
By Your Pet Health.org
Like anything that has ever been suggested as an alternative to vaccines and other allopathic treatments, nosodes are quite controversial. While proponents and advocates of homeopathy have been integrating nosodes in their therapies for centuries (literally), their detractors disqualify them by relegating them to the realm of pseudoscience. Some have even gone as far as stating that the use of nosodes in medical treatments should be banned, since they are instrumental in spreading the ‘anti-vaccine epidemic’. In today’s post, we will try to take a balanced look at nosodes and their proven efficiency in veterinary medicine.
Like anything that has ever been suggested as an alternative to vaccines and other allopathic treatments, nosodes are quite controversial. While proponents and advocates of homeopathy have been integrating nosodes in their therapies for centuries (literally), their detractors disqualify them by relegating them to the realm of pseudoscience. Some have even gone as far as stating that the use of nosodes in medical treatments should be banned, since they are instrumental in spreading the ‘anti-vaccine epidemic’. In today’s post, we will try to take a balanced look at nosodes and their proven efficiency in veterinary medicine.
What are nosodes?
In plain English, nosodes are remedies used in homeopathy that have been prepared from pathological specimens. In other words, they are derived from the basis of a present disease and employ a specifically pathological medium as initial material. This material can be pus, blood, or any other type of fluid secreted or excreted by the body of the patient. This, of course, includes saliva, but even fragments of affected tissue, such as an overgrowth or tumor.
Among the first types of nosodes used homeopathically, i.e. potentized, there’s the saliva of dogs with rabies and venom from venomous snakes. The process of potentization was first introduced by the man largely regarded as the founder of homeopathy – Samuel Hahnemann. This process is very particular and it entails dilution, by a factor that ranges successively from 10 to 100. Potentization has a long-standing history in homeopathy, but in all other cases except for nosodes, this type of dilution starts with a material that allegedly has some miraculous or otherwise mystical healing properties. In the case of nosodes, the base material is a physical form of the disease itself, or at the very least something that has a direct connection to it.
In plain English, nosodes are remedies used in homeopathy that have been prepared from pathological specimens. In other words, they are derived from the basis of a present disease and employ a specifically pathological medium as initial material. This material can be pus, blood, or any other type of fluid secreted or excreted by the body of the patient. This, of course, includes saliva, but even fragments of affected tissue, such as an overgrowth or tumor.
Among the first types of nosodes used homeopathically, i.e. potentized, there’s the saliva of dogs with rabies and venom from venomous snakes. The process of potentization was first introduced by the man largely regarded as the founder of homeopathy – Samuel Hahnemann. This process is very particular and it entails dilution, by a factor that ranges successively from 10 to 100. Potentization has a long-standing history in homeopathy, but in all other cases except for nosodes, this type of dilution starts with a material that allegedly has some miraculous or otherwise mystical healing properties. In the case of nosodes, the base material is a physical form of the disease itself, or at the very least something that has a direct connection to it.
This is basically the way in which nosodes resemble vaccines. Some sources have referenced nosodes to be ‘attenuated’ or ‘killed vaccines’. In a certain sense, there are significant similarities at play here. For one thing, both treatment methods involve using a substance that is related to the disease itself. However, in allopathic vaccines, this substance is physically present and its purpose is to elicit a reaction from the immune system of the body at hand.
In homeopathic nosodes, on the other hand, there is little if any material substance present and the process of immunization involves the energy pattern of the disease, not its substance.
According to advocates of nosodes, they act by stimulating the entire immune system of the body and activate it in warding off a certain disease. |
Since this activation doesn’t result in the production of any actual antibodies, the use and efficiency of nosodes has been consistently challenged by the traditional medical community. However, in the following, we will address more relevant tests that look into the uses of nosodes and try to establish whether their safety and effectiveness can be asserted, or if, on the other hand, more testing is needed.