Preventive and Social Medicine or Community Health is emerging as a cementing force that is binding together medical care providers, health policy planners, government machinery and also the activist groups that are focusing on health-related issues. The involvement of multiple stakeholders provides an understanding of how important community–based health issues are in the future of healthcare operations. The International Conference on Primary Health Care, 1978, popularly called as the "Alma Ata Declaration" stresses that Health is a Fundamental Human Right. In this context, it is appropriate to examine the role of homeopathy vis-a-vis community health; whether these two entities are mutually compatible or is there a dichotomy in aligning these two? Homeopathy, based on the operational principle ‘let likes be cured by likes’, is traditionally associated with an individualistic approach for therapeutic decision-making. It is also a generally-held understanding that every subject receiving homeopathy medicines has to be measured as an individual, applying the parameters of homeopathic pathometrics. These parameters include the diagnostic-profiling and personality-profiling of each subject. This has become an integral and indelible routine in the homeopathic therapeutic decision-making. Therefore, the populist interpretations of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann’s [Samuel Hahnemann (1755 -1843) was the founder of Homeopathy. He established the fundamental principles of the science and art of Homeopathy. He is called the Father of Experimental Pharmacology because he was the first physician to prepare medicines in a specialized way; proving them on healthy human beings, to determine how the medicines acted to cure diseases. Before Hahnemann, medicines were given on speculative indications, mainly on the basis of authority without experimental verification.] writing have revolved around the opinions which reinforce that homeopathy is ONLY customizing prescriptions for the individual patients and does NOT apply to communities' health. Dr. Samuel Christian Frederic Hahnemann M.D.However, this fallacy is as superficial as it can be. Dig into the history of homeopathy a little deeper and you will find that the greatest social impact that homeopathy has made, is in the ‘mass’ situations – be it the Asiatic Cholera during Hahnemann’s time or the recent epidemics of Swine Flu in parts of India. It is another fact that the homeopathic profession has never completely showcased the good work it has done in the manner that could attract attention of health policy makers to take position on the potential of homeopathy in community health context. Therefore, to explain the role of homeopathy in community health, we need to look for indications in interdisciplinary areas like Medical Sociology, Social Epidemiology, Health Geography and Multilevel Modelling. We may draw further inspiration from the research that is undertaken in the areas like ‘social model of health’. Medico sociological research on healthcare organization and policy can be focused on different levels – the macro, social level; the meso level of the formal organizational structure and the micro individual level. In the context of infectious disease treatment, it was observed and recorded by Dr. Thomas McKeown (1912–1988) [A British physician and medical historian. McKeown argued from 1955 that the population growth of the UK post-1700 was due to economic conditions rather than improved medicine and public health. This became known as the "McKeown Thesis".] that improvement in living conditions, especially diet and housing, public sanitation and personal hygiene were also factored as important in eliminating the potential for infectious diseases. This contextualization is also validated in homeopathy – from pathological response to individualized response to pathogenesis to the constitutional flair that may transcend diagnostic criteria. We can assert that homeopathy not just takes cognisance of the individual or of the community in isolation, but as an individual within the community and a community as a whole. The interrelationship of individual and community, and the outcomes of the individual /community interactions have a strong bearing on the health of the individual and the health of the community. Therefore, the strength of homeopathic principles is the holistic community health, of which an individual is an vital, integral part.
In the earlier models of public health practice, the working hypotheses were that diseases are caused as a result of exposure to noxious factors in the external environment. This is like the stimulus/response equation. Though this approach produced considerable successes in primary prevention, it does not satisfactorily address to the entire range of public health issues. As a result, the emerging model of public health, based on the social model, suggests that in all its manifestations, disease is a reaction of the human organism to, and/or a failure to cope with, one or more unbalancing changes in the internal environment (within the person). These are caused by one or more unfavorable exchanges with the external environment and/or failures in the structural and functional design of the organism. Therefore, human illness is attributable to the dependence of organisms on a fundamentally hostile external environment and to unfortunate evolutionary legacies. This concept suggests that primary prevention is only a part of the whole and that remedying human organism’ design failures. This is much in tune with homeopathic approach that includes multilevel of parameters. Hence, homoeopathy is a viable main stream model for public health.
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December 2016
CategoriesAuthorA convinced believer, an eternal student and a fervent practitioner of Homeopathy and Alternative Medicines, I am awestruck by the real-life miracles these sciences deliver every day! My goal is to help people with my knowledge, experience and willingness to learn and adapt! |