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Editorial: Of Foibles and Folly, and the Remedies Thereof

Broadly speaking, we are in the middle of a race between human skill as to means and human folly as to ends. Given sufficient folly as to ends, every increase in the skill required to achieve them is to the bad …. Knowledge is power, but it is power for evil just as much as for good …. unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will be increase of sorrow. 1
 
‘Free thought’ means thinking freely … to be worthy of the name freethinker he must be free of two things: the force of tradition and the tyranny of his own passions. 2
 
A doctor, however, who would still interpret his own role mainly as that of a technician would confess that he sees in his patient nothing more than a machine, instead of seeing the human being behind the disease!
 
A human being is not one thing among others: things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining .
 
Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips. 3

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Winter 2020 issue of our Journal!

At present, of course, we are in the grip of a challenge that we call COVID-19. The community of homeopathic practitioners has responded to this challenge by collecting and analyzing the case data (see In the News section) in order to determine the most common remedies used and perhaps to discover the one or more genius epidemicus remedies for COVID-19. Our goal is not only to treat the acute manifestations of this disease but the commonly occurring chronic sequelae. It is important to note that so far as we know, no other treatment besides homeopathy offers an outcome where the person after an acute disease is actually healthier than he was before developing it.

Whereas homeopathic treatment of disease is holistic and maintains the dignity of human beings as self-healing and self-determining entities, regular treatment of disease is mechanistic and the role of the physician is that of the technician manipulating narrow parameters of what is designated as disease to an outcome which is far from certain in its ability to cure. In fact, commonly, the cure offered by modern medicine is often more deleterious than the disease -such is the case in the rapid rise of advanced microbial resistance to antibiotics.4 How well will vaccination against this disease be protective and safe is still to be determined; nonetheless there is now a push to release the vaccine as soon as the expected Emergency Use Authorization of the FDA is approved.5

In this issue, we will underline the success of homeopathic treatment in severe cases from the past, as well as explore the public health implications of suppressing the use of homeopathy during an epidemic, present a modern case report and a research article which clearly demonstrates the successful homeopathic treatment of Acute Alcoholic Withdrawal Syndrome in an inpatient unit of a psychiatric hospital in India. A completely new and revised paper based on J.H. Clarke’s Prescriber on the indications for cough in several remedies used in the treatment of COVID 19 is presented as a practical guide for the practitioner and student. Furthermore, this issue’s Puzzle question will both challenge and edify to stretch our understanding of a common remedy.

As always, I am looking forward to your comments, letters to the editor, and suggestions for improvement.

Alex BeckkerWarm regards,
Alex Bekker, MD, ABIHM, FAIS
Editor in Chief, AJHM
First Vice President, AIH

References

  1. Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. AMS Press. New York. 1968. pp 97,98.
  2. Russell, Bertrand. Understanding History and Other Essays. New York: Philosophical Library. 1958. P. 57
  3. Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press. 2006. P. 134.
  4. David R Dodds. Antibiotic resistance: A current epilogue. Review. Biochem Pharmacol 2017 Jun 15; 134:139-146. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2016.12.005. Epub 2016 Dec 10.
  5. Smriti Mallapaty, Heidi Ledford. COVID-vaccine results are on the way – and scientists’ concerns are growing. Nature. 2020 Oct; 586(7827):16-17. doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02706-6

About the AJHM

The American Journal of Homeopathic Medicine (AJHM) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, specifically intended to meet the needs of physicians involved in the specialty of homeopathy. The editor invites original manuscripts, feature articles, research reports, 'Homeopathic Grand Rounds' cases studies, abbreviated case reports for 'Clinical Snapshots,' seminar reports, and position papers that focus on homeopathy, as well as book reviews and letters to the editor. Click below to subscribe to the Journal.

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