekly column. To submit questions, write to John C. Wolf, D.O., Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Grosvenor Hall, Athens, Ohio 45701.