This book review is reprinted from The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.
Homoeopathic Medicine
by Spiro Diamantides
Published by the Author
20 Dragoumi Street, Athens, Greece 11610
reviewed by Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott
Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott RSHom practices in
Edinburgh, Scotland
The author graduated in medicine from the University of Athens and received postgraduate training in homoeopathy in Vienna and London. Since then he has worked in various hospitals in Vienna, London and the USA, given seminars on a variety of subjects, not all homoeopathic by any means, and published many articles.
This book shows what can be done on a Macintosh Computer, and I have to say that it looks it. (And so has this journal for the last three issues! Ed.) What is more it is poorly bound and started to fall apart at an early stage in the proceedings. So those gripes apart, what of the text?
Aimed it would appear predominantly at the author's medical peers, it seeks to persuade those who are not to become believers. He covers the usual basics, taking most subjects slightly more deeply than might be found in other introductory texts. For once he gives no Materia Medica, but sticks mainly to the philosophy, and gives quite a good explanation of the expanded water molecule polymerism chain theory. This explanation is one of the few times that his schematic diagrams are useful, as many of his other diagrams, all so carefully prepared with his Macintosh, are superfluous and dare one say it, at times rather tiresome.
It is an honest book, even if not everyone will agree with some of his views, such as his belief that homoeopathic treatment should be avoided in the first five months of pregnancy. But he does rather wade through it all: for instance, we are treated to a whole chapter on the clinical applications of homoeopathy, from epidemics, via maladies of diverse kinds, to A.I.D.S., giving in each case a list of the kinds of diseases that have been successfully treated, those that are less susceptible to homoeopathic intervention, and the names of researchers and of those who are his sources. There is a short chapter on scientific research, which lists some of the kinds of work going on, but omits any reference to recent French research. There is the regulation life of Hahnemann, covered with some alacrity, and then 77 pages of history and bibliography: My he does list a lot of texts. I wonder if he has read them all?
Perhaps I am being a little unfair, but his account of the theoretical basis of how it works is heavy going, despite a promising start in which he compares and contrasts ideas down the ages on the Mind and Psyche (his Greek forbears receive due obeisance here). So all in all I do not think that I would have rushed out to buy this, as I think most of his material has been covered else where and more elegantly.
The Homoeopath Vol.10 No.1 1990