WORLD HOMEOPATHY DAY CELEBRATED ON APRIL 10, 2023… Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant lit the ceremonial lamp, along with Director Ayush Cell, Dr Mrinal Joshi, Goa Board of Homeopathy Chairperson Dr Bipin Salkar, Registrar of Homeopathy Board Dr Rajendra Kanekar, doctors & other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

By Pankajbala R Patel

IT was World Homeopathy Day on April 10 and the Goa Board of Homeopathy had its annual gathering to celebrate the birth anniversary of Homeopathy’s founder Dr Samuel Hahnemann at the Menezes Braganza Hall on April 10, 2023. Chief guest Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in his address said Goa is a good place to promote wellness tourism and the government would do everything possible to facilitate the alternate health industry which eventually will be integrated with the mainstream healthcare system.
Chairperson of the Goa Board of Homeopathy Dr Bipin Salkar commented that as far as Homeopathy goes as a healthcare system there are practically no side effects (as in mainstream Allopathy where chemical drugs can take a toll on the organs of the body). The world over people opt for Homeopathy as a safer system of healthcare although a paper presented later in the morning after the official inauguration as over was titled “Posology – Cutting of the Gordion Knot” presented by Dr Diptesh Amonkar and Dr Mohinaz Kandolkar, it was to do with the care and experience required while prescribing dosages of various Homeopathy medicines – apparently sometimes overdosing or under-dosing can result in some problems!
Dr Pratista Kunkolienkar, who herself is a noted homeopath and compered the function, later on offered that as in the case of Allopathy in all the other pathies too one may find some who need to be more careful while taking a patient’s history and prescribing medicines for them. To the query on the growing fraternity of homeopathy in Goa she smiled, “there are more than 900 homeopaths registered and about 85% of them are women.” For some reason more women find it interesting to study Homeopathy.
Some of the noted names in Homeopathy? Well, who has not heard of Dr Thomas Abraham of Margao and there is also Dr Datta Bhatt, Dr Bipil Salkar, Dr Francis Fernandes; there is also Dr Eric Pereira at Patto in Panaji…Dr Narayan Shirodkar and Dr Malini Desai are being felicitated at this year’s World Homeopathy Day function itself.

WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY?
BRIEFLY, it is a medical system developed in Germany more than 200 years ago. It is based on the belief that tiny doses of natural substances can help stimulate the body to cure itself. The homeopathic theory is that “like cures like.” That is if natural substances in larger doses are typically known to cause symptoms in healthy people, the same substances can be used in very small doses may treat same symptoms.
During the Covid-19 pandemic in an interesting study it was found that Homeopathic medicine called Arsenicum Album 30 could fight the infection and many were prescribed these arsenic (otherwise a poison) pills to protect themselves. The medicine was studied by a team of Indo-US computational biologists in Assam, namely researcher Dr Swarup Roy. Reportedly, this Arsenicum Album 30 is a potential medicine, so much so the Union Ministry of Ayush advised the medicine (derived from the chemical compound or mother tincture of arsenic trioxide) be distributed officially. The medicine’s efficacy was discovered and researched by Dr Swarup Roy from Sikkim University, with Dr Jayanta K Das from John Hopkins University, USA and Dr Subhadip Chakroborty of Nabadwip Vidyasagar College, West Bengal. Reportedly, “Arsenicum Album 30 may be helpful in repairing significant signalling pathways of human body like MAPK, P13k0Akt, TNF, M-TOR, and Apoptosis that gets affected when a person gets infected by the novel corona virus.”
Homeopathic treatments are considered holistic and healing and Homeopathy study every disease which has a particular spectrum – from functional disturbance to the failure of the organ. Naturally, even in this case, it helps if you seek homoeopathy treatment at the early stages of sickness and not later when a disease is advanced and when some kind of auxiliary support may be recommended from outside the homoeopathy circle.

IDEAL FOR MANY AFFLICTIONS
ASK around and one is told that homeopathy is very good for the common cold and a host of allergies. Also and particularly auto immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, celiac disease, Sjogren’s syndrome, ankylosing spondylitis, alopecia, etc. Also, degenerative diseases which include osteoarthritis, cancers, osteoporosis, a host of menstrual problems. Homeopathy is said to be very effective for depression, anxieties, skin afflictions like psoriasis and some more like seasonal diseases covering all kinds of fevers, throat infections, infections, diarrhoea, etc.
However, in homeopathy case-taking is extensive on a first consultation and repetition of potency of medicine and follow-up vital for those who seek a successful outcome. A Dr Trincilla D’Souza who was seated next to me at the World Homeopathy Function to a query replied, “I am based at Panchwadi in Sarvodem and I have successfully treated kidney stones…there is no need for kidney patient stones to go in for surgery in many cases. Homeopathy can help you.” Sometimes even in the case of post-surgery cases homeopathy is worth looking at for improved conditions of health….

DON’T KNOCK HOMEOPATHY!
IN conclusion, don’t knock the alternative systems of medicine. Take a fresh look at them in our enlightened times. Many patients who feel Allopathy has failed them or made them are turning to alternative systems of medicine and Homeopathy has for long been a popular alternate medical system of treatment (never mind that critics may say it is psychosomatic and works on the principle of bluffing your mind to heal the body, some such thing, it’s also called the placebo effect).
Dr Mukesh Batra is the pioneering and most eminent of homeopaths in India and he also has a Dr Batra Homeopathy Clinic in Goa if anyone is interested in looking it up. Young homeopaths may read his book “The Nation’s Homeopath,” it’s one of the most readable autobiographies I’ve ever read. I dare say he still owns the world’s largest chain of homeopathy clinics although I am not sure about this now, last heard of he had retired — in Goa!
At the April 10, 2023 World Homeopathy Day celebration function Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, apart from speaking on the immense scope for wellness tourism in Goa, also inaugurated a website of the Goa Homeopathy Board. Present were Dr Minal Joshi, director of the National Ayush Mission, Dr Rupa Naik, deputy director of the Directorate of Health Services, Dr Rajendra Kanekar (registrar, Goa Board of Homeopathy and State epidemiologist) along with government homeopathic physicians. Dr Merilyn Teles proposed vote of thanks for the half-day function.