The first ever thing i knew about homeopathy was the name of its founder Dr. Samuel Hahnemann and its principle 'like cures like.' It was known to me while studying about history of medicine during my entrance preparation classes for MBBS. At the moment I knew nothing about what that principle means and What the latest medical science is all about. But during the period when i was in dilemma as about what field should i chose for a better future because that was the period when i was not successful in the entrance exams for MBBS. I opt for choosing some Technical fields, But an Advertisement drew attention of my father that said a New medical science teaching has been launched in Nepal and that Admissions are being opened for its first Batch; the new medical science for Nepal was Homeopathy ! I attended the Seminar held at Pashupati Homeopathic Hospital, the first of its kind in Nepal. From the seminar i got to know that it is the gentle mode of treatment for the patients and that even many surgical cases could be cured only with medications. This very fact made me fond of it. So i completed the necessary procedures and got admission at the Nepal Homeopathic Medical College Biratnagar.
As the medical field is being overshadowed by allopathic teachings in Nepal, I got caught up in the Subjects like Organon of Medicine and Homeopathic Materia Medica. Anatomy was an interesting subject as each and every human stuructures were being revealed and physiology was the best as every functioning of our body were being explained but the writings in organon of medicine were appearing as the literature of a scholar i.e. one knows there are many things in that literature but one can not get acquainted with what they are! Even the sentences used under the headings of different medicines looked absurd; In the heading of Aconite in Allen's key note it said the complaints are caused by exposure to dry cold air and bad effects of checked perspiration! To an ignorant like me it seemed completely absurd because i knew at that time that every disease are caused either by bacteria or virus of fungus, and how a suppressed sweat can cause anything!
In the beginning our teachers used to teach us line by line of Allen's key note, so we had named Allen's key note as a book of poetry where everything had to be memorised and nothing is of Any value. After few months Dr. Tenus Smith visited our college and he gave lectures on his popular 3 medicines where he explained everything like a story, that looked quite interesting. From that day onwards my interest to materia medica has grown up. After that period only I consulted Kent's materia medica in search of similar story like explanation about the medicine and was happy to know that every medicinal explanation was in sequence in that book. But our teachers were teaching us only Allen's keynote and S.k. Dubey's Mateira medica. During the students period everyone is framed according to the frame set by the institution, so were we. But even then Few teachers from Kolkata like Alok Kumar and Shakhawat hussain used to visit our college and feed us with teachings of classical approach towards homeopathy, i'm always grateful to them. I'm also grateful to Dr. Rajkumar Singh who was the first permanent teacher to teach us about classical approach towards homeopathic medicines.
During those 4 and half years at the college, our prime focus would be towards the allied medical subjects like pathology, forensic medicine, Internal Medicine, Gynecology and many more. Necessity for a deeper knowledge about homeopathic subjects was only observed during the visits of guest lecturers and examinees who would expect us to know homeopathic subjects from classical approach. I think That is the best part of our college, because we got opportunity to interact with every kind of homeopaths and got to chose who is the best and what is the best.
Due to the influence from the practitioners practicing homeopathy at Biratnagar and neighboring cities of Araria District of India, OPD of our college also saw prescriptions having more than 3 medicines at a time, but now a days the college is on the way towards prescribing on the classical approach. For this few teachers from Kolkata like Dr. Kunal, Dr. Sworup and visiting lecturers like Dr. Mahendra Singh, Dr. M K Shahani, Dr. V K Verma played a vital role.
I completed my theoritical course from Nepal Homeopathic Medical College with little confidence over myself in classical approach towards homeopathy and with lots of dilemmas about how the practice homeopathy; Is classical approach a good one or the poly medication gives quick relief to the patient. But when i was doing internship at Miteri Hospital for the knowledge about general procedures that a physician should know, a humble man from Banepa Mr. Maheshwor Shrestha showed interest on me to practice over his clinic located at Bagbazar, but there also i found poly pharmacy was prevalent and they were gaining popularity of curing many cases of paralysis from that. I got astonished and more confused as what should i do, what line of practice should i follow? I thought, lets give a chance to single medicine after full understanding of the patient. In consulting my first patient i turned pages and pages of Kent's Repertory for repertorization and after consultation with materia medica i Gave him Causticum 1m 2 dose and placebo 1 dram for the back pain which was being unable to be cured from Army hospital. and i asked him to follow up after a month. during this period i got to see a beautiful case of Anal fistula in a Diabetic patients who had already visited many allopathic, ayurvedic and even homeopathic doctors who gave him a bagful of medicines with no effect. In his case i really got trapped in because he said he improves only a bit after every dose of medicine. In that case i used in Him Merc Sol from 200 to 10 M but not with much effect. This made my little confidence on the classical approach towards homeopathic medicines a bit shaky but during this period of hardship the above mentioned Causticum patient called me after 2 months revealing that he was better for last two months and that he was again noticing the pain in back from last few days. I repeated causticum 1 M 2 dose with placebo in the name of Nyhilinnum. This incidence again brought back my little confidence so After consulting in Kent's materia Medica for this fistulous patient i gave Hepar Sulph 200 with closure of the fistulous site but induration at near by region which also disappeared gradually. After 15 days he again noticed that his whole body was becoming lethargic and that the discharges have also established themselves in the previous form, so this time i gave him Hepar Sulph 1 M 1 Dose with placebo 1 dram. After about a month of this medication the Clinic was Shifted to Banepa and i had to left the clinic but i believe he must have been improved because he was a Hepar Sulph patient so if he encountered any little suffering, he used to call me up or visit clinic with the saying that his suffering was so great--revealing of hypersensitiveness of Hepar Sulph! But After Hepar Sulph 1 M he never gave me a single call, that may be beacause clinic was no more in existance or most probably because he was really improved.
I was being excited from good results in these cases, in the mean time I with my collegue Ramkumar visited Dr. Bharati Devkota to consult what should be done next as students of homeopathy and she drew our attention towards joining BHC at Bhaktapur to learn more about classical homeopathy. My regular Visit to Bhaktapur Homeopathic Clinic, where I got to learn a lot from Dr. Ambika Gyawali is lot more inspiring to follow the principles of homeopathy; this sitting of mine over BHC is giving me much more confidence towards the principles of Homepathy. In the mean time we got in contact with Dr. Rajesh Pradhanang, as he was a college personnel of NHMC. He Shared with us his many tips and ideas about classical homeopathy including the best book to follow is of George Vithoulkas. I'm thankful to all of them.
What i observed from my experience with homeopathy till today is that there's no way other than to follow it's principle to practice homeopathy which shall give us the success and satisfaction. Every other mean would differ from the Actual homeopathy and drift towards earning money and earning patients for a limited period of time.
