Here are some ideas for self help with colds and flu. And little about homeopathy which can help too.
I caught a cold last week – in common with many others, it seems. Well, it is that time of year. Pre-pandemic, colds and flu were not newsworthy – but they are now. I shall not labour the point, but the media doom and gloom is not particularly helpful.
As we have all learned during these past months, respiratory infections are caused by viruses and viruses that tend to mutate.
The characteristics of the various offending bugs we can leave to the scientists, but when it comes to the counter attack, respiratory viruses seem to be rather slippery characters.
Fortunately most respiratory infections are self limiting – even Covid. Being sensible makes a significant difference to the outcome.
So what are the tips for self help with colds and flu? And what should we not do?
I just penned a short editorial for the The Herald (issue 414 p38). What could be said in 300 words is limited, but I emphasised the importance of good general health in building immunity.
Modern life with its cities and technologies is about as distant from the natural world as you can get. One of the gains from the environmental movement is a reawakening to that lost connection.
Here are three simple steps to reconnect:
Firstly, get a good night’s sleep. As the hours of daylight shorten, you don’t need to be a genius to infer that this is suggestive of more sleep. Sleep is a health regenerating process and a lack of sleep increases our vulnerability to infection.
Secondly, consider your eating habits. Eating may be pleasurable, but its real purpose is to supply the body with the necessary nutrients. The gut flora is known to be important in immune health. It is common sense then to focus on healthy fresh food.
Thirdly, get outside into the sunlight as much as you can. Living by the New Forest and the coast, there are plenty of options. Not only is exercise good for the body, it is good for the mind also.
Whilst nutrition should be the main source of vitamins and minerals, there is a logic to vitamin D (specifically vitamin D3) supplementation during the winter months.
Otherwise known as the sunshine vitamin, it is made by the action of sunlight on the skin. Reduced daylight and overcast weather mean that vitamin D deficiency is common in winter.
Vitamin D has many functions which you can look up online, but of particular relevance is its role in maintaining respiratory health. It is generally anti-inflammatory.
Daily supplementation in the range of 2000 to 4000 IU (international units) or 50 to 100 micrograms should be perfectly safe for adults (half the dose for under 12s).
Start low and increase as winter progresses, then tail off again as the days lengthen. As ever, take advice if you have particular health conditions.
Theoretically excess vitamin D can be toxic (elevated calcium levels and intestinal symptoms) but such events require massive doses over extended periods. In short, sensible supplementation is safe.
The supplement is mostly available as tablets or capsule of 1000 to 2000 IU tablets which is itself a guide to dosage.
You may recall a time when Mums gave cod-liver oil to her school age kids? Guess what, it is Vitamin D rich. Two teaspoons is about 1000IU
Here is a selection of articles / videos. The NHS dosage guidelines (just 400IU) seem to be rather conservative.
NHS Vitamin D Healthline Vitamin D Dr Seheult Medcram John Campbell PhD Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D
We all do, and it may even be necessary that we do so in order to keep the immune system in trim. Or it could be a reminder to slow down, and metaphorically ‘recharge the batteries’.
So, here are the tips for self-help with cold and flu. What should you do? Or not to do?
In short:
When we get a cold it is popular to reach for over the counter medicines most of which contain Paracetamol or aspirin (pain / fever relief), and other ingredients like Pseudoephedrine (decongestant) that relieve your symptoms.
Strange as it may seem, your symptoms are your body’s curative reaction to the virus. Unpleasant, these may be, but they have a purpose. Fever, for example, stimulates the immune system into action.
Here is a short quote from Dr Russell Malcolm a medical doctor and homeopath in Scotland:
“avoid Paracetamol and Aspirin completely …. [they] have no curative power at all … there is evidence that interfering with this process can lengthen the illness and increase the incidence of complications.”
On my bookshelf is a small volume that I bought when my son was a baby 30 years back – in the chapter on respiratory infections, sore throats, colds and flu the author (American, Dr Leo Galland MD), puts it simply:
“I recommend rest, chicken soup and TLC (tender loving care). For severe infections with fever, lots of aches and/or uncomfortable congestion, I find short megadose therapy of vitamin C helpful.“
I’ll come back to vitamin C shortly.
Dr Malcolm also states “Flu is not a headcold”. As the old joke says, if a £50 note blows into the garden when you have a headcold, you’ll wrap-up and go out to catch it, with flu you surely will not!
Half a century earlier, Dr Dorothy Shepherd (1888-1952) said this:
“It is the fashion to call every slight feverish chill influenza; but if after the temperature has come down, the depression, exhaustion and weariness is such that it is too much effort to do anything, that life is really not worth living, you know you will have had influenza; after a mere feverish chill you will feel as well on getting up as you did before the attack.
Unfortunately many people take no notice of the danger signals of weakness and prostration, and insist on getting up, even returning to work before they are fit, thus laying themselves open to broncho-pneumonia…and sudden death’
‘During the feverish period the patient should be allowed nothing but raw fruit and fruit juices, and not synthetic bottled juices. Fresh oranges, lemon juice, apple drinks, grapefruit drinks at frequent intervals will cleans the system and prevent any undue strain being thrown on the gastric organs. No meat juices, no milk, are permissible. After the temperature is down, the diet may be increased and may include vegetable broth, Yeastrel drinks ( Marmite?), wholemeal toast. Gradually other foods may be added…“
No.1 rule then is REST. You may recall what happened to PM Boris Johnson when he tried to keep going through his Covid infection … viruses don’t respecter rank!
Modern society tends not to permit absence from work or school, which is a pity and probably counter productive …Covid, might remind us of old wisdom.
Vitamin C has a direct anti-viral effect that has been well researched.
Dr Leo Galland mentioned above, continued:
“To treat severe colds, viral infection such as sore throats or bronchitis, and flu, I find megadoses of vitamin C very effective…I recommend the highest dose you [or your child] can take. 1000mg an hour, until he begins to get loose bowels (Excess vitamin C…draws water into the intestines). This will establish [the] saturation point.
Stop the vitamin C until the next day, when you [or your child] should [take] 1000mg every 2-3 hours until the bowels become loose. Stop the vitamins again until the third day, when you should give 1000mg every four to six hours. Maintain this dose until the cold is over, then gradually cut the dose back over two weeks to 1000mg a day.
The anti-viral effect of vitamin C depends on getting the highest level possible into the tissues.
Is it safe? Very: not only against viruses but also acute allergic reactions. When should you not give vitamin C? If you [your child] has kidney disease or is too sick to take food and liquid along with it.“
This is the protocol I follow myself. Loose bowels do not result in my case, but they may for you, everyone is different.
Zinc has a important function in supporting immune health. A healthy diet should suffice for daily needs, but supplemention at 20-40mg per day when you are sick can be helpful.
The herbal remedy Echinacea can also help on first signs of a cold or flu. But Echinacea should be taken for only a few days (say a week) as thereafter it can be counter productive. Follow the manufacturers guidance on dosage.
Most respiratory infections are self limiting and are more likely to be so, if you follow the good advice above. Homeopathic medicine can undoubtably speed recovery but selection of the correct remedy takes a little skill, but can be learned. First aid kits are available for home use.
Should you have a viral respiratory illness that is lingering on uncomfortably, and wish to try a homeopathic approach please call and leave a message or text (see Contact) and I will call back – the ‘Discovery Call’ arrangement is for clients with longer term issues. (Expect a nominal charge of around £10 for any remedy sent).
However – and very importantly – seek immediate medical help (GP or A&E) if your condition is getting worse and especially if you have breathing difficulties.
Homeopathy explained simply is not so easy. It is so easy to disappear down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Here is a picture I took in Aberdeenshire – Deeside water, which runs down from the Cairngorms is known for its clarity and purity. Crystal clear!
My first encounter with homeopathy was as a child. Our family doctor used homeopathy. I got better and didn’t think much about it…well, I was a child after all.
That is just how it was for me. But a seed was sown, a seed that lay dormant until a memory is stirred….
What stirred that memory was the my ignorance, now the parent, with a sick child…
My son was aged 3 or 4 at the time (he’s now the wrong side of thirty) and he’d gone down with something as kiddies do … virus probably…
Fingers crossed he’ll just get better (usually that’s so)..just wait and see. But sometimes not…
Of the shelf comes Dr Andrew Lockie’s book The Family Guide to Homeopathy, and a little homeopathic first aid remedy kit that I had bought.
Aconite seemed a good place to start but no change whatsoever….
Let’s switch to Belladonna (excellent for fevers in children, Lockie says)…still no change…
Actually, he’s getting worse. Might need the doctor…it’s Saturday…hmm
Back to the book…l’ll try Gelsemium (drowsy, dull, shivery) ….
And that within a few minutes his demeanor changes….
Beginners luck – but wow I was impressed*.
(*n.b. the reaction to a remedy in an acute illness should be fast especially in children with good vitality – long standing, that is ‘chronic’ complaints take longer to resolve)
Like Deeside water my experience was crystal clear. Gelsemium worked where Aconite and Belladonna didn’t…
And, no way was my son getting better without some intervention.
In homeopathy** the picture of the remedy must match the picture of the symptoms..that is the rule. His picture was that of Gelsemium.
(**Homeo-pathy means “similar-suffering” or “like cures like” – known as the law of similars)
Some say homeopathy is pseudo-science.
How often do your hear the phrase “The Science ..”? But science is dynamic not a tablet of stone. There is no “The”. It’s a means to understanding; it’s never constant and ever changing.
How about margarine or butter?…We still cannot decide (unless you sell butter or margarine)!
[Just to emphasise the point, listen to Dr Chris Knobbe ]
What’s fashionable in science (or medicine) today, may not be fashionable tomorrow.
A notable scientist, the late Stephen Jay Gould, argued that: the role of Science was to establishing facts; the role of Religion, values. He spoke of non-overlapping magesteria.
Put another way, science considers the physical or material world, and religion that which is immaterial or metaphysical.
Science likes things that can be ‘measured’; it is not too keen on the metaphysical. The scientific mind tends to bind to the physical, and some scientists can be so sceptical about the metaphysical that they reject such concept. In their own way they keep things simple … that too is crystal clear!
But much of that which is important to us as humans is beyond the physical; is metaphysical – our emotional response to each other, to art, to nature and so on.
Guess what, homeopathy, with its potentised (ultra dilute) remedies likely straddles the metaphysical and physical worlds. Just as we human beings do.
Up to a point, it is good to be sceptical (or ‘Skeptical’ in the USA). But maybe its time to be sceptical about the “Skeptics”, expecially the more aggressive ones.
They pun there is “nothing in it” … the pharmaceutical industry agrees “there is nothing in it”.
It is quite a battle out there, I can tell you. Here is a nice blog from Scientific American
Evidence is suppressed…
Academia..fearing loss of funding…backs away from research
Governments are lobbied..
You won’t have heard, but many volumes have been written on homeopathy for over two centuries.
Including some stunning new work like that from Michel Yakir
A senior clinician once remarked to the effect that “if only five percent of what has been written on homeopathy was valid it would still be worth looking at”
Remember the late Donald Rumsfeld words:
“..There are things we know we know. … But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know, we don’t know”.
We may laugh but it is so true.
Those are the opening words of The Gospel of St John. Quite powerful, and worth reflecting on..
Though these words come from a religious text, science has for some time recognised the correlation between matter, energy and information (i.e. The Word).
Homeopathy cannot be about chemistry. It is true, there is ‘nothing’ (material) in a homeopathic remedy except the sugar pill used as a carrier for the remedy).
But what about physics, especially quantum physics? The non-material remedy may be a form of energy or information. Something metaphysical; a transfer of thought. A bit like a software download; so commonplace to our generation but quite bizarre to our grand-parents and those long passed.
Recall that out bodies are two-thirds water.
The preparation of homeopathic medicines is a process of serial dilution and agitation, termed “potentisation”. Therefore some aspect of the original material substance is transferred. But what?
The late Dr Masura Emoto, experimented with the influence of thought on water. Here is just one picture from his website from the water at Lourdes
Prof. Jerry Pollack in the USA has discovered a fourth water phase which has potential implications
Links in the chain of the homeopathy puzzle? Maybe.
And highlighting the importance of crystal clear water
Most folk drive their cars with (increasingly) little knowledge of what is happening under the bonnet. Your auto-engineer does, true, but cars are man made.
Humans are neither machines, nor man made.
Despite advances in medical science there is still much that is unknown, and if a little homeopathy keeps you ‘running smoothly’, in homeostasis (harmony), why not use it?
There are “known knowns”….homeopathy works.
And “unknown unknowns” … we don’t know everything.
Open minded scientists will bring understanding in time.
Homeopathy explained simply!
Isn’t this a fantastic looking flower? It is an ornamental hybrid of the common onion from which the homeopathic remedy Allium Cepa derives.
The name which may derive from two Celtic words “all” and “cep”, meaning “hot” and “head”. In full bloom the flower is indeed like a head – a big beautiful sphere.
The onion family includes garlic and leeks. Plants used nutritionally and medicinally for centuries. Today the medicinal benefits are still recognised – here is one article – read more
In folklore, even in the 19th century, placing sliced onions around the home, or in a bag worn around the neck was considered to protect against contagion during epidemics.
Perhaps we should revisit past wisdom, given the current (Covid) challenges? But I suspect sending your children back to school with a bag of chopped onions around their neck might not be popular?
When chopping onions for the cooking pot streaming eyes and runny nose is all too familiar! This is “coryza” or “rhinitis” in medical parlance.
As a homeopathic medicine, one paarticular use of Allium Cepa is in the treatment of an attack of “hay fever”, whose symptoms of coryza, as you all know, are rather similar to those from chopping onions. The nasal discharge is acrid and that from the eye bland.
The homeopathic core principle is “like cures like”. This means giving a medicine that mimics the symptoms suffered.
Homeopathy supports the body’s attempt to cure. It helps it over “the hill” that needs to be climbed.
As I wrote last month “Jaw Jaw is better than War War”
The body speaks its language – it informs; we must listen and act accordingly.
The runny nose of the common cold can be similar to the characteristics of Allium Cepa, but in this case it may be best to suffer the inconvenience as the discharge from the nose has a purpose – namely to eliminate the virus.
Sometimes it is best not to supress symptoms. That includes the use of over the counter remedies such as LemSip and so on. Yes, you feel better but you are hampering the healing.
Symptoms, from a homeopathic perspective, are not just an inconvenience – they point the way to cure.
They inform.
Cutting edge Quantum Physics tells us that our entire universe is “informed”. Indeed, it tells us that we are “informed” – right from the moment of our birth to our last breath.
Current thinking is that the brain is a sort of transmitter / receiver, as much as a pseudo computer for processing our thoughts and bodily signals.
So, the brain may be receiving “downloads” – something like the downloads to our electronic gadgets. Fascinating.
Last night, courtesy of the Scientific and Medical Network I listened to Dr Doug Matzke talk about his research into quantum computing.
He has a new book titled “Deep Reality” – tad over my head mathematically – but the fundamental role of “information” in nature is becoming clear.
Homeopathy is information medicine, born ahead of its time.
I recently listened to a fascinating talk by botanist and homeopath Michal Yakir about the plants used in homeopathy today. She recently published a magnificent book titled Wondrous Order.
Her thesis is that plant families (known as Orders) have meaning in mankind’s evolution and the application of homeopathic medicine.
More than 50% of homeopathic medicines are of plant origin. Most of the rest originate from minerals or elements.
Over millions of years new Orders of plant life have evolved, from simple plants like mosses and ferns, to ever more complex flowering plants.
Michal perceives that each “Order” represents a theme in our development from infant to adult. These correlate with our psychological maturity. This is somewhat age independent. Maturity doesn’t always come with age!
Similarly within each Order sub-classes have evolved. Here Michal perceives stages of emotional and physical development. In contrast, this is generally age dependent.
A a homeopath she finds that these patterns can help her to find the best medicines for her clients.
In a similar manner another well established Dutch homeopath Jan Scholten has found symmetry in the elements of the Periodic Table. These elements are the basis of the second largest class of homeopathic remedies, the minerals. He too has studied the plant kingdom https://janscholten.com/
Extraodinary work by two great minds.
Let’s take a couple of examples:
Calendula (Marigold), belongs to the Aster family. It has healing properties and as a herbal product it can be used as a mild antiseptic cream to heal small wounds.
However, homeopathy considers not just the physical but also the emotional / mental. The wound doesn’t have to be physical, so (to quote Michal) a person could be “as if of a wounded person”; “don’t touch me!”
Symphytum from the Borage family, is better known to gardeners as Comfrey, and in olden times as “bone-set” because of its use in helping broken bones to heal.
Both the above plants are in the same plant Order (Asterideæ). In both there is a theme of avoidance of touch, of being hurt – obvious with a wound or broken bone, perhaps less so in the emotional sense. Such emotional oversensitivity might suggest an impediment to inner growth
Over the last century or so, the objectivity of science – for all its benefits – has set humankind apart from nature, rather than being a part of nature. This is unfortunate as we are subjects not simply objective observers in the story as Michal and Jan both suggest.
Environmental crisis, forest fires and a pandemic, should be timely reminders of our true origins. But re-discovering our roots is a challenge be it at the personal or collective level.
All a little complicated? But is it so surprising that our story depends on the plants we eat, and the minerals from which they grow. They tell our story…
If you are old enough to recall TV from the 1990s, you doubtless remember Noel Edmonds and the pink character with yellow spots called Mr Blobby which he introduced to viewers. Clearly, Mr Blobby still has his fans as you can see from this website https://www.mrblobbycollection.com/.
Mr Blobby even has a Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Blobby Here is the image from that page:
Suffice to say, I do not seek to extol the virtues or otherwise of this icon of 90’s British humour, but would simply like to suggest that the human being is more “blobby” than perhaps you might think.
Don’t worry, this is not going to be a blog on the matter of expanding waistlines, rather it is about our true nature.
You see, our bodies appear solid, but this is somewhat an illusion as water makes up about 60% of our weight. Hydrogen and Oxygen are the elements of water (H2O), and these together with Carbon, Nitrogen, Calcium and Phosphorus add up to 99% of human body, the remainder being trace elements.
The human body comprises some 75 trillion cells apparently (who counted?) each of which doing what it needs to do: building; replicating; communicating; dying etc. Some cells last for just a few hours others for years, but no typical cell lives as long as a typical person. Unbeknown to us, our body is continually being replaced. It is estimated that it takes around 7 to 10 years to complete the make-over. Amazing!
So in fact we are more fluid than solid. Which is what brought the “blobby” term to mind.
The question is what happens when we get sick? Dr James Tyler Kent was a notable American homeopath working in the early years of the twentieth century, and his “Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy” remain important to this day. In the first lecture he considers the “The Sick”. He notes that medicine is mostly concerned “with the ultimates”, that is to say the visible results of disease which, he argues, is only a part of the story.
It is “the real nature of man” that must also be considered, says Dr Kent. But what is this “real nature”?
Kent suggests that Man (in the generic sense) is “will and understanding” and the physical body is just the house in which he or she lives. Our “real nature” then is much more than the physical body, indeed our “will and understanding” may be what first and foremost needs attention before physical healing can take place.
Since Kent’s time science and technology has advanced our understanding of body biochemistry and delivered many new therapeutics. Yet the concept of “will and understanding” remains somewhat unexplored in mainstream medicine. How a person sees, feels and interacts with their world remains at the core of homeopathic practice, which is why it is termed holistic medicine.
Bowel Nosodes in Homeopathy are serial ultra-dilutions of bowel flora. They have a wide range of uses and not just in bowel related problems. Though almost consigned to history, modern orthodox medicine is slowly coming to the conclusion that the bio-chemistry of our guts may have wider implications. You may have heard about the microbiome?
“So far as orthodox medicine is concerned relatively few of the treatments that were in vogue before about 1950 have much importance today. The medicine of the 19th and even the first half of the 20th century, though no doubt fascinating from a historical point of view, has been almost entirely superseded by later developments; few books go out of date as medical texts“
Quote from “The Two Faces of Homeopathy” by Anthony Campbell
This comes from a book published in 1984. Given the speed of progress, today we can say that anything much before the year 2000 is medical history.
Over the last months I have watched many well qualified doctors and scientists on YouTube speaking about the Sars-Cov-2 virus and its treatment. Few scientific papers quoted date before the turn of the millenia.
Of course, it was barely a decade earlier that the information age began when British Scientist Tim Berners-Lee conceived the world-wide web in 1989. Since then, more than medical texts have gone out of date. Almost everything seems history!
Perhaps there is a hazard here? One problem is that for anything to be valid in medicine today it has to be supported by peer reviewed evidence and so forth. This tends to invalidate past wisdom, unless it is studied and rediscovered anew according to current standards. At face value, this is all well and good, but alas outcomes and conclusions are influenced despite claims of rigor and impartiality.
I truly recommend Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s book “Doctoring Data” https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/ if you wish to understand the use of data in medicine today. His blogs are excellent also.
Since writing this blog I have penned another, which you may care to read, explaining how what we now call othodox medicine came to dominate titled the History of Homeopathic Medicine.
Last month I shared with you a rather long YouTube video by Dr Zach Bush. From the same source I have now found a shorter piece (and nicely illustrated) titled Chemical Farming and the Loss of Human Health, where he reminds us of our past. Zachary draws our attention to our hubris and the short sightedness of our actions. In short, we have bought into a narrative over the last century that ignores the wisdom of past millenia.
Looking down the microsope has taught mankind many things, but however well meaning, we have – alas – lost sight of the bigger picture. This bigger picture is one of connectivity between all things in the natural world; every action has a reaction. Everything has a purpose.
Dr Bush teaches us that the quality of the soil in our fields matters. So too the soil – or le terrain (sounds classier in French!) of our gut. Both are teeming with viruses and bacteria, all of which have a purpose. In balance health results; with imbalance illness.
Dr Edward Bach (1886-1936), was a bacteriologist working just before the First World War at University College Hospital London.
He observed a connection between gut bacteria and health. At the time he studied the use of bacteria in vaccine form to treat patients suffering from chronic (long term) disease.
Later when continuing his work at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital he found that homeopathic preparations were as effective as the vaccine form. Known as the bowel nosodes they continue to be a useful tools in the medicine chest of the homeopath.
In the late 1920s Dr Bach moved on to work on the flower essences, and the Bach Rescue Remedy mixture may be familiar to you (you can buy it still at many high steet pharmacies).
The work on the bowel nosodes passed to a husband and wife team, Dr John and Elizabeth Paterson at the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, who by all accounts undertook meticulous research adding to the knowledge base begun by Dr Bach, up until the 1950s. Their work was then eclipsed by the advances in antibiotics.
Is it not interesting how quickly we forget?
I am watching an interesting YouTube clip by Dr Zach Bush https://youtu.be/f6zb5rXgRvs. I say ‘am’ because it is quite long and I am taking it in bite size chunks. Quoting from an online version of the Oxford Dictionary he observes that the definition there in of ‘nature’ is the natural world around us; something rather apart from man. Dr Bush draws our attention to the fact that man is actually fully part of nature not ‘apart’ from it. We have long tried to control the natural world, but current crises from pandemic to environmental, suggest a need to better understand our limitations. He is all for science, but points out that science is not a fixed body of knowledge. It is an ongoing endeavour.
Isle of Wight from Lepe
I took the above photo on a blowy day about a month ago. It is hard to say what early man made of such a scene, and science brings its explanation of light reflected and refracted through water droplets. Nonetheless a rainbow still makes you stop a while and watch. The scientific analysis is good but I bet many at Lepe that felt the colours a omen for better times after a tough year.
A relatively recent scientific endeavour is the micribiome. That is to say, the gut. Dr Bush tells us that our guts are full of viruses and bacteria; many billions of them in fact. The same is true of the soil, the sea and the whole of the natural world. The living world adapts to viruses and bacteria; it has done so from the beginning of time. You might wonder then about our strategies concerning SARS-Cov-2; certainly Dr Bush does.
Complementary medicine has long taken and interest in diet and hence the gut, and on that I will say a little more next time.
“Due to overconsumption of de-natured food, and a lack of exercise and fresh air, many people, especially in the second half of their lives, often become caricatures of themselves … Nowadays we rarely see a really beautiful and healthy looking person … we are either too far or too thin .. or legs are swollen, our feet flat, our backs, bent, our necks stiff. We lose our hair, suffer from dental decay, headaches, flatulence, constipation and depression; we tire quickly and worst of all, many of us no longer enjoy life. Many people never feel really well“. Naturopath, Jan de Vries, from 10 Golden Rules For Good Health (2nd edition 2008)
Not a very welcome message, perhaps, but a well meaning one from one of the most notable Naturopaths in the UK and beyond in recent years.
Alas, he is no longer with us, but for many decades Jan de Vries had a clinic in Troon, Ayrshire and people sought his advice from near and far.
He even had a slot on Gloria Hunniford’s BBC Radio show. He worked a 90 hour week which included writing many books!
I once had a consultation and his busy clinic was like a hospital out patient dept. He was much loved and is sadly missed.
The Naturopathic approach to health is focuses on the basics, recognising that the self regulating nature of the human organism works best when treated with respect. His five pillars to good health were nutrition, digestion, elimination, circulation and relaxation.
The 10 Golden Rules expand on the five pillars to include such as sleep, and mental health and mental attitude. Top of the list, always, comes nutrition. He tells us that the diets of western industrialised countries – especially the USA and Europe – have changed more in the last 100-150 years, than across millennia before.
Processed foods, sugar, excess alcohol, industrial farming and so on, are not what the body needs. Instead seventy percent of our diets should be of plant origin, and raw fruits and vegetables should be an important part of daily nutrition. Medical science has also come to appreciate the relationship between a healthy immune system and a healthy gut.
Obesity seems to have become rather an epidemic these days. In the past the poor were thin, as is still the case in the developing countries but the opposite seems to be the picture in the western world. And it is the western world that has suffered the most in this Covid-19 pandemic. Food for thought?
Flu medicine in homeopathy – they were once in common use. Pandemics of the respiratory sort are not new, there were at least three in the twentieth century (1918, 1957, 1968). The good news is that they did not last very long (but I imagine – as now – that it seemed so at the time). Even the infamous 1918/19 epidemic passed into history after a year.
I was born in Glasgow and my paternal grandfather was a victim of that pandemic. This heritage article gives you an idea of the impact.
Compared with medical knowledge today, facilities were modest; in 1918/19 there was no NHS, and many doctors were on active service overseas. Yet the basics of good health were known: nutrition, fresh air, rest, good habits were and still are fundamentals. Fundamentals that we forget amongst our busy lives.
My maternal grandmother also caught the misnamed 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ but survived thanks to good nursing at home. Fundamentals make a difference.
Dr Dorothy Shepherd 1885-1952 was in practice in London back then, and her little book on epidemics, which is still available, makes interesting reading. It is not a scientific text but contains some sound advice that is pertinent today:
‘It is the fashion to call every slight feverish chill influenza; but if after the temperature has come down, the depression, exhaustion and weariness is such that it is too much effort to do anything, that life is really not worth living, you know you will have had influenza; after a mere feverish chill you will feel as well on getting up as you did before the attack. Unfortunately many people take no notice of the danger signals of weakness and prostration, and insist on getting up, even returning to work before they are fit, thus laying themselves open to broncho-pneumonia…‘
‘During the feverish period the patient should be allowed nothing but raw fruit and fruit juices, and not synthetic bottled juices. Fresh oranges, lemon juice, apple drinks, grapefruit drinks at frequent intervals will cleans the system and prevent any undue strain being thrown on the gastric organs. No meat juices, no milk, are permissible. After the temperature is down, the diet may be increased and may include vegetable broth, Yeastrel drinks (Marmite?); wholemeal toast; gradually other foods may be added…’
Dr Shepherd was a medical doctor and homeopath, but foremost she recognised the importance of good self-nursing care.
The benefits of homeopathy are increasingly forgotten as I explain further in this related blog
Disclaimer: I am a qualified professional homeopath and not a medical doctor. The NHS has many resources, and seeking the opinion of your GP is always of value.
Dibden Purlieu, Southampton