The 2019 BAHVS Conference was held between 14th and 16th June at the Stirling Court Hotel on the campus of Stirling University in Scotland. The venue is set in a stunning location at the foot of the hills and the campus is landscaped around a lake, right next to the William Wallace memorial.

It was Wallace who defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1270 and whose life was rather loosely depicted in the movie ‘Braveheart’. The theme of the conference was ‘Alive and kicking’, an appropriate title given the similarity of the attempts to annihilate veterinary homeopathy to the challenge that Wallace faced.

The main accommodation was in the hotel, but a significant number of us chose to share two ‘chalets’ each housing 6 delegates. This provided an opportunity to share ‘down time” with each other and discuss out several homeopathic issues of mutual interest. Thanks to Malene for organising this.

The opening address was given by Dr David Reilly, known to many of us as tutor and guest lecturer on veterinary homeopathic courses in the past, but also for his work in establishing the ‘new’ Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital.

David addressed the issue of our own search for wellness, and highlighted the high numbers of depression and suicide in the veterinary profession. He posed the question ‘Are you Alive and Kicking’ and proceeded to guide us into an understanding of our thoughts and beliefs, pointing out to us such truths as ‘our thoughts are ‘made up’’, and are simply hypotheses rather than ‘facts’.

He encouraged us to see this inner self as a plant, or a dog and posed the question ‘who is going to nurture this being?’ Our responsibility to care for ourselves can be summarised as ‘Look after the dog – all the rest is blah blah blah’.

One long-term colleague of David’s is Bob Leckridge, no newcomer to our conferences, and an ideal person to follow on with the next session entitled ‘Uniqueness’.

Using a series of photographs he explored the understanding which each image had brought to mind and expanding some of the issues raised by the previous speaker. His message of personal uniqueness is perfectly enshrined in with the homeopathic viewpoint; in Bob’s words ‘health is a personal experience’.

He discussed the issue of balance – between the hemispheres of the brain; between order and wildness; mythologically between the crystal and the dragon. And encouraged us to see the world as a network of kisses rather than a network of stone.

He left us with 4 pointers to celebrating our uniqueness:

• Approach each day as if it is the first
• Approach each day as if it is the last
• See the view from on high
• Slow down

This was an ideal preparation for the barbeque which was held in mercifully dry conditions and even a splash of sunshine. A pipe band left many of us in awe, as did the positively unprecedented variety of vegetarian food available.

On Saturday Shelley Epstein began the first of her four presentations, on the Vijayakar principles, developed by an Indian homeopathic doctor, who has studied closely the embryological development of the human, and linked this to the observations on the suppression of symptoms.

He has identified ‘layers’ of suppression based on his studies, and using this information we can make an accurate judgement on the direction the response to a homeopathic medicine is taking. The direction of cure may not be in accordance of our classical understanding based on Hering’s ‘Law’.

In view of the conversations in the bar afterwards, this led inevitably to many of us reassessing some of the case histories we had otherwise interpreted differently. The concept of layers is accompanied by an interpretation of the miasms which differs slightly form the classical view.

Altogether this was a challenging but immensely interesting presentation. This was followed by a discussion entitled ‘Is homeopathy dangerous?’, where we were invited to assess the significance of aggravations and other such reactions to homeopathy.

Hahnemann was probably the most extraordinary genius in the history of medicine, and his ideas were far ahead of his time, also in many areas outside of homeopathy, such as in the compassionate treatment of the insane. His homeopathic theory was original and revolutionary.

Homeopaths are criticised for returning to the work of a man from 200 years ago, but physicists delight in studying Einstein. Geniuses are in short supply. Fortunately there are a few working currently in homeopathy, which has enabled it to undergo great advances in the last 30 years.

The five homeopathic concepts were initially ridiculed, but subsequently all of them except one are now accepted by modern medicine, which has only caught up with two of them in the last few years.

1. Individualised Medicine

This is a medical procedure that separates patients into specific genetic groups. Medical decisions, practices, interventions and products are then tailored to the individual patient, based on their predicted response to or risk of disease. To quote Professor Johnson, chief clinician, Cancer Research UK:

Unlike 'conventional' medicine from the 18th to the end of the 20th Century, Homeopathy was always about the individual. There is no such thing as a homeopathic remedy to treat chronic arthritis in a dog. Each individual dog may require a different remedy. The choice will be based on the exact objective symptoms, character, behaviour, phenotype and a detailed history. This is why homeopathy is not suited to unsophisticated double blind trials. Future conventional medicine won't be either.

2. Serious Chronic Disease is Caused

by Mental Stress 

It has been accepted for a few years in human medicine that stress is an important factor in the development of chronic disease, and recently the veterinary world is beginning to come on board.

However in 2010 the Veterinary Times published a case of osteosarcoma successfully treated using homeopathy, leading to annoyed letters being sent by some vets wondering why the character of the dog and the stresses it had experienced were relevant. One author described the possibility of homesickness causing osteosarcoma as 'farcical'. At that time few people knew about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). These demonstrate an association of stresses experienced as a child with health problems when an adult. This has been a notable landmark in epidemiological research, and has recently produced more than 50 scientific articles and 100 conference and workshop presentations. (3,4,5)

Hahnemann had realised very early on in his homeopathic practice that understanding mental stress and emotional history was crucial in the choice of remedy. There are no drugs in conventional practice that take into account the physical pathology together with the mental and emotional state, which may be why this area has been poorly explored by modern medicine.

It is obvious to a vet taking a homeopathic consultation that animals are affected by specific emotional stresses, and subsequently develop disease in exactly the same way as humans. Their prescriptions reflect this. All remedies treat mental and emotional symptoms as well as physical. It is only recently that mainstream science has accepted that animals experience emotions (7). Animal emotions were never mentioned in my six years at Cambridge.

3. Like treats like

This had actually been a concept in medicine for centuries, referred to by Hippocrates and Paracelsus (8,9). However Hahnemann, through experiment and observation, was the first to develop a system that reliably employed the principle.

In 1790 he grasped the law of Like Treats Like, or the Law of Similars, when he observed that the symptoms produced by eating cinchona bark (containing quinine) were very similar to the symptoms of malaria. He postulated that this was likely to be why quinine could successfully treat malaria. He then conducted his 'provings' (experiments) on medicines. Groups of healthy volunteers took many different medicines and recorded the mental and physical symptoms they experienced with each.

These drugs were then given to patients displaying a similar symptom picture. These were the first systematic drug trials performed in the history of Western medicine. Nine years later, again through a process of observation, Jenner proposed vaccination.

While the principle is the same, homeopathy is only broadly similar to vaccination. Jenner used doses of a similar disease (cowpox) to prevent smallpox. Hahnemann used medicines which caused specific symptoms in healthy humans, to prevent and treat diseases with a similar symptom picture.

4. Epigenetics and Miasms

Epigenetics is the recent ground-breaking study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression, rather than alteration of the genetic code itself, and has transformed the way we think about genomes.

Darwin wrote in 'On the origin of Species' (1859) that species arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Previously in 1801 Lamark had proposed his theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, which was later rejected. Modern observation and accurate recording has revealed that in principle Lamark had a point.

The environment (e.g. exposure to toxins or chronic stress) can cause epigenetic changes, and these changes can be inherited, at least for a few generations. Stress and disease in the mother or father impacts the health of their offspring before they are even conceived.

In one study, female rats were exposed to a fungicide (vinclozolin) and it was found that epigenetic changes that occurred in the first generation male offspring were faithfully passed on through at least four generations (10). Scientists now think epigenetics can play a role in the development of cancer. Uncontrolled cellular growth can result from epigenetic change that silences a tumour suppressor gene.

Another example is an epigenetic change that ‘turns off’ genes that help repair damaged DNA, leading to an increase in DNA damage, which in turn, increases cancer risk. (11,12)

An individual's gene expression, health, and susceptibility to disease are changed by adverse conditions in the environment and these changes can be passed to subsequent generations in a non-Darwinian manner.

Epigenetics, or the equivalent in homeopathy, Miasm Theory, was fully understood by Hahnemann, and elucidated in his opus 'Chronic Disease', published in 1828.

Hahnemann came to his theory by spending years poring over his patients' case files. He observed many did well with acute problems but returned ill with chronic ailments. He discovered by detailed history taking and observation that the diseases to which his patients were susceptible, and the way each individual expressed disease, was determined by the illnesses that their parents and grandparents had suffered, especially if these illnesses were suppressed by medication. Using these observations, he developed a method of treating chronic disease. The story is a long one – Chronic Disease is 1600 pages long, but it was epigenetics 200 years ahead of its time.

5. The Vital Force

Homeopathy uses solutions which have been serially diluted one in a hundred many times, vigorously shaken at each stage. This means that in most remedies there is none of the original material substance left. Homeopaths understand these medicines contain an energetic pattern of the original starting substance.

Homeopathy states that in all living organisms the ultimate control of the functioning of the body and mind, including the immune system, lies with a dynamic energetic force called the Vital Force. To interact best with this force, an energetic medicine is preferable. The material body and all its chemical functions are simply the hardware. The Vital Force is the software, and is not detectable by early 21st century science.

However in one form or another this force has been assumed to exist by every race of humans as far back in history as we can determine, and is variously called the qi, spirit, astral and other bodies, soul, prana, ka, hun, atman and others.

I predict that the greatest scientific discovery of the 21st century will be the vital force. I wonder if homeopathy and Hahnemann will be acknowledged as the first to realise the action of this force in disease and cure? Somehow I doubt it, as although all the other cutting edge theories of Hahnemann have been completely vindicated by, and are central to, the most modern developments in medicine, the attacks upon homeopathy by the so-called sceptics continue. That is unsound science.

Copyright 2018, British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons