From The September 2000 Issue of Nutrition Science News

A Meeting of Two Healing Modalities

by Richard Hahnemann

Potentizing synthesized pharmaceutical drugs is relatively new in the 200-year homeopathic tradition. Its benefits range from using pharmaceuticals without fear of side effects to potentially preventing drug-resistant diseases.

Homeopathy operates by potentizing—repeatedly diluting, then vigorously shaking—substances chosen through the law of similars; that is, the belief that a substance that causes a set of symptoms in a healthy person acts as a curative medicine when given to sick people who have similar symptoms. Although homeopathy does use natural substances such as flowers, roots and seeds, it also uses many non-natural toxins and chemicals such as gunpowder, turpentine and anthrax. Homeopaths believe the dilution and shaking subdivide the molecules of any given substance and release its energy. So when toxins and chemicals are potentized to homeopathic levels above 12C and 24X (the C means a substance diluted one part per 100 and the X means one part per 10; the numbers represent the amount of times a substance is potentized), thesesubstances have no detectable original molecules left, which renders them safe, nontoxic healing agents.

Much of what is known about homeopathic medicine's effects is discovered through provings—the administration of any homeopathic remedy, usually by M.D.s, in a particular potency that is given to healthy volunteers until symptoms are produced. The symptoms are recorded, compiled and published. The FDA pays close attention to this information when considering a new remedy for homeopathic "drug" approval. Some physicians re-prove homeopathic remedies in different potencies to see if any new symptoms are produced. The FDA does not allow the homeopathic industry to sell potencies low enough to make anyone sick. A 6X or higher potency—equaling one part per million—is considered safe.

Homeopathic Exploration
The first homeopathic proving was conducted by Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700s with Peruvian bark (Chinchona succirubra) for malarial symptoms. This led to experimentation with other plants including poisonous ones such as Arnica montana (arnica) for injuries, Rhus toxicodendron (rhus-tox) for rheumatic pains, and Nux vomica (nux) for irritability and other symptoms. A range of substances have been explored, with provings conducted on many.

Conventional drugs were explored as potentiating agents by homeopaths as early as the 1800s. Such potentized drugs included opium, morphine and calomel.² Calomel, used allopathically as a cathartic, among other things, was homeopathically proven for prostatitis, peritonitis, meningitis, otitis media and especially catarrhal inflammation of the ear. Soon after the introduction of antibiotics, in the 1950s, homeopaths conducted provings on antibiotics such as penicillin for chills, dry cough, eczema and other indications.

Cure for Drug Resistance?
Increasingly today, diseases treated with common and inexpensive drugs such as penicillin are becoming resistant and require expensive replacement drugs such as vancomycin. Hemophilus influenzae, a strain of the common flu, has become resistant to ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole, tetracycline, trimethoprim and even chloramphenicol. Drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is feared because it is difficult to diagnose and spreads easily. Streptococcus pneumoniae type 19A is resistant to 13 drugs.

Compounding the problem of diseases resistant to drugs is the use of drugs in animals. The use of chloramphenicol in pigs, for example, has led to a drug-resistant strain of the bacteria Yersinia enterocolitica in people who eat pork.³

The consequences of drug resistance are enormous. New drugs are needed to keep up with the ever-evolving problem of drug-resistant diseases.

Potentized antibiotics may be a partial solution and could represent a new class of drugs not subject to drug resistance against microbial diseases. For this reason, it makes sense to create homeopathic analogs and test them for crossover uses. These would be inexpensive, nontoxic and nonaddictive and could save suffering in patients with microbial infections. For these reasons, antiviral and antifungal drugs deserve investigation as well.

Potentized pharmaceuticals useful against bacterial diseases include chloramphenicol for cholera, chlorpromazine for botulism and diphtheria, and sulfonamide for impetigo and septicemia. Those shown useful against viral diseases include chlorpromazine for epidemic encephalitis and viral hepatitis, penicillin for influ-enza and verrucas, sulfonamide for influenza and mumps, and sulfanilamide for various viral infections.⁴

Case Study: Chlorpromazine
An in-depth look at one pharmaceutical drug, chlorpromazine, offers intriguing ramifications for future homeopathic pharmaceuticals. Chlorpromazine, widely used in psychiatry today, is a tranquilizer. Allopathically, it is prescribed to treat nausea, vomiting and behavioral problems in children such as combativeness, hyperexcitable behavior and difficulty sustaining attention.

O.A. Julian, a French physician, described much of the chronology of homeopathic discovery and uses of chlorpromazine in Materia Medica of New Homoeopathic Remedies (Beaconsfield Publishers, 1990). A two-month proving conducted in 1964 by Indian physician P.N. Pai, of the Association of Homoeopathic Doctors in Bombay, found the homeopathic version, at 30C potency, demonstrated similar results as the pharmaceutical, without the side effects. In addition, the homeopathic version inhibited allergies as well as hepatic, gastric and intestinal complaints.⁴

Garth W. Boericke, M.D., a British physician living in India, potentized chlorpromazine into a homeopathic tranquilizer and used it on one of his patients. As Boericke wrote in the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1965: "Experience with ataractic (tranquilizing) drugs used on homeopathic principles might open a new modern field for the practicing physician. Such use is rather new, and not many cases have been reported in our literature."⁵ In 1968, Julian re-proved chlorpromazine at five additional potencies than Pai used—5C, 7C, 9C, 15C, 30C and placebo—and discovered actions against botulism, eczema, jaundice and dozens of other conditions.

Homeopathic chlorpromazine is interesting because of its crossover uses. It has applications in both full-strength allopathic doses and in diluted homeopathic potencies for behavioral problems in children. This is not needless duplication because it gives physicians the option to use potentized pharmaceutical drugs in patients experiencing side effects with prescription medication. The side effects of pharmaceutical chlorpromazine include uncontrolled muscular movements that can be so serious that patients may never recover.⁶

Chlorpromazine is just one example of how valuable a potentized pharmaceutical drug can be: Derived from a synthesized drug and not a plant, it is not vulnerable to the threat of extinction. Its uses benefit children with behavioral disorders as well as the elderly who suffer from urinary incontinence. Its action is so broad as to be useful in conditions ranging from acne and food poisoning to malaria and diphtheria. It relieves diseases of bacterial, viral and parasitic origin.³

Homeopathic consumers need not be afraid of potentized pharmaceutical drugs. Like all homeopathic remedies, they are safe, nontoxic, nonaddictive and have no side effects. With 3,000 prescription drugs available in the United States, and many more over-the-counter drugs, a vast reservoir of potential new remedies is waiting to be rediscovered. Their potential deserves further exploration through homeopathic channels.

Sidebars:
Crossover Uses

Richard Hahnemann, no relation to homeopathy's founding father Samuel Hahnemann, is a homeopathic researcher and consultant in Arizona.

References

1. Badgley L. Healing AIDS naturally. San Bruno (CA): Human Energy Press; 1986, p 148.

2. Boericke W. Pocket manual of homoeopathic materia medica (reprint edition). New Delhi: B. Jain Publishers; 1990. p 439, 445, 486.

3. Garrett L. The coming plague: newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance. New York: Penguin Books; 1994. 418, 424-5.

4. Pai PN. A proving of chlorpromazine. Brit Homoeopathic J 1965;54:102-4.

5. Boericke GW. Tranquilizing drugs used homeopathically and homeopathic tranquilizers. J Am Inst Homeopathy 1965; 58:20-3.

6. Coyle JT, Enna SJ. Neuroleptics: neurochemical, behavioral, and clinical perspectives—central nervous system pharmacology. New York: Raven Press; 1983. p 228.