'This House believes that the single remedy is the
medicine of experience'

Summing up: opposing

Dr George Lewith:

I am not the opposition, I am the proposition. Mao Tse-Tung said: Let a thousand flowers bloom. That is probably quite a reasonable thing to do. The approach that you use works terribly well for you. The approach that the Chinese acupuncturist uses works terribly well for him. He has a model of an illness which allows him to work and understand, develop a treatment regime and approach a patient. The model that I am using in complex homoeopathy is a different model to classical and is based on a functional understanding, and works well for me. There is no problem with that. I am quite happy to swap over to an acupuncture model. I find it very useful sometimes. Sometimes I find, like Michael Jenkins, that not only do some patients fit a articular remedy, they don't fit a particular illness model. So I find it useful to be at least bilingual in medicine because it really helps, it gives you a better understanding. If you understand three cultures, if you are trilingual, it is even better. I am trying for my fourth medical language at the moment. I think this is genuinely useful because it gives you better insight.

Francis Treuherz, ever the historian, gives me quote for quote. You take Hahnemann, you quote him, you find a counter-quote, you could do it for almost anybody. Hahnemann didn't invent homoeopathy, it was known to the ancient Greeks, so I understand. So you can pick and choose and you can use it to support or defeat your beliefs. The concept that complex homoeopathy is somehow evil, insidious, untested, drug company based, nasty, horrible and will do us a lot of harm is an interesting one. In fact the quality control and the legislation controls for many of the continental complexes are far better than for many of the singles produced here in this country. The complexes have been used for very long periods of time. They are not new medicines. They are very safe and they are very widely used in Europe and their adverse reactions are very widely reported if they indeed occur because they come under the same legislation in Germany and France as conventional medicines. So I think that this is an unreasonable worry.

I went into this with a great deal of humour because when I was asked to take part in this debate I said well it's going to be a very predictable outcome, whatever I say, so I might as well bring on the Chippendale's or something we could have a much jollier evening. We all know what the outcome is going to be, particularly sitting in the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital. The proposers could have almost said anything because the medicine of your experience, of most of you sitting here, is the single remedy and that is why you will probably agree with the motion because you have no other experience. Now that is a major problem for me because I can't give you that experience in five minutes but at least you can open your minds a little and see that there are other approaches. And that is really what I am asking you to do. I have a rather large hill to climb and I don't seriously expect to be able to climb it. I think, however, I can dispel some of the distrust, difficulty and obviously emotionally charged atmosphere which has been directed on some occasions, not particularly this evening, at those of us who use complexes. I certainly don't feel that about those of you who use singles. That is all I can say. I am quite happy to let you get on with what you know. You are doing a good job. If it works for you that's fine. But let me do my job, let me have my experiences, let me be trilingual in medicine and if you would like to learn another couple of languages please do, because it is great fun. It gives you different perspectives on the patient and the aim of all of us is very simple. We, most of us in this area, are here to have fun and, I hope, to get some professional satisfaction out of trying to help patients, ideally to learn from our experiences with patients to become better doctors. And most of us will choose slightly different paths. And that attracts the patients who come to us and to a certain extent is an expression of the way in which we work and our understanding of medicine. Thank God it is slightly individual and slightly separate. I hope we don't get ruled by fanatics. I don't want to be told that there is only one way to do homoeopathy because I don't think that that is constructive for anybody.

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