e-book: Homeopathic Family Medicine

Dana Ullman Homeopathic Educational Services 2003, but updated every 3 months. Electronic Download from www.homeopathic.com 271pp.

Price: $39.95 for single download, $59.95 for 2-year subscription and $59.95 for a printed copy. Free sample download available.

The preface to this book tells us of its purpose. ‘Our mission … is to keep you informed of the latest and best research in the field of homeopathic medicine’. This goal, the author points out, is not easy to achieve with a printed volume (although this is also available if you prefer it). With an e-book, regular updates are possible, so that the information, the debates and the references keep up pretty closely with matters going on in the homeopathic world. There is a section listing the updates and when they were made and you can see that the process goes on all the time.

Apart from the novel feature of the possibility of a rapid response to new information, what else sets this book apart? It is similar to many simple introductory homeopathic books in providing a preamble about homeopathy in general, its history, its place in medicine, its potential place in the medicine of the future with comments on provings, potencies and home usage. There is an especially enjoyable summary of clinical homeopathic research in the 19th century, demonstrating how methodologically far ahead homeopathic doctors have always been in research. Then there is the bulk of the book, which is an alphabetic list of medical conditions, followed by remedies which might be used to help in each case and (helpfully partisan) discussions of any research in the clinical area. So far, so standard.

What is different and I think very helpful, is that if there are clinical trials (or other relevant research) of that condition with homeopathy, these are referenced and fully listed after a discussion of the remedies. Of course, this is available through other sources—for example, the Hom-inform database is free to use on-line (www.hom-inform.org) and will bring up much information, but searches elsewhere will not necessarily produce the succinct results available in this e-book. If you need to find out if there is some trial support for the use of homeopathy in a particular condition, this is a very good place to look.

Getting used to an e-book will not be to everyone's taste, but after a while, it becomes quite straightforward to explore the text. As long as the update promise continues to be delivered on, this is a useful resource.

It is only a matter of a short time I am sure, before all the ‘Lancet’ shenanigans are fully incorporated into the text. I have no doubt that Dana Ullman will be delighted to refer and discuss the large volume of well-aimed criticism which has been published, so this e-book can prove itself in bringing all the arguments together.