Why the Same Herb Might Not Work the Same for Different People
After writing the last blog I got to thinking about symptoms. Do you know that most of natural healing, if not all, does not actually go by a disease model? They go in a different direction, toward creating health, not absence of disease. Old Homeopathy is a very basic example of this.
Let me just say that what people call homeopathy today is FAR from the actual practice put forth by Samuel Hahnemann in the early 1800’s. In the 1800’s the state of medicine was outwardly pretty barbaric. But If you think about it, it is still kind of barbaric, but it has developed a huge layer of niceties and acceptabilities. The developing public relations, PR, of mainstream medicine would make a very interesting blog. Maybe for another day.
Anyway, the time was ripe for a new approach to healing. And Samuel Hahnemann had just experienced the strangest thing. While testing out another doctor’s theory of disease, he discovered that the cure for malaria, quinine, which was obtained by taking cinchona bark, had just given him all the main symptoms of Malaria when he was perfectly healthy before he took it. When he stopped the cinchona the symptoms laid off, and when he resumed it the symptoms resumed.
He went wild experimenting with other curative substances and found that they, too, caused the very symptoms they cured in a healthy person when they took it. He also discovered that the more dilute he made the substance the stronger the effect.
In Samuel Hahnemann’s time, it was believed that all disease was a disturbance of life force. The theory of Vitalism. So, there didn’t need to be an explanation for this dilution thing because it was common belief that all disease had an energetic nature. Biology and Biochemistry had not really become full-fledged subjects yet regarding disease. So, of course if you took out the substance of a thing, the energy of it would get stronger. It was an energy medicine.
He went on to compile a huge book on substances and what symptoms they caused. The theory was that you would match the person's symptoms to the substances that caused that exact symptom, and the two energies being exactly the same would cancel each other out when the person took the substance. That’s where his motto 'Like cures' like came from and the subsequent name homeopathy which literally means, same disease. Perfect duplication, in other words, got rid of the energy patterns without a trace.
This is contrasted with Samuel Hahnemann’s term allopathic which he called mainstream medicine because it used things in opposition to the symptoms. Allo meaning different or opposed and pathos, disease or suffering.
For a thousand years these two schools of thought fought it out. Homeopathy produced results that were final. A permanent workable cure. Allopathic medicine, by its very nature of opposition, was not a clean cure. What happens when you have one flow hit another flow in opposition? You get a ridge. Simple. Some of it might be similar, but without being a perfect duplicate, ridges would remain. Side effects are galore in mainstream medicine.
BUT, which creates future business? Future business creates wealth and power. Despite this, in the early 1900’s the homeopaths were winning. The sheer number of people using homeopathy made up for its low cost. Then Rockefeller money put the kabosh on Homeopathy as well as the Eclectics, who used homeopathy among other workable things, like herbs. Lately there is some quibble about KABOSH being kibosh and not being yiddish or some such nonsense, but let me assure you it is pronounced KABOSH just like the effect. Total smash.
Rockefeller had to smash Vitalism completely because he wanted to replace living remedies that still contained life energy, like herbs and such, with petroleum-based drugs. That was the beginning of medicine's unholy alliance with the pharmaceutical industry, an alliance that has reached monumental, dangerous proportions today. A book could be written about that, let alone a blog. Or maybe even an exposé series!
And the cherry on top of course is that false data and unworkable practices were started and continued under the name of homeopathy, and the whole idea of Vitalism went out the window, too. But you know, Medicine still calls itself Allopathic. The only standing proof that there ever was a war.
I am sorry for this slight diversion, but the only place I have ever seen this history totally laid out with evidence is in a book called “Who is your Doctor and Why” by Dr Alonzo J Shadman and it is out of print. The last I checked on the second hand market, I found an old beat up copy going for $50. Any decent copy was like $500. So I don’t think you would hear this story anywhere else.
But then again it wasn’t really a diversion at all because it shows a point. And that is that there were no actual diseases in that practice because even if two patients had the same disease, their symptoms would not be exactly the same. The package entity of a “disease” is a fabrication for a one size fits all system.
Traditional Chinese Medicine does not go by diseases either, nor does Ayurvedic Medicine.
No two people are alike. Just think about the differences. It is mind boggling. Different genetics, ages, sexes, locations, diet, habits, environments, acquaintances, attitudes, experiences and considerations all mixed up and totally dynamic.
The surprise should be that anything would work the same universally. But there are a lot of similarities, too. We are in the same culture and are subject to the same influences. For example, the toxic substances we encounter in the air and water and our food.
When a company or government decides to put profit over the health of people and poisons the environment and preserves our food so well that we can’t digest it either, let alone the microbes, we can all get sick. But the degree and way are the result of a mixture of all those factors previously mentioned. And how much life you have in you as well.
Even if two people get poisoned by the exact same thing in the exact same way, one system may just not react and pass it through and in the toilet it goes, and another gets in a total tizzy resisting it and gets all inflamed and can’t breath and food digestion goes to pot and the whole thing cascades into a chronic disease.
Or any scenario in between.
Everybody is basically different despite the similarities of having a body and body organs and systems.
Even if they do happen to have the same symptoms, there can be different causes. Both are tired, but one is tired because they are fighting a biological challenge and it is low grade and not noticeable except for the fatigue, and the other has a hormonal imbalance, and still another just can’t get any good sleep because there are too many free radicals from stress ravaging the system.
If all of them tried St John’s Wort, for instance, the latter person would probably get instant relief because St John’s Wort would quench all those free radicals and it would even help with the other two things, but maybe not completely. If they all tried Chaste Tree or Black Cohosh the one with the imbalanced hormones would probably benefit and not be tired anymore, but Chaste Tree might cause more fatigue in the other two. If they all tried Ashwagandha they might all feel better, but not because of the same body processes, but because Ashwagandha is an adaptogen that creates overall health and adjusts whatever ails you.
I could have made this example with practically any herb. I get a lot of benefit from those herbs so of course they were the first to come to mind.
You might have noticed in previous blogs that a lot of the same substances are contained in a variety of herbs. They are just in different forms, concentrations and mixtures. Herbs are essentially foods. Any herb can help anything to some degree because the whole body is connected and it’s not just about parts. There is a vital energy, and herbs contribute to that energy, having life energy themselves. So even if you bought an herb and it is not directly taking down that symptom, it is still contributing to your health and it is possible if you took it long enough it would eventually affect that symptom.
The thing to do is experiment with yourself. Try all the herbs. There is no person exactly like you. All claims about an herb doing a certain thing are estimates and averages and generalities. If one herb isn’t targeting what you are trying to hit, try another herb. Try one that is commonly found to handle that symptom, or just go for the herb you have an attraction for. I have found in the end that the latter is a really big time saver.
People just know things. Sometimes there really is no reason to get into mechanics. If you feel an attraction, go for it. That is the one thing that usually works out, and it is also the thing we are most likely to disregard.
I hope I have given you some idea of how things work and given you a new way to approach the subject of which herbs to take. And if anyone is disappointed that an herb worked for someone else and not for them, hopefully I have given you some insight into that and you will try different herbs and take notes on what it does for you until you find your favorites. It is actually a nice little adventure. I hope you enjoy it.