medical practice to warrant financial support for courses for general practitioners.”

Thehair of the dog WHEN Salome went down with mastitis, the wife (not, I must tell you at once, Herodias but my wife; Salome is our cow) got on the local hot-line to Mrs R., and she prescribed Pulsatilla 30, 4 hourly. 36 hours and Salome was right as rain — back to her four gallons a day. The local over-worked vet, a good friend, was impressed, genuinely and unguardedly. But then he’s open-minded, after all most of his patients are cranks: naturopaths, good-earth freaks and the like. How, though, would the B.M.A. have responded to news of this cure? No doubt the curators of that mausoleum would have pronounced it the result of the cow’s powers of autosuggestion. An unbalanced cow. A dangerous cow. A cow that should be kept under heavy sedation. The sort of cow that can get out of hand. A cow that, before you know it, will be hearing voices. Well, so be it. And I accept that our house is so infested with these powers of autosuggestion that it is probably right off the register. Bee-stings: Ledum. Fretful teething: Chamomilla(these babies, amazing powers of autosuggestion). Cuts and scrapes: Hypericum. Jet-lag: arnica. But why should I bore you? The statistics suggest you probably already do support this great medical legerdemain.

Thirty years ago when the NHS was founded the government incorporated in the scheme six homoeopathic hospitals. At that point the then Minister of Health said: “It must be the obligation of the Regional Boards in establishing their management committee to see that these management committees are of a character which maintains the continuity of the characteristics of those institutions. I think that I can give that absolute guarantee (That’s it! That’s the moment the politician makes your blood run cold!) because otherwise it would be an emotional mutilation which nobody could possibly defend.”

In 1974 Hospital Management Committees were abolished, and with them the direct protection that had been guaranteed. The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital now comes under its local area health authority, which has, and my hand is steady as I write, also taken over management of the hospital’s endowment fund.

In the last two years the British Homoeopathic Association has received more than 35,000 inquiries from people wanting to know where they can obtain homoeopathic treatment within the National Health Service. In 1976 104,000 homoeopathic prescriptions under the NHS were issued by G.P.s in England. In 1977 more than 81,000 patients attended homoeopathic hospitals and clinics. And the average number of doctors attending each intensive post-graduate training course at the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital was nearly 100, compared with only 25 in 1972.

So Homoeopathy is clearly flourishing. Yes, except that it isn’t. What it is doing is facing an almighty crisis. Here’s a quotation from Parliament’s Notices of Questions and Motions: 21st June 1978.

. . the deans of the post-graduate medical faculties have accepted the view of the Council for Postgraduate Medical Education that training in homoeopathy is not of sufficient relevance to modern V_______________ ___________________

In Liverpool, the Homoeopathic Hahnemann Hospital has been closed. And it has recently been learned that the Bristol Homoeopathic Hospital is to have its homoeopathic beds and others facilities drastically reduced.

I have also heard the rumour that homoeopathic prescribers and pharmacists may soon be prevented from sending their ‘poisons’ (which I suppose means specifics like arsenicum, belladonna and bryonia) through the post without a doctor’s prescription. A measure hardly consistent with the established medical opinion I once encountered: “Homoeopathy . . . Bah! You might just as well take a dose of rain water!”

Of the forms of medical treatment available under the NHS it is only homoeopathy whose training remains unrecognized. Why? Why is the medical establishment so edgy about it? Perhaps it lacks the proper mystique. Perhaps it is not potentially sufficiently harmful. Or perhaps one is simply witnessing a symptom of the establshment - how the B.M.A., When anything threatens its absolute monopoly, will respond like General Motors at the sight of a pedestrian, or a

Kremlin beseiged by a wild barbarian horde of dissidents. Still, one would have thought that with the government last April launching its campaign to save £30 million on NHS dmgs the B.M.A. might have been prepared to listen to the logic of the cash-register. This is what the Secretary of State for Social Services said, “The increasing consumption of medicines is disturbing .. . Over £20 million a year of scarce resources are being used on slimming pills, cough mixtures, laxatives and vitamins. Another £40 million at least might be saved on the proportion of sleeping pills, tranquillisers and anti-rheumatic preparations that are inappropriately prescribed.” That of course is an invitation to set about the Philistines with the jawbone inditement of a system hellbent on treating the symptoms and not the whole person. But I’ll not take it up, not here. I’ll leave it at this: in 1976 the average cost for a NHS homoeopathic GP prescription (and remember there were 104,000 of these) was 40% less than for a non-homoeopathic GP prescription. Now that’s talking money.

Homoeopathy is neither exclusive nor pretentious. It makes no claims to offer the panacea. But at the same time the case-book of its healing, even of deeprooted maladies that have not responded to other methods of treatment, is impressive. Above all, perhaps, it offers obvious advantages as ‘first aid’, both human and veterinary (when a friend’s macaw started passing blood, a call to Mrs R. had it back on its wings in no time). I would have thought that every community or co-operative would do well to have one of its members versed in the rudiments. Meanwhile, anyone interested in learning more about this generous science should write to the British Homoeopathic Association, 27a Devonshire St., London Wl. They supply an excellent introductory pamphlet.

And if you are concerned about the future of Homoeopathy, which means being concerned about a medical philosophy that aims to heal (i.e. to make whole), and not merely to amputate offending symptoms, then write and make that concern known to your M.P. Why not send him a dose of Nux Vomica . . . since he’s probably suffering from a hangover. No, perhaps not. To be honest, that is one cure I’ve never found a blind bit of use.** /