Understanding homeopathy in the light of immunology, to develop an alternative medicinal formula, to overcome the impediments of immunology and homeopathy, to combat diseases due to immunological disorders.
(For more than a century, the homeopaths tried to establish homeopathy as scientific method to cure diseases, but failed to do so. The doctrines of organan were based on some hypothetical concepts which could not be explained on a scientific basis. In order to establish homeopathy on a more dependable ground for the benefit of suffering humanity, we decided to take a different approach which is going to be explained in this text.
An alternative approach to explain homeopathy in the light of immunology
to make it acceptable to the followers of modern allopathic system of medicine and to show them how homeopathy can be used in the fields where modern allopathic medications like cytokines, failed to achieve their desired goals to combat diseases caused by immunological disorders. This article was presented at the four international seminars held in Bangladesh in the year 2000).
Efforts to increase the capacity of the immune system, to keep human body free from diseases by the method of detoxification, started from the development of the science of immunology. The bone marrow, which produces blood cells, is the source of that capacity of the immune system to combat external invaders. Due to various reasons, especially due to lack of exposure to the Ultra violet rays from solar radiation, the bone marrow gets weaker and produces weak and inefficient blood cells like the farm animals. No medicine has yet been developed in any system of medicine, which can make the bone marrow healthier and stronger to generate healthy and efficient blood cells to fight foreign micro-organisms.
The failure on the part of the scientists to increase the efficiency of bone marrow to produce healthy blood cells, has compelled them to develop the system of controlling the receptors, enzymes, ion-channels
and the carrier molecules with the help of medicines called channel blockers, inhibitors, etc. By controlling these bio-chemical processes in the cells, with the help of drugs, majority of the diseases caused by
immunological disorders like hypertension, hyperacidity, gastric ulcer, allergy, etc. arebeing controlled now a days.
But this method of palliation is short acting and needs regular use of drugs. These drugs do not help to detoxify the human body but keep the disease symptoms under control and help people to lead an apparently
normal life. But a careful study shows that the intensity of the diseases go on increasing which require to increase the dosage of drugs. In the long run, due to controlling various natural processes of the physiological system by external means of medication, the complexity of the diseases go on increasing and various organs like kidney, liver, heart, etc. gradually get damaged and ultimately stop functioning properly. But people are happy with these palliative drugs due to the prompt relief they get from this mode of medication and also due to their ignorance about the damage which is being done to the immune system by this mode of treatment, which is the root cause of all the malignant incurable diseases from cold allergy, asthma, diabetes, cancer, etc. called diseases due to immunological disorders.
But if we consider the curative action obtained by the use of the naturopathic medicines in the systems of Ayurveda (Herbal) & homeopathic medicine, we can find that the curative processes are long lasting which
keep the human body free from the burden of toxins and people enjoy much more healthier disease free life without the tendency of getting attacked with the malignant and deadly diseases mentioned above. From our observation, it appears that the curative processes rendered by those naturopathic systems might have acted like the systems proved by the scientist Dr. Jules T. Freund in the year 1942, who used the adjuvants in the injectable form to obtain the process of immunostimulation in animal models but was found to be highly toxic for human use (vide internet for “Freund’s complete adjuvant”). Freund’s system of immunostimulation or immunomodulation could not be used extensively on human body due to the failure to develop adjuvants suitable for parenteral (injectable) use for human being. Experiments were carried out by the scientists, to find adjuvants suitable for parenteral (injectable) use for a period of 20 years and was then abandoned forever. The failure to utilize such an ideal method of cure by detoxification by modulating the immune system with the help of natural toxic substances, stopped the way of utilizing the toxic substances as modulators of the T and B-cells, to take measures to identify and eliminate the disease producing toxins called antigens in the language of immunology.
But the scientists found out substances called cytokines produced in human body to control the immune system. These cytokines are now produced in-vitro and used for controlling immune system. But after
clinical trials, they are found to be toxic and almost failed to do the task of immunomodulation to detoxify and make human body disease free, like the naturally generated cytokines produced by the immune system in-vivo in case of any attack from micro-organisms. Our attempt is to compare the ancient oral use of toxic drugs from plants, minerals, animals and bacterial origin with the use of Freund’s complete adjuvant.
If the oral use of toxic drugs of naturopathic systems can be proved to be an alternative to the injectable method of Freund’s complete adjuvant for the process of immunopotentiation, the impediments of
modern medicine to use the ideal method of cure by the help of detoxification could be overcome. This effort to give a scientific explanation of the ancient systems of naturopathy, will help to avoid the use of palliative and immunosuppressive drugs and will stop the process of gradual degradation of the immune system leading towards the immuno-compromised condition of human body prone to be attacked with viruses like HIV, bird flu, mad cow disease and other malignant diseases and will save billions of dollars in health care research globally.
In the ancient times, all the systems of medicine, including the allopathic system, used the toxic substances obtained from natural sources of plants, minerals, chemicals, animals and bacterial origin (vide the book
of Materia Medica by William Hale-White 1935 edition). But they did not have the clear conception about how those natural toxic substances helped to cure diseases, due to their lack of knowledge about immunology. In order to increase the curative effect, scientists of conventional medicine tried to isolate the alkaloids from plants which increased the toxic effects of the drugs further, which produced medicinal aggravation called drug disease, which was reduced by the system of attenuation developed by homeopathy. With the discovery of bacteria and antibiotics, the followers of germ theory became more confident about their concept over the concept of the followers of naturopathy. Simultaneously, a new branch of medicine named immunology was developed which discovered the systems of vaccination. This brought a great success for the followers of germ theory. But the scientists of modern medicine still faced great hindrance to deal with the non-infections diseases, which consisted of majority of the diseases from allergy to cancer. Scientists found out that the immune system, which helped to keep the human body free from antigens or toxins to maintain healthy life, sometimes failed to act with accuracy.
The over or under activity of the immune system developed various illnesses caused by reactions like (i) hypersensitivity, (ii) Cytotoxicity, (iii) Immune complexity, (iv) autoimmunity & (v) immunodeficiency. The bulk of non-infectious diseases are caused by these five reactions of immune system, which we are going to explain in brief. The white blood cells are known to the common people as the soldiers of defense mechanism, which keep the human body free from foreign invaders with their act of scavenging. These white blood cells (WBC) possess an inherent capacity to differentiate and identify the toxic and non-toxic ingredients of human body. While destroying the toxic ingredients, they sometimes excite the healthy cells to produce substances called histamine which cause allergy, this reaction is called Hypersensitivity reaction Sometimes they destroy healthy cells and cause anemia, that reaction is called cytotoxic reaction. Sometimes they combine with toxic substances called immune complex substances, which damage adjacent healthy tissues and cause diseases like eczema, psoriasis, leprosy, hepatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, liver cirrhosis and even cancer, etc., which is called Immune complex reaction. Sometimes the army of defense system makes mistakes and begins to destroy substances like insulin and cause diabetes and other deadly diseases like SLE, glomerulonephritis, infertility, etc. This reaction is called autoimmunity. The fifth reaction is caused when
the defense mechanism becomes totally inactive allows the invaders to enter into the human body and roam about freely and render the person subjected to the continuous processes of diseases beginning from cold
allergy to cancer, this reaction is called immunodeficiency.
To handle the diseases caused by these five reactions called immunological disorders, scientists developed anti-allergic drugs and also drugs called steroid etc., to suppress the immune system to stop the over-activity of the defense forces. To increase the under activity called immunodeficiency, they developed immunoglobulin (IG) to apply from external sources, which is very expensive and not very much accurate in activity.
The other method is called bone marrow transplantation which is both expensive and risky. This failure on the part of the scientists of conventional medicine to control the immunological disorders by the method of detoxification, could be overcome by the oral application of natural toxic substances as is done in the naturopathic systems of medicine together with the oral use of the products of bacterial endotoxins used in homeopathy. This mode of application of combined form of antigenic (toxic) substances resembles the system of application of Freund’s complete adjuvant (toxic natural substances with the bacterial product). The difference lies only in the mode of administration. The naturopathic systems like Ayurveda (herbal) system do not use the bacterial products, which is only done in homeopathy. This similarity of alternative mode of application of the Freund’s complete adjuvant was observed by us in the year 1973 and we named the
homeopathic use of natural toxins with the bacterial products as combined oral micro-immunotherapy (COMIT) previously named as Dynamised Micro-immunotherapy by Dr. O. A. Julian. But this concept of immunomodulation probably acted in the humoral and cellular level and could not fulfill the task of bone marrow stimulation, which is the actual site of origin of immunological activity, where the products used as adjuvants could not reach to fulfill the purpose of rectification of the controlling center of the immune mechanism. In our research, this point was taken into consideration and the modified concept of oral immunomodulation based on Freund’s concept of immunomodulation with the help of adjuvants was modified by making the use of radioactive products like Uranium and Radium in the minute dose together with the natural herbal and the bacterial products simultaneously. This made the breakthrough in achieving the effect of bone marrow stimulation which could not be achieved by the use of natural herbal and bacterial products alone. The use of radioactive products like Uranium and Radium in the minute dose together with the natural and the bacterial products simultaneously as is done in homeopathy, makes it more competent in curing diseases by the immune system than any other systems of medicine. This makes homeopathy superior to the system of modern conventional medicine, which failed to achieve its desired goal of immunomodulation with the help of cytokines (vide internet). This is possible by homeopathy because it can achieve the effect of bone marrow stimulation. The use of various toxic substances in the attenuated oral formmakes homeopathy effective in modulating the immune system in the humoral,cellular and medullar levels i.e. antibody mediated, cell mediated and bone marrow (stem cell) mediated immune reactions respectively.The use of radioactive products like Uranium and Radium for the purpose of bone marrow stimulation was made more effective and with less medicinal aggravation by the use of two other homeopathic medicines named X-ray and Sol, both developed by Dr. Bernhardt Fincke MD (vide A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica by Dr. John Henry Clarke MD).
The systematic use of the above mentioned homeopathic medicines based on the concept of homeopathic symptomatology together with the concept of immunomodulation in immunology for the purpose of total annihilation of the genetically inherited toxicity called miasmatic defects in classical homeopathy, gave us tremendous success in curing diseases due to immunological disorders, which is beyond the imagination to be achieved by classical homeopathy alone.