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We need another and a wiser
and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals…
We patronize them for their incompleteness,
for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.
And therein we err and err greatly.
For the animal shall not be measured by man.
In a world older and more complete than ours,
they move finished and complete,
gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained,
living by voices we shall never hear.
They are not brethren; they are not underlings;
they are other nations,
caught with ourselves in the net of life and time,
fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
Henry Beston 1888-1968 |
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HOMEOPATHY AND HERD HEALTH:
Genus Epidemicus Prescribing
Homeopathy is generally considered to be a medicine of the individual because of its basic tenets. This individualistic approach would seem to limit the usefulness of Homeopathy in epidemics and in herd health. Such is not the case thanks to the genius of Samuel Hahnemann.
Relatively early in the development of Homeopathy, Hahnemann was put in the position to treat a population in the face of an epidemic. Through observation of the symptoms present in the population, Hahnemann recognized that there were consistent symptoms which ran through the patients affected by the epidemic.
From these consistent symptoms, he concluded that the epidemic could be treated in the same fashion individuals are treated - based on the unique symptoms present. It was at this time that he developed the concept of the Genus Epidemicus - the remedy for the epidemic.
In the face of an epidemic/herd outbreak (remember the definition of acute disease), the common symptoms of the contagion - the ones manifest by the majority of the affected population - are grouped and analyzed as if they were present in an individual. From this analysis, a small group of remedies for the epidemic present themselves. The remedy which most closely resembles the symptoms of the epidemic is selected and given to the affected population at large.
With this approach, most of the affected individuals will be helped. The ones who are not improved by this Genus remedy, or who have lingering symptoms, must then be treated individually because the remaining symptoms are a manifestation of the activated chronic disease of the individual, not of the acute disease of the epidemic..
Using this approach, herds, flocks, kennels, and communities can be treated with Homeopathy in the face of an outbreak or epidemic.
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