Brian Fleming qualified as a homoeopath in 1998, he is registered with the Alliance of Registered Homoeopaths and the British Institute of Homoeopathy.

Homoeopathy is a dynamic holistic therapy which uses mainly herbs and some minerals to stimulate the body`s own self healing powers. Long recognised for its safe, gentle yet effective approach to a wide range of illnesses, homoeopathy is the first medical choice of increasingly more people, its gentle approach making it appropriate for the whole family, from the youngest babies, to the elderly and old. During a busy day at our homoeopathic clinic, we are likely to see conditions both acute and chronic, ranging from arthritis and asthma, to infertility, chronic fatigue syndrome, eczema, hayfever, allergies, sports injuries, diabetes and depression. In an era where the side effects of many allopathic medical drugs are more serious than the conditions they were originally prescribed for, homoeopathy`s 3000 plus remedies when properly prescribed, are side-effects free, gently stimulating the immune system to bring the body and mind back to balance and health.

Homoeopathy The Basis

Homoeopathy is based on a number of natural laws, the most important of these being the Law Of Similars. This principle means that a medicine which produces certain symptoms when given to healthy people in a test situation, will cure those same symptoms when we come across them in an illness. Samuel Hahnemann [1755-1843] the physician, medical researcher, linguist and chemist who was homoeopathy`s founder, discovered that quinine bark a conventional medicine for malaria, produced malarial fevers when taken by someone who was not ill. Building on that discovery, he went on to experiment with other substances in the same way and came to the conclusion that treating "like with like," was an effective way of stimulating the body`s self-healing powers. What Hahnemann rediscovered 200 years ago was known to Hippocrates the ancient Greek physician and "Father Of Modern Medicine," just as it was known to the Chinese herbalists at the time of Confucius and Lao Tsu and to the Ayurvedic practitioners of ancient India.

When Hahnemann published the first edition of his Organon Of The Medical Art in 1810, one of the first things that he said to explain his approach to medicine was that "The physician`s high and only mission is to restore the sick to health, to cure as it is termed." He quickly followed this by telling his readers that "The highest ideal of cure is the rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health....." The opening sentences of the Organon are virtually Hanhnemann`s medical manifesto and his ideal that a homoeopath`s task is to heal the sick and as quickly, gently and permanently as possible, is still homoeopathy`s aim today.

Homoeopathy is similar to acupuncture and similar holistic therapies in that it treats the symptoms of the body and mind as a totality. In common with these holistic systems of medicine, it is founded on the premise that we all possess a unique energy/dynamis/life force which governs our body and mind as a whole and produces symptoms when we are unwell. Hahnemann saw symptoms as being an expression of the body`s attempt to heal itself, an illness being capable of being brought back into balance and health by being given the right stimulus. In this way the patient is given the remedy which accurately reflects the pattern of their physical and emotional symptoms. The experience of generations of homoeopaths is that the more similar the remedy, the more complete the healing which takes place. Although homoeopathy has attracted a great deal of skepticism from the conventional medical community because it is difficult to prove "scientifically," its success with patients has resulted in its continued growth and popularity, the last twenty years having been a time of great resurgence for homoeopathy. Like homoeopathy acupuncture has been difficult to prove "scientifically" but very recent research into the use of acupuncture with rheumatoid arthritis patients has demonstrated that acupuncture powerfully affects those areas of the brain where arthitic pain is registered. Sir John Weir a homoeopath who was appointed Royal Physician in 1918 and went on to treat King George V, King Edward III, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II said of homoeopathy that "I suppose not one of us has approached homoeopathy otherwise than with doubt and mistrust; but facts have been too much for us." [address to the Liverpool Medical students Debating Society 1940]