Let Like Cure Like: Definitive Guide to the Healing Powers of Homeopathy

In a comprehensive presentation that will satisfy readers' curiosity even if it leaves some unconvinced, McCabe, president of the Connecticut Homeopathic Association, explains the philosophy of homeopathy and the principles of homeopathic treatment. He also makes sweeping claims: ""Homeopathy, when classically used and the remedy wisely selected, is always at least as effective as allopathy."" The first step, he cautions readers, is suspending disbelief, or unlearning what we think we know about medicine. Homeopathy, he explains, involves the application of minute amounts of energy to effect changes in the body's vital force. McCabe traces its philosophical origins to ancient Greece, then shows how it has evolved into a complex, demanding healing art with its own rules of practice and language. Homeopathy may yet prove to be good medicine, but he often veers away from a persuasive argument for a holistic approach to healing. McCabe's dependence on the field's jargon (simillimum, ""the means by which the patient will be made well""; miasm, ""the inborn genetic weakness common to everyone"") and such conventions as ascribing personality types to basic remedies (Jerry Seinfeld epitomizes the ""arsenicum""; Archie Bunker is the perfect ""nux"") suggests that he's trying to cloak an essentially intuitive approach in the mantle of respectable science. That said, McCabe is a passionate, engaging advocate, and his account of his own successful homeopathic treatment makes his case hard for even skeptics to ignore. (Sept.)