Rural Homoeopathic clinic  was inaugurated by the District Collector Mrs.R.Vasuki I.A.S. Dindigul, on 2nd October 2008. 

            Dr.V.Charuvahan B.H.M.S., incharge of the rural clinic presented memento to the guests. Mr.G.Chandrasekaran, District Revenue Officer, Mr. P.Ponniah Project officer DRDA, Mr.B.Jambunathan Lead District Manager, Canara Bank Greeted the Occasion. The function was attended by large gathering of village public and manager staffs of Canara Bank.

Changing lifestyles, physical activities, lack of exercises, habits, late nights, extensive use of vehicle and family history can be among the reasons why the number of people suffering from kidney stones is on the rise. Homoeopathy is an effective therapy to cure kidney stone without surgery. According to Dr Nilesh Kataria, a well known homoeopathy expert, more than one thousand patients have been cured in the last ten years by use of homoeopathy treatment.

Kataria did a research to use homoeopathy for the treatment of kidney stone and found out that some medicines, which are not directly mentioned as cure of kidney stone in homoeopathy, can be effective in the treatment of kidney stone. Kataria has now developed his own treatment based on the medical history of each patient, his current health condition and the type of kidney stone. People in the age group of 15-45 are more prone to kidney stone problem, he says.

Non-vegeterians and vegetarians who consume excessive amounts of roots, spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers or fruits such as guava or figs which have multiple seeds are more prone to this health condition. Also, people who suffer from acidity and are under medication for that are susceptible to kidney stone problem. People who live in tropical regions or those who drink less water or drink water with high mineral content too are easy targets for the problem. Of course all those who are in this condition don't suffer from kidney stone. As each person is different from the other, we have to study individual cases deeply before arriving at a conclusion.

About 80 per cent of the kidney stones are calcium, they can be treated by homoeopathic medicines. The rest of the stones can be Struvite (Triple Phosphate), Urates and Cystine out of these, the harder stones like urates less than 5 mm can be treated by homoeopathic medicines. Harder stones more than 5mm may require surgery

Sonography is used to detect kidney stone. If however a patient is suffering from gastronomic problems, the stones cannot be detected even in Sonography. A stone like urate can not be detected even in an X-ray. In such circumstances, we resort to intravenous Pylography — insertion of a dye in the kidney and taking X-ray images of the dye at different stages .

Kataria says adding, "Normal, small size stones can be treated by hydrotherapy (flushing out the stone by urine pressure) whereas larger size stones need lithotripsy and Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy. Stone still larger are removed by surgery. This surgery costs anything between Rs 15,000 and Rs 1 lakh. Homoeopathy treatment costs just about 30 per cent of this. A patient is not required to follow any routine except drinking lots of water."

January 30, 2009                                                                                                                              Courtesy: The Times

 Universities drop degree courses in alternative medicine

Alexandra Frean, Education Editor

        Universities are increasingly turning their backs on homoeopathy and complementary medicine amid opposition from the scientific community to “pseudo-science” degrees.

        The University of Salford has stopped offering undergraduate degrees in the subjects, and the University of Westminster announced yesterday that it plans to strengthen the “science base” content of its courses after an internal review which examined their scientific credibility.

        Both universities are following the lead of the University of Central Lancashire, which last year stopped recruiting new students to its undergraduate degree in homoeopathic medicine.

        The decisions by Salford and Westminster open a new chapter in the fierce debate about the place of awarding of Bachelor of Science degrees in subjects that are not science.

        Several universities run degree courses in complementary medicine, which include a range of therapies including homoeopathy, crystal healing and herbal medicine. But academics opposed to such courses regard them as misleading and damaging to the reputation of the universities that offer them.

        In a letter to The Times today a group of scientists led by Professor David Colquhoun, a pharmacologist at University College London, say that they are encouraged that such courses are being closed down. However, they add that although some universities are now taking sensible actions in cancelling such courses, government policy on regulation of alternative medicine is in a mess because there is no official view on “which treatments work and which don't”.

        The University of Salford said it planned to wind down the undergraduate programme in traditional Chinese medicine “for financial and strategic reasons”.

        He acknowledged that the course had been criticised by the scientific establishment, but said that the university would continue “to encourage and promote research into complementary and alternative medicine”.

        He added: “It is not our role to comment on the views of others.”

        A spokesman for the University of Central Lancashire said that it would not be drawn into a debate about the scientific basis of certain forms of complementary medicine. However, he accepted that some of its courses had attracted “bad publicity” and said the university had commissioned a review of its courses in this area, which would be published at the end of March.

        “We have had academic debate within the university on whether these courses are scientific or not,” he said.

        A spokesman for the University of Westminster said the university had recently undertaken a review of its undergraduate Complementary Therapies courses as part of an internal restructure.

        “The review recommended that the delivery of the courses' distinctive scientific base be reinforced, along with the capacity of the department to conduct high quality research with due academic rigour,” he said.

        He would not say whether the review had been ordered as a direct result of criticism of the courses, adding only that “graduates will continue to receive a grounding in scientific understanding and analysis”.

        Other universities have got around “pseudo science” accusations by offering such courses as arts degrees. The University Campus Suffolk, for example, offers a two-year foundation degree in holistic therapy as an arts course.

    Other universities are more robust in their defence of their courses.

        Ian Appleyard, principal lecturer in acupuncture at London South Bank University, said that acupuncture should be studied for the very reason that it was not well understood from the standpoint of Western scientific medicine. Acupuncture had been used by a significant proportion of the world's population for thousands of years.

        “Recent large-scale clinical trials such Haake and meta-analysis from reputable institutions such as The Cochrane Collaboration, have shown that there is evidence to support the therapeutic benefits of acupuncture treatment for back pain and migraine,” he said.

Sunday 1st February, 2009                                                                                              Courtesy:bombaynews.Net

Homeopathy gets a boost in Gujarat

        As many 675 homeopathy doctors have been recently appointed in Gujarat and 182 part-time homeopathy dispensaries will be upgraded shortly, a top official said Sunday.

        'As many as 182 part-time homeopathy dispensaries in Gujarat will be upgraded to full-time shortly,' said Megha Jani, Gandhinagar-based director of the department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH).

        'As many 675 homeopathy doctors have been recently appointed under the National Rural Health Mission of the central government,' Jani said while addressing the concluding session of the two-day national seminar on homeopathy in Mehsana, 85 km from here.

        The seminar was organised by the Homeopathy Medical Association of India (HMAOI) and Smt. A.J. Salva Homeopathic Medical College.

February 3, 2009                                                                                                                    Courtesy: The Hindu

Homeopathy offers treatment for infertility, says a Chennai hospital

    Chennai (PTI): Homeopathy offered cost-effective treatment options for infertility without any surgery, a city-based hospital has claimed.

        A recent workshop and a public awareness programme on infertility, organised by AKP Homoeopathic Clinical Research Centre here at Anna Institute of Management, highlighted that homoeopathy could find solutions for low sperm count in men and can increase sperm count in varicocele (an enlargement of the veins of the spermatic cord) without surgery.

        About 250 homoeopathic physicians participated in the workshop while 25 infertile couple attended the public awareness programme, a release from the centre said on Monday.

        In men, absence of sperms or low sperm count were the most common cause for infertility. Low count mostly resulted from hormonal imbalance, smoking and alcoholism.

        Varicocele was a common disorder for low sperm count, in which the blood vessels around the testes engorged with blook, increased temperature prevents sperm production.

        Presently the condition was being handled with surgery, but homoeopathy could solve the problems without hormone therapy and surgery, the release claimed.

        Similarly, in women the most common cause for infertility was poly cystic ovarian syndrome, in which the cysts in the ovary give hormonal imbalance and homoeopathy had proved clinically effective in these conditions also, it maintained.

        Homeopathy can also treat 'auto-immunity' condition which is the cause of delay in conception in normal couples.

Friday, February 13, 2009                                                                                         Courtesy: naturalnews.com

Abraham Lincoln and His Cabinet Appreciated Homeopathic Medicine

Dana Ullman, MPH, citizen journalist

        NaturalNews) Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) showed a special interest in and appreciation for homeopathic medicine. In 1854, before Lincoln was elected president, he was retained as a lawyer to prepare a state legislative proposal to charter a homeopathic medical college in Chicago. Because Chicago was the home of the American Medical Association, which had been founded in 1847 in part to stop the growth of homeopathy, Lincoln's job was no simple effort. However, many of Chicago's most prominent citizens and politicians participated on the board of trustees of the proposed Hahnemann Medical College, including Chicago's mayor, two congressmen, an Illinois state representative, a Chicago city councilman, the co-founder of Northwestern University, the founder of Chicago Union Railroad, and several medical doctors who were homeopaths (Spiegel and Kavaler, 2002). Despite significant opposition, Lincoln was successful in obtaining a charter for the homeopathic college.

        Today, the Pearson Museum at Southern Illinois University has an exhibit of a nineteenth-century doctor's office and drug store; included in this exhibit is a homeopathic medicine kit from the Diller Drug Store of Springfield, Illinois. The exhibit notes that Abraham Lincoln was a frequent customer of the drug store and a regular user of homeopathic medicines (Karst, 1988, 11).

        Lincoln surrounded himself with advocates for homeopathy, especially his most trusted advisor and Secretary of State, William Steward. Ultimately, the story of what happened to William Seward is a classic story in medical history that exemplifies conventional medicine's attitude toward and actions against unconventional medical treatments and the physicians who provide them.

        On the night Lincoln was assassinated, Seward was stabbed in the multi-person assassination plot against the Union. Thanks to the medical care provided by Joseph K. Barnes, MD, U.S. Surgeon General, Seward survived. However, because Seward's personal physician was a homeopathic doctor and because the AMA had a policy that it was an ethical violation to consult with a homeopathic doctor or even provide care for a homeopathic patient, Dr. Barnes was denounced by the vice president of the AMA for providing medical care (Haller, 2005, 192).

        In addition to choosing Seward to be his secretary of state, several leading advisors were homeopathic advocates. On November 1, 1861, Lincoln appointed Major General George Brinton McClellan (1826-1885) to command the Union army during the Civil War. However, in late December McClellan contracted typhoid fever, which left him unable to go to his office to conduct business (Rafuse, 1997). During the first week of McClellan's illness, two homeopathic doctors arrived from New York to care for the ill general and his father-in-law and chief of staff, Randolph B. Marcy, who was also ill. McClellan's decision to employ homeopathic doctors is particularly interesting considering the fact that the general came from a family of prominent conventional physicians.

        Despite this serious illness, General McClellan remained active, giving regular orders to his subordinates, arranging for troop movement and supply transport, meeting with the president on a weekly basis, issuing court martial orders, and even providing commendations to officers. By January 2, he seemed to be much better and shortly afterwards he had no noticeable physical limitations. McClellan lived another twenty-three years.

        Despite the success of this homeopathic treatment on the military leader of the Union army, that very month, January 1862, the Army Medical Board rejected requests by homeopathic doctors to serve in military hospitals, arguing that to grant this request would invite applications from all types of quacks and charlatans claiming medical expertise.

        Typhoid fever caused more deaths during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War than the deaths caused by bullets (Wershub, 1967, 175). Despite the fact that homeopathy gained widespread popularity in the United States and Europe due to its successes in treating various infectious disease epidemics of the mid- and late-1800s, including typhoid epidemics (Bradford, 1900; Coulter, 1973), the antagonism against homeopathy and homeopaths led to government regulations stipulating that graduates of homeopathic medical colleges could not receive a commission for military service.

        In Connecticut, several "irregular" physicians offered their services to the governor, who accepted them, but the examining board of the Union army rejected them and instead accepted recruits from a hastily graduated class from Yale College.

        Although the Union army had strict restrictions against homeopathic physicians, the Confederate army did not. In fact, the physician to the wife of the Confederate army's General Robert E. Lee was a homeopathic doctor, Alfred Hughes, MD (Hughes, 1904, 39). At least in one incidence, General Lee himself was known to have taken homeopathic medicines (Mainwaring and Riley, 2005).

        Thankfully, the antagonism toward homeopaths was not as severe during World War I; almost 2,000 homeopathic physicians were commissioned as medical officers. Even the American Red Cross authorized a homeopathic hospitalDearborn, 1923).

        Lincoln was also known to appoint some homeopathic physicians to political positions. For instance, in 1863 he appointed Dr. J. G. Hunt, author of a book on homeopathy and surgery (Hill and Hunt, 1855), to be consul to Nicaragua (King, 1905, I, 177). Lincoln also signed a bill into law that gave the president the authority to make appointments to the Union army's medical department, including homeopaths (Haller, 2005, 187). However, orthodox physicians strongly asserted that they would not work with homeopaths in any way, thus creating new and more difficult problems in military medicine.

        Although Lincoln surrounded himself with advocates for homeopathy, that didn't protect the medical science from his famous wit. He once called homeopathy "medicine of a shadow of a pigeon's wing."
On a more serious note, it should also be mentioned that the personal physician to Mary Lincoln (1818-1882) during the later part of her life was a homeopathic physician and surgeon from Chicago, Dr. Willis Danforth. Mary Lincoln was known to have experienced serious bouts of depression after her husband was assassinated and two of her children died, one at age 11 (1862) and the other at 18 (1871).

        Mary Lincoln became the sole heir of the Lincoln estate and her extravagant spending and unusual behavior later in life concerned her son Robert so much that in 1874, he sought to get her declared insane and sent to a mental asylum. The testimony of her homeopath, Danforth, confirmed her insanity because he noted that Mrs. Lincoln experienced "nervous derangement" and had delusions. She was committed to the asylum, but was free to move about the grounds, and was released three months later. Recent research has uncovered strong evidence to suggest that Mary Lincoln also suffered from syphilis, which may help explain her crazed mental state (Hayden, 2003, 120-132). 

Monday, February 16, 2009                                                                                             Courtesy: Orissadiary.com

Orissa Finance Minister inaugurates National Homoeopathy Congress

         Report by Orissadiary correspondent; Bhubaneswar :  Orissa Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai has inaugurated a two days  17th National Homoeopathy Congress  here at Jayadevsadan on Monday .The National Homoeopathy Congress organised by the joint coordination of Homoeopathic Education, Training & Research Institute  and Indian Homoeopathic Research Society .

        Addressing the occasion as Chief Guest Finance Minister Sri Ghadai called upon the Homoeopathic Doctors to effort jointly for the development of the Homoeopathic Treatment. Prof. Dr. L.K.Nanda Presided the  congress. Indian Homoeopathic Research Society President Dr. C.P.Singh,  Secretary Dr. Anirudha Burma,  Member of Parliament  Brahmananda Panda, Vice-chancellor of Utkal University  Prof. Binayak Rath, Vice-President of CCH New-Delhi  Dr. Ramji Singh  have given stress upon  Cheap and harmless homoeopathic treatment. Secretary of the Congress Dr. Pramod Kumar Biswal read out the annual report of the Homoeopathic Education, Training & Research Institute.

February 20th, 2009                                                                                                   Courtesy: www.thaindian.com

Government’s homeopathy scheme does not reach Uttar Pradesh

        Lucknow, Feb 20 (IANS) Announced by the central government with much fanfare nearly two years ago, a scheme to promote and provide homeopathic medicines to pregnant women and new-borns is yet to bear fruit in Uttar Pradesh.
The state government claimed this is because the central government was yet to release the funds for it. “We have made several efforts to get the allotted funds from the central government but all in vain,” B.N. Singh, the state’s director, homeopathic medicines, told IANS.

        “Due to the estranged relations between the state and the central government, the scheme could not be worked out as the central government is still to release funds for the scheme,” a senior health directorate official claimed, preferring anonymity to avoid any controversy.

        The state government decided to implement the central government’s National Campaign on Homeopathy for Mother and Child Care (NCHMCC) last year after citing its success in Gujarat.

        The scheme was launched in November 2007 by Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss in the national capital and subsequently in the state in February 2008. While launching the scheme, Ramadoss had stressed that there was a good homeopathy infrastructure in the country.

        “There are 185 homeopathic colleges in the country and 33 of them offer postgraduate courses. There are around 217,000 registered homeopathic practitioners,” the health minister had said.

        “It is necessary that the practitioners in particular be brought into this national campaign so that the message that there is effective and affordable homeopathic treatment can be effectively communicated,” Ramadoss had then said.

        “We decided to launch NCHMCC (in Uttar Pradesh) after it showed good results in Gujarat,” Singh said.

        It was proved that if homeopathic medicines were administered timely to pregnant women it helped reduce complications at the time of delivery and also resulted in birth of healthy babies, he added.

        Intensive training programmes for officials and doctors of the homeopathic department were carried out and it was also decided that doctors from the allopathic and ayurvedic streams, along with the health workers of all government hospitals, will also be imparted similar training.

        The trained doctors were to be provided with a kit of homeopathic medicines that were to be administered to pregnant women and newborns via extensive campaigns similar to the pulse polio drive.

        However, things came to a standstill within a month and the state government has till now failed to launch even a single campaign.