While governments and medical authorities around the world are scrambling to muster adequate supplies and facilities as well as develop effective therapies to cope with Covid 19, homeopathy is a therapeutic resource with a 200-year-old track record that is largely being overlooked.

Only a few years after publishing his work on the principles of homeopathy in the 1790's, Samuel Hahnemann gained great acclaim for his successful treatment of an epidemic of scarlet fever with the homeopathic remedy Belladonna…

1).  What services do you provide your clients? 

My primary modality of treatment is constitutional homeopathy.  That is, prescribing a deep acting homeopathic remedy based on the state of the entire person being including their history, symptoms and characteristic physical, mental and emotional attributes.  

In conjunction with that, I also use diet and nutritional supplements and botanical medicines as adjunctive treatments.  In addition, I practice a diagnostic technique called 'Autonomic Response Testing' (ART) that taps into the autonomic nervous system to gain information about toxicities and infections that are often chronic and overlooked in conventional medicine.

Nothing is more emblematic of the desert than the cactus and having just moved to the high desert of Northern New Mexico, it seems only fitting to discuss the homeopathic significance of Cactaceae family of plants.  Of course, there are many types of cacti, about 1750 species, only a handful of which - some 7 or 8 - are used in homeopathy.   

 Of these the best known to homeopaths at least, and mostly commonly prescribed is the Cactus Grandiflorus, the Nightblooming Cereus.  Others include Anhalonium lewinii (Peyote), Carnegia giganta (Saguaro), Cereus Bonplandii (Harrisa bonplandi, Queen of the Night), Cereus Serpentinus (Snake Cactus) and Opuntia vulgaris (Prickly Pear, known in Mexico as 'Nopal').  No doubt, contemporary homeopaths have conducted experiments (or provings in homeopathic jargon) on other varieties, but the above-mentioned are included in the standard materia medica.

 In August of 1988, my wife and I along with our 3-year old son arrived in the village of Saxtons River, VT to settle into a new life in a somewhat ramshackle house rented from a cousin.  Only two years removed from the jungle villages of Sri Lanka followed up by an interim stay in Connecticut, we arrived with few belongings save our clothes, some tag sale furniture and kitchen items, my wife's sewing machine and my professional equipment - a treatment table, acupuncture needles, along with about one hundred large glass jars full of Chinese medicinal herbs.

One of the most common and potent ways to denigrate a human being or a group of human beings is to identify them by a disparaging label.  To achieve its intended effect, the label, if chosen well, need not be complicated or creative.  It must merely serve two purposes: to quickly conjure up in the listener's mind a negative image or association and, just as importantly, to put in place a barrier that hinders meaningful communication.  

Most of the time after meeting a patient for the first time, I don't prescribe a remedy immediately at the conclusion of the consultation.  It is my habit to study the information gathered during the session - my notes, observations and impressions - afterward, in order to integrate it all together, come up with a treatment strategy and an initial remedy.

During a consultation, it is easy to have a remedy come to mind and color my perspective. So, step backing affords me the opportunity to drop my prejudice and gain a more objective frame of reference. It also affords time the opportunity to study not only the patient's information, but medical and homeopathic literature relevant to the case as well.

A number of years ago, a young woman in her early 20's we'll call Samantha sought out homeopathic treatment for difficulties she was experiencing during pregnancy.  She had given birth just a year or so earlier and had experienced problems toward the end of her term.  Now, this tine around Samantha was complaining of extremely low energy, poor digestion, generalized itching and irritability. 

Mafi Kumase is a small town of 2500 persons in the Volta region of Western Ghana, about an hour from the border with Togo.  Other than its technical high school and a weekly market, it is a fairly nondescript place: basically a crossroads with low slung shops, cinderblock houses and simple structures that serve as churches.  The main thoroughfare is busy with 2-, 3- and 4-wheeled vehicles, herds of goats and groups of schoolchildren.  

To the outsider's eye, what is most striking are a handful of buttes that rise up in and around the town as well as the plastic garbage strewn everywhere.  The buttes make for nice hikes and views over the surrounding fields of cassava and okra.  The plastic is an eyesore and probable health hazard that makes one not want to look too closely.

The Hope Homeopathy Clinic is located just at the outskirts of town on the main road.  It consists of a few rooms and front porch of a house set back behind some shops and another home.  But it is a well-utilized facility that everyone in town knows - along with the man who created and runs it.

Amongst the various treatment methods that have proliferated in response to the ongoing epidemic of Lyme Disease, homeopathy has a unique and valuable place.  It is distinguished by a number of attributes, chief amongst them being flexibility, individuality and, to coin a term, 'constitutionality'.

People afflicted with Lyme present in various stages of the disease.  The homeopathic practitioner has at his or her disposal a vast array of medicines that allow for a great deal of flexibility in prescribing the most appropriate remedy for each stage.