Fascinating interview with Gina Tyler, a well recognized stalwart and author in the homeopathic community helps children heal and educates parents on improving lifestyle for continued good health. She travels annually to parts of the world including Indonesia and Thailand, volunteering her services and teaching others about homeopathy.

Recent reports that Prince Charles had been lobbying the Health Secretary to back homeopathic medicine provoked howls of protest. Critics pointed out there was no scientific evidence it actually worked.

Indeed, both the British Medical Association and the Commons Science and Technology Committee have said the NHS should stop funding homeopathic treatments.

Sceptics say the therapies are no better than placebos, yet some medics argue they are backed by strong evidence. And a report from website NetDoctor says half of all GPs are thought to provide access to ‘therapy outside conventional medicine’, including osteopathy and acupuncture.

There are also 400 GP members of the Faculty of Homeopathy, and 900 GP members of the British Medical Acupuncture Society.

GPs are the most likely of all doctors to want to fit in with patients’ agendas and beliefs, says Dr Michael Dixon, an NHS GP and chairman of the NHS Alliance, which campaigns to improve healthcare within the service.

‘But more and more, we are also recognising that conventional medicine doesn’t have all the answers,’ he adds. ‘It is great for diagnosing patients, but not always able to treat the problems it identifies’.

Click here to see the full article and to read about GPs who prescribe homeopathy.

To establish what susceptibility is, it is wise to look at conventional definitions as well as the homeopathic perspective. We must include the views of founding fathers Samuel Hahnemann and J.T. Kent; after-all they laid the groundwork of homeopathic philosophy to which we still adhere today.  The Oxford Dictionary definition of susceptibility is “the state or fact of being likely or liable to be influenced or harmed by a particular thing”.  Allopaths are more likely to focus on external factors that make us susceptible to illness such as infectious diseases, germs, allergens, living conditions or pathogenic agents and would say that we lack immunity or resistance and thus are more likely to become attacked with a sickness – hence conventional medicines focus on healing with opposites.  Whilst taking this stance into account, homeopaths also will focus on internal factors which make us susceptible to certain illnesses. Simply put, susceptibility is the reaction of the person to external and internal influences. This predisposition can make us more inclined to becoming ill.

Kent expanded on Hahnemann’s writings on the subject:

“Because of these varying degrees of susceptibility some are protected from disease cause and some are made sick; the one who is made sick is susceptible to the disease cause in accordance with the plane he is in and the degree of attenuation that happens to be present at the time of contagion” – Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy p121. Here he is saying that we all have different degrees of susceptibility and that some people will become ill when exposed to certain internal or external factors and others will not. He also states that when we are exposed to natural disease and recover from it, we will not be susceptible to that same disease.  For example if we get a normal childhood illness such as chicken pox once, we recover and will then no longer have susceptibility to it. Kent continued “When a violent epidemic is raging we all know that, although the number of victims is large, they are few compared to those who go through the epidemic unscathed…we suppose…that a large number of the immune have escaped because they were usually strong and vigorous…but we find among those that have escaped the epidemic are a large number of persons who are anything but strong…the reason is that they have a sickness that is impossible for the epidemic to suppress…if the chronic disease is stronger than the epidemic disease…it cannot be suppressed” – Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy p127-128. Here Kent is saying that the reason these people lack  susceptibility to the epidemic disease is because the disease with which they are suffering is dissimilar to the epidemic and stronger.

What make us susceptible?

Susceptibility in a person can be inherited from parents. It depends on the miasmatic background of both parents. It is also influenced by the mental condition and circumstances during the production of sperm and ovum. An interaction of all these determines the miasmatic background of the individual.

Early and late environmental factors may also influence the development of susceptibility. Early environmental factors involve conditions pertaining to intra-uterine life. Any influence or indulgence during the gestational period may affect the development of susceptibility of the individual such as worries, diseases, tension, smoking, alcoholism, or malnutrition.

Late environmental factors also affect the development of susceptibility. These involve the influence during childhood and adulthood. H.A. Roberts wrote “Everything that has life is more or less influenced by circumstances and environment.” We see very frequently the susceptibility to climatic conditions, as well as all other phases of environment. One person will thrive in a rigorous climate where another will become seriously ill; one will thrive in dampness to which another would succumb. Altitude affects some individuals kindly and some adversely. The seashore improves one man’s condition while it makes another man ill. The power of assimilation and nutrition is one of the phases of susceptibility. One easily assimilates a certain kind of food while another finds the same food indigestible.

Human beings are susceptible to infection and contagion in varying degrees. One man will become infected in contact with diseased individuals while another will experience no ill effects. One person is made ill by noxious plants, while another man can handle them with impunity.

Thus both genetic and environmental factors determine the susceptibility of the individual. This is why pathogenic agents do not affect every person nor the same person all of the time. The patient must be sufficiently susceptible according to the time and circumstances. Susceptibility varies in degree in different patients, and at different times in the same patient.

Miasms can be active or dormant. When the vital force is relatively balanced, a chronic miasm will remain dormant. This is our aim as practitioners. We will never eradicate a chronic miasm because it is part of our genetic makeup, but we can keep it dormant. Dormant miasms can be activated by adverse conditions or events (exciting causes). Each time this happens, the condition is worse than the previous exacerbation.

Events that can augment the disease and increase the difficulty of curing are exciting causes. These can be environmental factors such as pollutants, microbes, stress or weather, or internal factors such as strong emotions. By far the most frequent excitement of miasms into chronic diseases is by grief and vexation. Other obstructions to the cure can be long-lasting chronic allopathic remedies or bad habits in lifestyle (gambling, sex, sedentary life).

Homeopathy and treating susceptibililty:

The good prescriber has to pay close attention to his patient’s whole history, especially his habits, age, occupation, mode of living, cravings and character. Everything is a manifestation of his own vital force which has changed by an external cause due to the susceptibility of the individual in this particular point of his life. Taking a deep and detailed case history lets the homeopath establish what miasms he is dealing with.

Click here for full article and case example.

Research in the Journal Trials has reported on the start of a study looking at the use of homeopathy to treat depression is widespread but there is a lack of clinical trials about its efficacy in depression in peri– and postmenopausal women.

Previous trials suggest that individualised homeopathic treatments improve depression.

The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy and safety of the homeopathic individualized treatment versus placebo or fluoxetine in peri– and postmenopausal women with moderate to severe depression.

Research, published online in the Journal Acupuncture and Meridian Studies has looked at the effects of Lycopodium clavatum (LC) on cancer cells.

It studied dilutions of both 5c and 15c.

The researchers explained that the LC-5C was diluted below Avogadro’s limit, i.e., 10−10, and the LC-15C was diluted beyond Avogadro’s limit, i.e., 10−30.

The researchers from the Molecular Biology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India and the Boiron Laboratory, Lyon, France found that the results revealed that administration of LC-5C and LC-15C was not harmful to normal blood cells, but caused considerable cell death through apoptosis in cancer (HeLa) cells.

This was shown by “the induction of DNA fragmentation, the increase in expression of protein and mRNA for caspase 3 and Bax, and the decrease in expression of Bcl2, Apaf, and cytochrome C release”.

They concluded that both potencies of the remedy Lycopodium clavatum had demonstrated their capability to induce apoptosis in cancer cells.