Then we fall ill, most of us rush to the doctor in our area who mostly gives a day’s medicine. People are handed over a small polythene sachet with four different medicines, two small plastic bottles of coloured syrup in them and, sometimes, a prescription on a plain white sheet of paper about the medicine the patients need to buy from a medical store next to the clinic.

All this makes six to seven medicines at least twice a day. If you take so many medicines at a time, one or the other is definitely going to work. So, the doctor or the dispenser promises health. The day the patient feels better, he stops going to the doctor.

What has he been taking in the name of medicines -- he does not know, does not bother to know. After all most of the population takes these medicines and recovers from illnesses. Patients do not question, media does not question. If there are antibiotics among those unknown medicines, patients are not informed. All antibiotics should be prescribed for a definite period of time as not taking the right dosage can have an adverse effect on the patient. But the populace in general is not aware of this.

While allopathic doctors give generic medicines homeopathy treats a patient as an individual. Homeopaths too give medicines whose names are not disclosed to the patients and they cure as well.

An educated person wants to know the medicines he is taking. He wants to read literature with every medicine he takes. It is his right to know but that is an uphill task.

Homeopathy is attracting a large number of people throughout the world because it attempts to root out the disease, not suppress it. Also, it is said to have no side reaction.

Homeopathy is a science as well as an art -- the only treatment methodology that has a philosophy. It treats humans as a whole. The symptoms say it all. Medicine is given after listening to all the symptoms. Classical homeopaths practice single remedy.

Its founder Sameul Hahnemann decided to test the drugs on himself and discovered law of similars in 1801. That had not happened in a thousand years. He continued this very practice all his life.

Drug which has the ability to produce symptoms in a healthy man similar to that which exists in a sick person, also cures the sick with similar symptoms. Two powerful similar things cannot coexist. The powerful one extinguishes the weaker one. The right medicine has the ability to produce similar symptoms in the body.

Similar phenomenon is the only phenomenon that puts the body on the path to cure. The application of law of similars is universal.

Its Hahnemann’s 260th birthday as I am writing on April 10. Homeopaths and homeopathy students in the city gathered under the banner of Society of Homeopaths Pakistan to celebrate the founder of homeopathy. They cut cakes and established homeopaths shared their knowledge with their peers and students through presentations.

Government hospitals and dispensaries offer allopathic treatment. The government had agreed to provide a room to homeopaths in its hospitals. It also needs to open a college of homeopathy. There is not one in the public sector. All homeopathic colleges are being run by private sector.

The government has put age limit on studying homeopathy which is very discouraging to people who want to study homeopathy out of simple admiration and love for this system of treatment. All those for whom homeopathic treatment is a considered choice, have known how they were cured of an ailment that never appeared again. Government needs to appreciate homeopathy and invest in it. Homeopathy has over 3000 remarkable medicines which are far cheaper than allopathic medicines.

In allopathy there has been extensive research on medicines and everything. There is no substitute for the different tests conducted in labs, for blood transfusion or for surgery.

The point is to use all these in the best possible way for the benefit of the people. All that we want is a choice.

Next time I go to a hospital I want to see a seasoned homeopath there who I know is eager to serve the masses that need good practicing doctors.