Homoeopathy has a positive role in successful treatment of allergic disorders and a large number of obstinate diseases that even allopathic and physicians of other systems concede. According to Dr SS Apte, president of Association for Research in Homoeopathy (ARH), the vitalistic view of a human system, as accepted by Hahnemann finds its reflection in his definition of health and disease. `In healthy condition of man the spiritual vital force, the dynamics that animates the material body retains all the parts of the organism in harmonious vital operations. `When a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual self acting vital force that is primarily deranged to such an abnormal state and incline it to the irregular process which we call disease.' In practice `the irregular process' which Hahnemann tells us about can be better understood from phenomenological point of view.
In India , the department of Indian systems of medicine an homoeopathy was established in the ministry of health and family welfare in March 1995. It was renamed Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Sidha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) in November 2003. In post-independence India , the Government recognized the merit of each of the AYUSH systems and made attempts to develop them as viable systems of medicine. For the first time a separate national policy on Indian system of medicine and homoeopathy 2002 was formulated. The basic objectives of the policy inter-alia are to promote good health, expand the outreach and to ensure affordable AYUSH services to the people, as also to integrate AYUSH in health care delivery systems in the national programmes.
While the allopathy system and speciality hospitals dominate the Indian health care system, the Union and some of the states have set up homoeopathy colleges and hospitals including dispensaries in CGHS that work for central government employees. At the top level, the President of India has appointed a homoeopathic adviser/physician. Dr Bishambar Das Trust runs a free homoeopathy dispensary in the capital near Gole Post office. A large number of private homoeopathic doctors have made a big dent in the treatment of patients. A few of them advertise, but a large number of them are beyond the reach of the common man.
Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy, an autonomous body of Dept of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, informed this scribe that according to homoeopathic principles, we treat the `patient' who has the `disease', but not in the name of the disease. Since it is a customized treatment, a group of patients although suffering from a particular disease may require different medicines, as per their individualizing features. So it is not rationale to comment on the efficacy of homoeopathy in different disease conditions by their names.
RK Bhatnagar
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