Homeopathy And A Horse: A Little Magic And A Leap Of Faith

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Quackery, Cliffs, And Leaps Of Faith

When you find out that your horse’s death is a very real possibility, it becomes easier to make giant leaps of faith off the cliffs of indecision.

I was a brainwashed pharmaceutical representative at the time I first came across something called homeopathy, and as such I was darned skeptical of it. Homeopathy was a little mysterious and not completely understood by me (or many others), but there had been little improvement for my horse in a severe impaction colic episode after two emergency vet calls over the space of a couple of days.

I had nothing to lose by trying this particular “quackery”.

And so it was that I entered the mysterious realm of homeopathy, handing over $5 to a local naturopath for a vial of tiny pellets. I had briefly read up on homeopathy the night before and found the name and dosage of the recommended remedy for impaction colic. A few years earlier I had been introduced to it by a fascinating book about animal healing by Dr. Martin Goldstein, but I had not been ready to try it on any of my animals or myself. It would take a crisis to move me in that direction, and it is a crisis that you face when your horse has impaction colic.

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A Witness To Magic

I did not fully understand what the little pellets would do, but from what I had read it seemed very promising as well as fairly harmless at the recommended dose that I would be using. Besides, I was out of options: my veterinarian had just instructed me that afternoon to make an appointment with the equine surgery hospital an hour south of our location.

Within 30 minutes of giving my horse the tiny pellets, she pooped and drank water and started to graze. Then we put her in a round pen and she started trotting around as if this was a normal afternoon. I was completely in awe. I remember telling a friend of mine at the barn that day to remember what had just happened; she had been a witness to something amazing.

At the time, what had happened seemed like magic. I would come to understand that it was amazing only in the sense that a pharmaceutical representative entrenched in the medical world would try something scoffed at and ridiculed by the majority of conventional doctors.

That colic episode had a happy ending due to homeopathy, and I was baptized a believer on the spot.

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Homeopathy and The Law of Similars

Homeopathy is a type of medicine developed over two hundred years ago by a German physician by the name of Samuel Hahnemann. It is believed to stimulate the body’s defense systems, encouraging the body to rally its troops and to heal itself. Hahnemann found that a substance that produces a particular set of symptoms in a healthy person can cure a sick person who is having those same symptoms. This is the concept of like cures like, and it is called the Law of Similars.

The concept itself pre-dates Hahnemann, going back 400 years before the birth of Christ; it is ascribed to the Father of Medicine himself, Hippocrates. There is evidence that Hippocrates thought “through the like, disease is produced, and through the application of the like it is cured.”

The results of homeopathy may be subtle or dramatic, and it can be used for acute as well as chronic illness.

Be sure to tune in next week for part two.

Resources For More Information

To find a veterinarian trained in homeopathy, go to the AHVMA

National Center for Homeopathy
National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary And Alternative Medicine

Additionally, two superb books for learning about homeopathy (and much more) are Dr. Martin Goldstein’s The Nature of Animal Healing and Dr. Mary Brennan’s book Complete Holistic Care And Healing for Horses.