At a time when the British Medical Association
is calling for the end of national funding for
homeopathy and detractors are describing it as
"nonsense on stilts", a Nobel prize-winning
scientist has made a discovery that suggests
that homeopathy does have a scientific basis
after all. In July, Nobel Prize winning French
virologist Professor Luc Montagnier shocked
fellow Nobel prize-winners and the medical
establishment by telling them that he had
discovered that water has a memory that
continues even after many dilutions.
Until Montagnier's research, the bulk of
mainstream doctors and scientist had
maintained that there was no scientific way
that multiple dilutions used in homeopathy
could possibly work. In part, such views
stemmed from lack of understanding. In larger
part, such views likely stemmed from a desire
to stem the rising popularity of homeopathy
and eliminate it as a competition to
mainstream medicine - much the same as
happened in the United States a century ago.
One of the foundations of homeopathy maintains
that the potency of a substance is increased
with its dilution. Montagnier discovered that
solutions containing the DNA of viruses and
bacteria "could emit low frequency radio waves"
and that such waves influence molecules around
them, turning them into organized structures.
The molecules in turn emit waves and Montagnier
found that the waves remain in the water even
after it has been diluted many times. To a lay
person, that may not mean much, but to a
scientist it highly suggests that homeopathy may
have a scientific basis.
In Britain the market for homeopathy is
estimated to be growing at around 20% a
year. Over 30 million people in Europe use
homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy is supported in
Britain by Prince Charles and the physician to
the Royal Family has been a homeopathic
physician since the late 1800s.
While homeopathy is also experiencing a
resurgence of popularity in the United States,
it is far more popular in much of the rest of
the world. In India, approximately 130 million
people use homeopathy. In Brazil, homeopathy is
a recognized medical specialty where 15,000
medical doctors are certified as homeopathic
specialists.
The latter half of the 19th century was
homeopathy's heyday in the United States.
Regular physicians could hardly compete. By 1902
homeopaths did seven times the business of
allopaths and there were 15,000 practicing
homeopathic physicians in the US. During the
1849 cholera epidemic, homeopaths from
Cincinnati kept rigorous records showing that
they lost only 3% of their patients, while
allopathy lost 16 to 20 times more.
Many highly accomplished individuals past and
present have chosen homeopathy as their therapy
of choice, including several U.S. Presidents.
Many of America's literary greats advocated for
and often wrote about homeopathy, including
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark
Twain - as did European greats such as Goethe,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Alfred Tennyson,
and George Bernard Shaw.
At the turn of the 20th century, the AMA came
right out and admitted that competition was
destroying physicians' incomes. Thanks to
funding from John D. Rockefeller and the
Carnegie Foundation, the AMA was able to repress
and ultimately eliminate homeopathy and other
natural and alternative competition. The 22
homeopathic medical schools that flourished in
1900 dwindled to just 2 in 1923. By 1950 all
schools teaching homeopathy were closed.
Ironically, John D. Rockefeller believed
strongly in homeopathy. He referred to it as "a
progressive and aggressive step in medicine."
Rockefeller lived to the ripe old age of 99
using only homeopathy in the latter part of his
life.
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