The following is an interview with Sri Lankan Homeopath Dr. Imthiaz Latiff, son of the pioneering legend of homeopathy in Sri Lanka, Dr. Majeed Abdul Latiff.
Published as part of an educative series on wellbeing and to mark the anniversary of the founder of Homeopathy, the renowned German medical Professor and intellectual, Friedrich Hahnemann born on April 10,1755, this interview will be continued to provide more insights on how diverse medical traditions could co-exist to serve humanity.
Here are excerpts of the first segment of the interview
Q: Your father, Dr. Majeed Abdul Latiff was considered the father of Homeopathy in Sri Lanka. Could you speak about him and how he came to become a homeopathic doctor?
A: My father initially wanted to become an Allopathic Western Medicine doctor.
The forefathers of our family were famous traditional physicians who had even treated King Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe and the King’s family during the kingdom of Kandy. My father Dr. Majeed Abdul Latiff, being an offspring of a family of doctors was ambitious to follow the Western system of (Allopathic) medicine and enrolled himself in the West Bengal Medical College in Calcutta in 1953.
During his first year in medical college there was a severe outbreak of cholera and my father was also infected. He had taken treatment from the college medical officer with no relief for two days and accidently met a homoeopathic practitioner who had given him some small pills. After taking two doses within a gap of four hours as instructed, my father felt he was almost 50 percent relieved. At the fourth the dose, he was back to normal. He was amazed what these magic pills were that cured him in hours! The answer was homoeopathy!
When he met the doctor again, my father told him that he was a first-year medical student of an Allopathic Medical college and the homeopathic doctor had asked; “Why are you learning a medical system that could not cure you?
The result was that my father left the Western Medical College and enrolled himself with the Calcutta Homoeopathic Medical College, presently known as the ‘National Institute of Homoeopathy’. He followed a five-year study in the college and served the College Hospital for six months as a Junior House Physician and six months as a Senior House Physician. He returned home in 1958 as the first institutionally qualified Sri Lankan homeopath.
He was instrumental in getting the Homoeopathic Act of 1970 passed in Parliament and was one of the seven members to be appointed to the first Homoeopathic Medical Council in 1973. He served as President and member in almost every Homoeopathic Medical Council since its inception.
He dedicated his life towards the development of homoeopathy in Sri Lanka. His name was frequently mentioned in the Hansard of Parliament whenever any matter concerned with homoeopathy was taken up for discussion.
During his practice, he had treated many prominent personalities including Former President J.R. Jayewardene and Helena Jayewardene, and Hema Premadasa, Mrs. Lalith Athulathmudali and many former ministers and members of Parliament such as Lakshman Jayakody, Indradasa Hettiarachchi and many prominent figures and celebrities. He was popular among the top brass of the Police and Tri forces because he was known to perform ‘miracles’ by curing what was termed incurable by conventional treatment.
Even allopathic doctors and their families came to him for homoeopathic treatment. He was known for conducting free clinics in Colombo. During his tenure in the Homoeopathic Council he was instrumental in obtaining a five-acre plot of land at Welisara for establishing a Homoeopathic College and Teaching Hospital, and today, we have the 20-bed Homoeopathic Hospital at Welisara with two separate wards for males and females as well as a separate OPD Unit and Laboratory. My father was honoured with the title ‘Vidyanidhi’ by President R. Premadasa for his dedication to homoeopathy.
Q: Could you speak of your background and work as a homeopathic doctor in Sri Lanka?
A: Having qualified from the Pakistan Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital in Lahore, I am a registered homoeopathic practitioner in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. I function from Colombo, but I send Homeopathy medications throughout Sri Lanka and abroad.
I have collaborated with the Colombo Municipal Council to treat thousands of dengue patients. During Covid-19, thousands of Sri Lankans and Lankan expatriates obtained preventive homeopathy treatment from me, and I sent medications the world over.
Globally, Homeopathy is highly acclaimed to treat viruses and Covid-19 and Covid vaccine related complications is a current example. The best international example is Prince Charles who benefited from homeopathic treatment when he was ill with Covid-19.
I am the homeopathy doctor in the Indian High Commission medical panel in Sri Lanka. I treat the Indian mission staff and in 2005, I assisted the special Indian Consultant in Homeopathy deputed to Sri Lanka by the Indian Government to help formulate a short- and long-term development plan for homoeopathy in Sri Lanka. This culminated in the drafting of the New Homoeopathic Act of Sri Lanka which was passed in 2016.
I have accompanied the former Secretary to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Indigenous Medicine for a discussion with the Secretary of Health of the Government of India and was instrumental in initiating scholarships for Sri Lankan students to study homoeopathy in India. Since then, every year 10 scholarships are awarded to Sri Lankans to study homeopathy at the National Institute of Homeopathy in Calcutta.
Q: April 10 marked the birth anniversary of Friedrich Hahnemann, the German Professor of Western medicine who discovered homeopathy. Could you explain the discovery and basis of homeopathy?
A: The basis of Homoeopathy is in Western science. It is not to be misunderstood as indigenous although we in Sri Lanka have placed it within the indigenous medicine ministry. Some time back it was in the mainstream health ministry category.
Dr. Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann of Germany who discovered homeopathy in the 1790s was a Western medical scientist and chemist. He was a senior medical professor who knew more than 30 languages. This enabled him to read widely on diverse cures practised the world over.
He was regarded as one of the highest qualified allopathic doctors in the 18th century and was a rarity of rarities because he was a doctor who made his medicines. He was a man with principles. Although he was holding a top official position as a highly qualified allopathic practitioner and enjoying a good lifestyle, he was frustrated with some of the medical methods of Western medical science at the time.
Being a man of high intellect and knowledge he researched, contemplated, read and decided that the allopathic methods may do more harm than good. Therefore, he resigned from his position, gave up his practice and continued his work as a chemist while continuing to read and research on a possible alternative through the root of Western science.
Using his knowledge of many languages he took up literary work and translations of various medical books. During his translation, he came across a medical book by the great Scottish physician William Cullen’s Materia Medica. This book contained details about the effects of the Peruvian Bark which was also called Quinine and given as a treatment for malarial fever (botanical name is Cinchona officinalis). In the footnote in the page about the Peruvian Bark, it was stated that the reason this medicinal plant was used to treat malarial fever was because it has the property to produce malaria-like symptoms.
This information led Dr. Hahnemann to a new discovery in science. He started experimenting on himself by taking the extract of the Peruvian bark. He noticed that he experienced the characteristic symptoms of malaria; intermittent fever with chill and perspiration. For the next few years, he decided to experiment all other drugs in the material medica in different dosages on himself and on different people, both male and female under various conditions. All homeopathic experiments are on human beings and never on animals.
Experimenting first with the treatment of malaria, Dr. Hahnemann tried giving patients much smaller or diluted dosage instead of the usual. This he found was what worked in facilitating permanent cures. His results justified what was stated in Cullen’s material medica that properties of Peruvian bark had the ability to treat malaria, because it has the similar effect and ability to produce identical symptoms of malaria. What was happening earlier was that due to large/crude doses as given in Allopathy significant side effects are caused resulting in relapses after treatment. This renowned Western medical professor, thereafter, embarked on a long research of drug proving for other ailments using herbs as well as diverse other compounds. Homeopathy uses a range of compounds for treatments.
The term homoeopathy is derived from Greek (where ‘homoeo’ means similar and the word ‘pathy’ means treatment). Thereby the new scientific law called Similia Similibus Curantur was introduced which means let ‘like be treated with like’. This is the scientific premise as well as philosophy of homeopathy.
Any drug given to a healthy person during drug proving in large doses can produce symptoms (artificially induced through the drug) similar to the natural disease. The same compound given in minute highly diluted doses in a process called potentisation can fully cure the person having the actual disease.
Q: Could you explain the technical difference between Allopathy and Homeopathy?
A: Yes. In Greek, the meaning ‘allo’ means opposite and ‘pathy’ means treatment – opposite treatment. ‘Homoeo’ means similar and ‘pathy’ means treatment – similar treatment.
Allopathic treatment is based on the physiological and pathological changes that have been observed during proving of drugs on animals. The concept of diseases in allopathy is that it is caused by external forces such as bacteria, virus and parasites and also changes in cell pathology.
Medicines of Allopathy are discovered and administered to counter act such changes for example – Anti Inflammatory, Anti Bacterial, Anti Histamine, Anti Acid, Anti Coagulants and Anti depressive to bring on an opposite effect to the exhibiting condition.
Homoeopathy is based on the causative factor. According to the concept of homoeopathy there are ‘no’ diseases, but only diseased (dis-ease) in persons. The word dis-ease itself is self-explanatory. Homeopathy holds that the so-called diseases which have been given various names are merely external manifestations of the internal disorder (dis-order) exhibited by way of signs and symptoms, which may be physical, pathological, functional or psychological.
When a person dies what actually happens? All organs cease to function. What was lost? His energy which enabled the body to function. In homeopathy we term this energy as the ‘vital force’ responsible for all the functions of the body including physiological function, cell development and every activity of a person.
The term dis-ease is when this vital force is altered or functions disturbed and needs to be reinstated back to its original healthy state. The only way it can make known its altered state is by producing signs and symptoms which are exhibited and felt by the person/s with dis-ease. This is termed as the external manifestation of the internal disorder and medical professionals select a group of signs and symptoms including the pathological changes and give them various terminologiesThe latest terminology Covid-19 or Corona is a good example of such a naming.
To reinstate the vital force to its original healthy state, Homeopathy follows the Law of Similar restores the vital force. This is done by administering extremely minute doses in restoring the balance and harmony of the body.
Q: Could you explain this more?
A: Yes. Let me give an example. Take a cup of water and put a tablespoon of salt. You will feel the taste of the salt. Now take a large cauldron and do the same; you will not taste the salt but the ‘physics’ of the salt is there. Similarly, homeopathic medicines are made highly diluted and in atomic form for the transfer of energy. This is why in homeopathy there are zero side effects. You can take it along with any other form of medicine such as Allopathy or Ayurveda.