Over the years, I’ve heard mention of a homeopath, a Dr. Allan Sutherland, who practiced in Brattleboro in the not so distant past. Usually it was from one of my patients who recalled being attended by him in childhood. Once a Brattleboro native now living in Connecticut noticed my sign and decided to stop in just to tell me about her childhood homeopathic physician whom she had greatly admired. Another time, it was a naturopath from Colorado who told me he had spent two years in Brattleboro apprenticing with. Sutherland in the last years of the doctor’s life.
Treating Plants with Homeopathy
Over the years, I’ve heard mention of a homeopath, a Dr. Allan Sutherland, who practiced in Brattleboro in the not so distant past. Usually it was from one of my patients who recalled being attended by him in childhood. Once a Brattleboro native now living in Connecticut noticed my sign and decided to stop in just to tell me about her childhood homeopathic physician whom she had greatly admired. Another time, it was a naturopath from Colorado who told me he had spent two years in Brattleboro apprenticing with. Sutherland in the last years of the doctor’s life.
Better Than Maple Syrup
It’s no secret that heroin is to be found just about anywhere in the region. The governor of Vermont devoted most of his state of the State speech to the epidemic; a national magazine infamously had a cover story about it complete with a front-page picture of a Vermonter shooting up heroin as the replacement image on what would have been a can of maple syrup.
In a small state like Vermont, it quickly gets close and personal. Heroin is not ghettoized into a specific community or group here. It’s less than comforting when your children are attending the funeral of a friend who overdosed or live across the street from a smack house. A friend told me that his high school aged child couldn’t get away from the stuff – it was in school, it was at work, it was at play. Another friend sent their child, recent college graduate, across the country to get away from this drug infested environment.
Robert Whitaker Speaks
On the last day of March, an overflowing crowd heard Robert Whitaker speak at the Brattleboro public library. A writer and journalist, Whitaker has researched various medical issues with a particular focus on mental health for 25 years. He has written two books, the first, ‘Mad in America’, was a history of psychiatric treatment in the United States since colonial times, and the second, ‘Anatomy of an Epidemic’, detailed the rise of the use of psychotropic medications in treating the mentally ill over the last half century and the consequences thereof.
The latter book drew a great amount of attention, winning an award for investigative journalism in 2010 and also making its author something of a spokesperson for change in the way that the mentally ill are currently treated in the United States.
A Case of Diabetes
Harry (not his real name) is an Asian Indian man going on 80 who became my patient about a year ago. Since he lives over 9,000 miles away, we have not actually ever met in person. But on the suggestion of a relative who is also a patient of mine, he requested a consultation via Skype.
I was certainly happy to oblige and happier still that our Internet connection was quite clear – a better connection, in fact, than I get with some people Skyping from Vermont. A diminutive man with a shaven head (think Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of Gandhi), Harry has a cheerful affect and brisk Indian English diction that enhanced our connection even further.