Faculty Conference

BAHVS Joint Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland

November 2024


A Report by Peter Gregory and Malene Jørgensen


Veterinary Report

Following on from the successful event in Liverpool in 2018, the Congress was again held jointly with BAHVS, Geoff Johnson taking the role of organiser for the veterinary content.

There has always been a symbiotic relationship between the two organisations, and we were pleased to welcome members of one, the other or both, from as far afield as Australia, Japan and USA. We also welcomed the president of the International Association for Veterinary Homeopathy Don Hamilton and treasurer Mirjam Blatnik together with several other European members, emphasising the close relationship between all our professional bodies.

The veterinary programme was given a grand beginning, on Friday appropriate to the rather grand venue of the Playfair Hall, by Tim Couzens, who spoke for an hour on the constitutional remedy pictures of horses. Tim has huge experience in equine homeopathy from his work from his practice in Sussex and he emphasised the value of close observation of the patient, taking note of their posture, physical appearance and facial expression. He displayed several equine patients with their homeopathic histories and invited the audience to identify their constitutional remedies, then highlighting the relevant features, such as the narrow build and long neck of the ‘snake remedy’ horse. For me two of the most striking images were those of the ‘ Gaertner-Bach patients’, exhibiting the malnourishment consequent on digestive problems. This was a truly comprehensive review, and while many of us may not have scored highly in the quiz, I’m sure we will all be more confident in using homeopathy in an equine patient as a result.

Tim was followed by Emily McAteer from Dublin, with a deep and engaging talk entitled ‘Mammals to mammals: The Lacs and their use in Veterinary Homeopathy’. Emily provided an in depth description of the Lac remedies as a group and individually. This presentation provides an up to date summary of the characteristics and uses of the majority of the commonly used Lac remedies and is the first to my knowledge to provide such a comprehensive review. It is good to know that this will be available to Faculty members to help them in their studies and the development of their practices. In particular Emily’s description of patients who responded to Lac suis was memorable and will ensure none of us will look at French bulldogs in the same way again.

In the afternoon, we moved to the main venue, Wolfson Hall where Geoff Johnson spoke on ‘Testosterone: the perfect protector’. Geoff first summarised the issues for the sarcode patient generally as ‘I must be useful- I have a job to do , otherwise I will feel guilty’ ; the speficic job depends on the sarcode. For testosterone the ‘job’ involves water, aggression, facing danger or protection and provision, and there may be issues with the father. Geoff provided two interesting human cases, one of whom couldn’t get pregnant, the other with hyper­thyroidism; the first had been had been profoundly affected by her father’s sudden death, the other bullied by her father.

BAHVS President Brendan Clark then took the podium to talk about Sustainable Future of Holistic Medicine. This was particularly relevant coming from someone who runs a multi person general veterinary practice. He reminded us of the importance of Hahnemann’s ‘Obstacles to cure’ from paragraph 3 of the Organon. One important issue for veterinary practice is the provision of species appropriate diet, and its relationship to the microbiome; but Brendan encouraged us to look further in promoting a sustain­able model of health, being aware of the effect on the wider dimensions of ‘the whole’ of our own choices, from the source of our foods to our relationships with fellow professionals. In the veterinary world, as homeopaths, we have opportunities to influence the system from agriculture to livestock rearing and to the family life of the huge proportion of families around us who keep animals of one kind or another. We should embrace all these opportunities. Hence the importance of the One Health programme.

The final presentation of the day came from Ingrid Anderson, a graduate from NCIM along with Emily McAteer in 2019. Titled ‘Holly the Radioactive Cat’, it was based on a feline patient suffering from congestive heart failure for whom Ingrid prescribed Uranium metallicum, with remarkable results. She introduced us to the general properties of the Radioactive remedies, emphasising as the 5 main features ‘Magic, Intuition, Compassion, Communication and Wisdom’, and of the Uranium series in particular as Compassion, Universal Truth, Old age and Grandparent, Magic, Intuition. Ingrid went on to show how Holly exhibited the features which led to Uranium, which also included a love of piano music. This was a truly absorbing presentation with a remarkable physical improvement in the patient.

Human lectures from

Friday afternoon

The Integration of Homeopathy in National Health Systems. Twelve Years of Experience in the Headache Department of “G. Gennimatas” Athens Public Hospital By Dr Spiros Kivellos. Even though we don’t know, if animals can have headaches or migraines for that matter, some evidence has shown that animals can exhibit symptoms consistent with headache (e.g. head pressing).


In Greece, in recent years, the medical world has moved towards a more holistic and personalised model of integrated medicine. The integration of homeopathy into national health care systems has the potential to improve the results of treatment as well as giving social and economic benefits. For 12 consecutive years, more than 850 seriously ill headache patients have been asked to choose between conventional and homeopathic treatment in this specific hospital in Athens. As Dr. Kivellos expected, the first cases referred for homeopathic treatment involved patients with chronic severe headaches, and they responded all very well to homeopathic treatment. This led to an increase in referrals as well as a positive reputation of homeopathic treatment amongst patients, doctors, nursing staff and others. The positive results, which were statistically significant analysed in a scientifically recognised way, were presented by Dr. Kivellos at European and international headache meetings.


In the lecture, Dr. Kivellos presented the method, with which he collected the data for the statistics – a detailed questionnaire (HIT-6), which was filled in by each patient to assess the history, severity of symptoms and other parameters of the individual patient. From this questionnaire, a score was calculated before and after homeopathic treatment to simplify the results for statistical evaluation. The results were divided into four Levels (score ranges) related to the severity of the impact of the headache on the patient’s life:


Level 1: little or no impact

Level 2: some impact

Level 3: substantial impact

Level 4: severe impact


By comparing the results before and after homeopathic treatment, it was evident that many patients shifted form a more to a less severe level of impact during the treatment.


Dr. Kivellos hoped that these results would have a positive influence on the future treatment of patients suffering with migraine with homeopathy.


The second lecture of the day was given by Dr. Katarina Glas – ‘Case Study – Individualised Homeopathy in the Management of Paediatric Migraine’.


Dr. Glas started out by telling us that migraine is one of the leading causes of morbidity and disability in the world. Its prevalence ranges for 5 to 40% in the paediatric population with about 50% of these headaches continuing way into adulthood. By scanning of patients in relation to other problems, incidental findings of pineal cysts (PC) is on the rise but yet without any clear causal relation to headaches and migraine. Complete resolution of these cysts using homeopathy is also uncommon. Conventional medicine protocols emphasise the importance of tailored therapy in the management of paediatric migraine. Yet, specific protocols for pharmacotherapy of migraine are only available for adults.


Next, Dr. Glas gave a case report about an 11-year-old girl diagnosed with migraine with aura and finding of a pineal cyst. The girl was treated with specific individualised homeopathic remedies using classical homeopathy. The remedies were Phosphorus and Natrum-Muriaticum in different potencies. The patient was treated during 5 years with 9 follow-ups. The treatment was in accordance with the HOM-CASE guidelines for individualised homeopathic treatment. The guidelines included the MONARCH (Modified NARanjo Criteria in Homeopathy) system, which enables assessment of the therapeutic effect and if it can be attributed to the homeopathic treatment given. The girl’s symptoms of migraine improved and the incidentally diagnosed pineal cyst resolved during the treatment.


DR. Glas concluded, that homeopathy might have a significant role in treatment of paediatric migraine but further scientific studies are necessary to prove the effectiveness of individual­ised classical homeopathic treatment in this condition.

Saturday

The first veterinary session on Saturday was entitled ‘Pancreatitis in Dogs and Cats – A Homeopathic Comparison’, delivered by Wendy McGrandle whose journey to the congress must have been one of the shortest, though not without significance as it entailed crossing the rather contentious cultural border from Glasgow. As many as 2% of dogs and cats can be affected with this condition, though Wendy believes it is under-diagnosed in cats. While there is no evidence that the traditionally accepted cause is a high fat diet, it seems an inappropriate diet such as the high cereal content of many cat foods is a likely factor. Wendy has found two local specific remedies Iris versicolor and Calcium arsenate to be helpful in such patients and described two cases treated successfully where one or the other was used in 12x potency concurrently with remedies chosen on totality.


The concept of using local concurrent remedies was to become somewhat of a theme of the afternoon; nowhere is this more appropriate than in the care of old animals and the concept was further expanded by Vicky Simon in her presentation Integrated Medicine in Geriatric Pet care. Vicky runs an integrative practice which offers herbal remedies, homeopathy and acupuncture among other management options, all or any of which can be employed depending on the patient’s needs. After briefly reviewing some combinations of homeopathic remedies she finds helpful, Vicky described what she termed ‘Easy Herbal Medicine for Homeopaths’, which included Turmeric and Ashwaganda, Vicky’s ‘favourite herb’ due to its widespread effects in geriatric animals, in particular as analgesic, immunomodulator and enhance of cognitive function.


Seemingly riding on a wave of synchronicity, Edward de Beukelaer had chosen Calcarea arsenicosum as the subject of his talk. He related the history of a terrier who had episodes of anaemia, lethargy and jaundice. He had digestive issues if he scavenged, and a key rubric in the repertorisation was Mind – Fear –bugs, insects. Over a period of three years he responded to various potencies of Calc. ars. and continues to be ‘like a young dog’. He then shared some human cases from a variety of sources and with one summary: ‘He is chastised by the loss of both digestive assimilation and intellectual assimilation.’ As might be expected the remedy picture shows features of Calc carb and Arsenicum album. Edward’s final words were an entreaty to support the ECH by subscribing to their newsletter.

The penultimate hour was filled by Sue Armstrong’s talk on ‘Chronic Liver Disease in Dogs – Homeopathic Treatment as part of a Multi-modality Approach to Case Management’. She started by reminding us that for many patients, chronic liver disease does not represent a chronic disease in its own right, but is due to toxicity, usually from conventional medications. Kent implies that where a major organ is affected we may have to accept palliation. In such patients Organotherapy can be of immense value, using such remedies as Taraxacum, Chelidonium, Berberis or Carduus marianus. She related the cases of two dogs who developed symptoms of chronic hepatitis in their latter years and whose successful management included


In the last session, Chris Aukland delivered a fascinating exposition titled ‘Whole Health on the Farm – An Integrative Whole Health Approach for Sustainable Food Production’. This talk was right on message for the theme of the Congress, Chris giving a detailed description of his work with Whole Health Agriculture. An important feature of the scheme is to educate farmers to recognise illness in the early stages and make an appropriate intervention (usually a homeopathic remedy) thus maintaining health. Other procedures are integrated into the day to day management of the farm with a view to maintaining high level of health while not compromising on production.


With a lack of homeopathic vets, particularly any interested in large animal practice, the scheme is intended to build up a body of experienced farmers who can offer appropriate advice. Ideally there will be a cohort of homeopathic vets underpinning the programme but there are obvious difficulties in providing that support. Nevertheless the programme is expanding rapidly and is on track to initiate a major shift in farm management towards a sustainable and humane model of livestock farming.

To sum up

This concluded the veterinary part of the Congress. The BAHVS committee held a short meeting on Sunday morning to discuss the trophies which are normally presented as part of the AGM as part of the annual conference proceedings. The AGM had originally been scheduled after lunch on Sunday, with a room kindly provided by the Faculty, but due to the long journeys many of the veterinary delegates had to make to get home, several had to leave early so the AGM was postponed till December on Zoom.


However with time for Awards sheduled before Gary Smyth’s closing remarks we awarded the Vetriscience cup to Ingrid Anderson for her presentation at the Congress, even thought she was unable to be present for the ceremony. On the contrary Emily McAteer was there to be awarded the Churchill Cup for her services to the Association and to veterinary Homeopathy but the trophy was too large for it to be transported so far on the train by the previous holder. Emily therefore received a token cup as a souvenir of Edinburgh and will receive the real trophy as soon a logistics allow.


So ended this remarkable Congress. It truly was memorable and a great success for the Faculty, the BAHVS and all the vets who attended. Everyone agreed how enjoyable, stimulating and fascinating it was. Next year the BAHVS will hold its own conference in Sussex and everyone hopes to come together with the Faculty in two years time. We were proud to be part of such a successful event and are hugely grateful to SHRET for their support.

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