If homoeopathy is ineffective, it will die naturally

Homoeopathy has an interesting connection with British history in India. The British Medical Association (BMA), Kolkata Branch, back in the 19th century, asked a renowned allopathic practitioner Dr Mahendra Sircar, also a personal physician to Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, to give a speech on the topic ‘Homoeopathy is quackery’.

Dr Sircar spent three months in the clinic of a prominent homeopath from Kolkata - Dr Babu Rajan Datta — and observed how the latter treated patients. Finally, the speech he gave was on ‘Homoeopathy is the future of medicine’.

Homoeopathy, which originated in Germany about 200 years ago, has spread across the world like wildfire. This is because many chronic illnesses don’t have treatment in modern medicine, which is “organ oriented”, as opposed to “organism-oriented”.

Homoeopathy believes that disease affects the whole being and not just one part.

Not only is homoeopathy popular in a number of countries across the globe, but it’s a fact that number homoeopathic practitioners are modern medical doctors.

Homoeopathy has been around for 200 years and has been repeatedly put down by several bodies, but still continues to survive and thrive. In fact, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called homoeopathy the second largest growing therapy in the world. In the past three years, I have seen that there is a concerted attack against homoeopathy and I’m convinced that this is because of certain economic interests in the pharmaceutical industry. They stand to lose a huge amount of revenue if the popularity of homoeopathy continues to grow at the current pace.

Lastly, in any democracy, people have the right to decide what the treatment that they want to receive. If homoeopathy is ineffective, it will die a natural death as patients will stop asking for it.

Dr Rajan Sankaran is internationally renowned senior homeopath