Homoeopathy, pathography and medical science

Aim

To discuss the implications of insights gained from detailed study of the natural history of disease and healing processes which forms the basis of homoeopathic method: a process formerly known as pathography.

Summary

Homoeopathy is notoriously controversial because of the extreme dilution of its medicines. Research effort is focused on whether they possess any specifically active therapeutic properties. There is no denying the importance of this question. But there is a neglected aspect of homoeopathy which is equally challenging and important. This is the study of the natural history of disease and healing processes based upon painstaking clinical observation; particularly intriguing because its validity does not depend upon proof of efficacy of the intervention. Indeed, one of its attractions is insight into the nature of healing processes, irrespective of whether they are stimulated by specific therapeutic agents, or by non-specific effects of the therapeutic process.

Homoeopathy is possibly unique in contemporary western medicine in the thoroughness and precision of its history taking and clinical observation. This applies to the evolution of the disease process and its manifestation in the patient, and with equal emphasis to the observation of change following the intervention. The paper describes the research potential of this process as it relates to the epidemiology and nature of disease processes, individual susceptibility to illness, the nature of self-regulating and self-healing mechanisms, and the understanding and evaluation of these as outcomes of the therapeutic process.