|
This book review is reprinted from Volume 98 Number 4 Winter 2005 edition of American Journal of Homeopathic Medicine with permission of the American Institute of Homeopathy Josey-Bass/Wiley: San Francisco, CA. 2005 Reviewed by George Guess, MD, DHt Our own Ed Shalts has penned a highly readable, user friendly guide for parents who are considering homeopathic treatment for their children, as well as those who are already convinced that homeopathy is appropriate for their kids. This book, attractively bound and indexed, represents a first for the AIH, which offered its sponsorship and endorsement of this worthy text. Dr. Shalts, writing in an unpretentious, conversational style, establishes himself very early on in the book as a comfortable, reassuring, and knowledgeable presence, offering concerned parents a very real alternative to conventional medicine for a wide array of ailments. Dr. Shalts provides all the information a parent might require about homeopathy - its origins, philosophy and methodology, pharmacology, its scientific validation, its history, and information about various myths and controversies surrounding our discipline. This reviewer especially appreciated his delineation of four levels of health of patients and their implications with regard to treatment. Using case after case from his own practice, Dr. Shalts amply demonstrates the therapeutic power of homeopathic medicine. In the chapter "Developing a Partnership with Your Homeopath" he lays out for parents all the nuts and bolts of the homeopathic method, including essential information regarding preparation for the homeopathic interview and the importance of timely communication with the practitioner. Dr. Shalts then provides two important guides to homeopathic treatment, one for acute disorders and one for chronic diseases. The first basically serves as a homeopathic first aid guide, with remedies to include in one's first aid kit. While there are not many remedies mentioned for each ailment covered, those that are included are simply and adequately described, making the prospect of applying homeopathy seem relatively undaunting, a good thing, I believe, for parents just starting to get their feet wet. He then moves on to the more complicated topic of chronic disease. Here, of course, he does not provide remedy selections; rather he delves deeply into the homeopathic method of treatment of a number of chronic disorders, in the course of which he discusses the important topics of disease suppression, beginning homeopathic treatment while the patient is taking conventional drugs, deciding when homeopathy is appropriate and when it's not, etc. He devotes an extensive part of the book to the treatment of chronic psychological conditions, a special field of expertise for him. Throughout he illustrates the efficacy of homeopathy with clinical case histories. The American Institute of Homeopathy Handbook for Parents will, I am sure, prove a very useful, highly informative source book for parents both contemplating and already committed to homeopathic treatment for their children. It will simultaneously encourage and reassure parents while helping practitioners in the often tricky task of educating patients in the finer points of homeopathic treatment. |