JANUARY 1997 BACK ISSUE
Part of Horse Previews Magazine website. Posted on 1/1/97; 10:00:00 AM.
Book Review: Homeopathy for Horses - A Layperson's Guide
by Susan ShawFive Ships Literary Company, Ltd. * Box 750, Nelson, B.C. V1L5R7 * Copyright 1994, 71 pages, $12.95 U.S.(Plus $4.00 S/H) * Telephone 1-604-354-4643
E-Mail: raven@netidea.com (Raven Gregoire)
Now here is a whimsical book with a peculiar equine twitch a reader might take less seriously than not. I don't see much harm in tinkering around with any method requiring continuous observation of your horse's health. One thing is for sure with unscientific methods like homeopathy: you can't disprove their value. Homeopathy applied to horses would readily appeal to someone of a political persuasion just a bit left of Mahatama Gandhi, who was a big fan of homeopathy for humans. For inexplicable reasons, mythical methods make us think we feel better, yet the urge to debunk them remains. You will have to read Susan Shaw's book to see if homeopathy comes down the stretch to horses.
A broader exposure to homeopathy than the book provides is in order. In ancient times the denser of the peon populous were advised to get courage by eating lion heart. Similar was thought and taught to beget similar. Clear up into the 19th century, medicine considered four fluids (The Cardinal Humors) responsible for human health and disposition: blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile). The humoral medical practitioners of that day prescribed some grisly applications like bleeding, purging, vomiting, and the administration of highly toxic drugs in extremely harsh concoctions (similar to the four fluids). A bane to the peons similar to the lions, about as many were cured as got courage. The Doc was the Vet was the Wizard and care wasn't managed, it was survived.
Along came the German medico, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), who invented Homeopathy (from the Greek homoios for "simular" and pathos for "suffering"), and based his system on the ancient Law of Similars--Similia Similibus Curentur--Latin for "Let likes cure likes." Some of the hair off the dog that bit you came out of his bag, prescribed for hangover relief. Since some substances in their natural form are capable of producing symptoms in animals, Hahnemann theorized these same substances in their minute form (homeopathic potency) were capable of stimulating the body's own healing mechanism to heal that same animal. If the energy imprint of the remedy matched exactly the energy profile of the ailment, then the body would automatically rid itself of the ailment as it rid itself of the intruding remedy. Quid pro rid.
Hahnemann further theorized the Law of Infinitesimals which held that the smaller the dose of the remedy the more powerful would be its healing effects. His theories never bore the scrutiny of science, but his potent remedies truly amounted to diluted placebos, so they were a real hit with the peons and much preferable to the killer medicines and remedies of the humoral practitioners. In 1996 at Hahnemann University in Pennsylvania you can still get an MD, but Homeopathy isn't a part of the curriculum anymore.
If you remember a guy from high school chemistry, Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856), the Italian chemist and physicist practicing science in Hahnemann's era, then you recall the law in chemistry where there is a limit to the dilution which can be made to a substance without losing the original substance altogether. This limit, called Avogadro's Number, pretty well squelched Hahnemann's potency theory. It also corresponds to the 12C or 24X potency dose in Shaw's book (1 part in 1024). Knowing it is likely that the original substance in the remedy is lost altogether in dilution, then it is easier to understand Shaw's instructions: "If you only have one potency in your kit, then use that one...you'll do no harm even if you don't get it right every time."
Shaw's book lists 50 ailments and 42 remedies for horses. She makes little attempt to logically connect the remedy exactly to the profile of the ailment. Her's is a detailed manual of prescriptive applications strictly dependent upon her 30 years experience with horses. Twenty four (48%) of the ailments are treated by three (7%) of the remedies: Belladonna--Deadly Nightshade; Silicea--pure silica or flint; and Nux Vom--poison nut. Most of the other remedies are less than obscure items of folklore medicine. It seemed unlikely to me that Nux Vom could be the same remedy for diarrhea as for constipation, but then I gather it takes a while before the layman can tell the proper medical fortune of a horse.
Now substances made from plants (eg. dandelion), minerals (eg. arsenic oxide), animals (poisonous snake venom), and sometimes artificial chemicals might have some effect as medicine, but the potency applications as written in Shaw's book lost me. Of course they can't be disproved, and therein lies the niche for homeopathy--you can't prove it doesn't work. However, I was taught that the absence of proof is more important than the absence of disproof. As soon as I researched a little and discovered that Hahnemann attempted to clarify his ideas by drawing attention to the phenomena of magnetism, little alarm bells went off in my noggin, and I was long gone, into debunk mode. You can find scathing reports in the research claiming homeopathy is a magnet for untrustworthy practitioners. It meets the dictionary definitions of "wacky" and, further, the marketing of homeopathic products or services fits the description of quackery. It conflicts with and is unsupported by the basic sciences of physics, psysiology, pharmacology, and chemistry, so there's that to chew on. Whatever the criticisms of homeopathy for humans, it is not necessarily ditto for horses, but you can get the book and decide for yourself.
I couldn't see where the book had any clinically redeeming value to me as extra support for my horses or compliment to the system offered by my Veterinarian. What disturbed me in particular about the book was the apparently random and rumored connection of remedy to ailment. For instance, the statement on page 13 with reference to "Watering when overheated" as a cause of colic, ran contra to the best modern veterinary recommendations for cooling horses obtained through extensive research for the Equestrian Events at the recent Olympics in Atlanta. When I suspect colic, I'm calling the vet, instead of giving Nux vomica, the poisonous seed of an Asiatic tree containing strychnine in a "potency" dose diluted so as to make it only a placebo. My horses can't tell a placebo from a lattigo.
Bob Howdy, PhD, DH
