New Model for Health and Disease

From the Book

"Virus transformations as a consequence of pharmacological pollution in the human body/mind ecological system is a compelling hypothesis based on the data presented in George Vithoulkas' A New Model for Health and Disease.

It strongly underscores the need to focus on an 'energy' medicine to correct the deficiencies of our present 'chemical' medicine."
William A. Tiller, Ph.D.
Materials Science and Engineering
Stanford University

In this long-awaited ground-breaking treatise, theorist and homeopathic teacher George Vithoulkas presents a new paradigm for modern medicine.

Established medicine has failed in its mission to prevent or cure many diseases, Vithoulkas asserts, because of the excessive and often needless use of powerful drugs. Western medicine has a limited view of the total organism and the true sources of disease.

Vithoulkas relates the increasing incidence of AIDS, cancer, asthma, epilepsy, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and other difficult-to-control illnesses to the weakening of the immune system from over-prescribing of drugs.

Only when we fully integrate the role of the psyche, spirit and emotions into our explanations of illness, he says, will we be able to generate a fuller definition of health, and change our conception and methods of treatment.

from A New Model for Health and Disease...

"The quality of our health depends almost entirely on the quality of micro-organisms that exist normally within our body and thus form the basis of our life.

"If we disturb their equilibrium by pumping all this 'mold' into the organism, we are going to have a 'moldy' organism eventually."

"The hypothesis in this treatise is that the HIV (Human Immunosuppressive Virus) would not have appeared and affected the human race in such an epidemic manner unless it had been preceded by widespread and frequent use of antibiotics which prepared the ground by breaking down the organism's immune system."

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Details

A New Model For Health And Disease, by George Vithoulkas, was published in 1991.

In this book Vithoulkas presents a new paradigm for the practice of medicine. Citing the failure of modern medicine to prevent or cure many diseases he condemns the use of powerful drugs.

Vithoulkas specifically relates the increasing incidence of:

AIDS
Alzheimer's disease
asthma
cancer
epilepsy
rheumatoid arthritis
schizophrenia .

..and other chronic diseases to the weakening of the immune system from the over-prescribing of drugs such as antibiotics.

Rejecting the dominant Cartesian view of body as machine with drugs used to fix the parts, Vithoulkas asserts that the integration of mind, spirit, emotions, and the physical body is necessary to generate true health.

He writes: "The book is written with a threefold objective in mind:

1. To show that established medicine has failed in its mission to prevent and cure disease.

2.. To present a new model of health and disease as a new paradigm for the science of medicine.

3. To point out that such therapeutic systems exist and are available today."

Vithoulkas aims to stimulate thought, research, and discussion but he does not hold back his scathing critique of modern medicine.

This book uses statistics as well as quotations from relevant medical sources to back up its central hypothesis. It is at one and the same time a profound challenge to the status quo and a clarification of the road not taken.

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Heritage

"The book is written with a threefold objective in mind:

1. To show that established medicine has failed in its mission to prevent and cure disease...

2. To present a new model of health and disease as a new paradigm for the science of medicine...

3. To point out that such therapeutic systems exist and are available today..."

Julian Winston writes:
Although the author apologizes for his "polemic or prejudiced manner" in asserting that all the modern diseases (AIDS, cancer, immune diseases) are caused by the use of modern drug therapies, the book tends to alienate all but the "true believer."

I was reading the book on a plane, and in the seat next to me was a physician who was interested in the title. I let him look at the book, and he was both offended at the assertion of blame and mystified by it.

No matter what its intent, the book is preaching to the converted and is not offered in a manner that would encourage those of the "medical establishment" to read further.

From:
The Heritage of Homoeopathic Literature
copyright 2001 by Julian Winston
Reprinted with the permission of the author

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Author

George Vithoulkas

(1932 -     )

George Vithoulkas was born in Athens, Greece in 1932. He started studying homeopathy in South Africa in 1960. He continued in India at different homeopathic colleges, receiving a diploma from the Indian Institute of Homeopathy in 1966.

Returning to Greece the following year, Vithoulkas started practicing homeopathy and teaching it to a small group of Greek medical doctors.

The therapeutic success of these first doctors so attracted the attention of others that the Athenian School of Homeopathic Medicine was established in 1970. The school, since re-named the Center of Homeopathic Medicine, is devoted exclusively to the teaching of MDs.

George Vithoulkas started teaching classical homeopathy in 1967. In 1971 the first Greek Homeopathic Society was established and a year later Vithoulkas started the Greek journal, Homeopathic Medicine.

In 1976, he organized the first International Homeopathic Seminars in Greece. Since then, international seminars have been held every year, attended by health professionals from all over the world.

In 1994, Vithoulkas opened the International Academy for Classical Homeopathy on the Greek island of Alonissos, its purpose being to provide post-graduate training for health practitioners from all over the world.

Currently, as the Director of the Athens Center, Vithoulkas heads a team of 30 doctors who practice homeopathy while they study under his supervision. He has established homeopathy in Greece as a science respected by the medical profession, and has also made his country one of the leading centers for homeopathy in the western world.

Vithoulkas' books, Homeopathy: Medicine of the New Man (Arco, New York, 1979), written for lay people, and The Science of Homeopathy (Grove Press, New York, 1980), for health professionals, have been translated into twenty languages and have had a profound influence upon the acceptance and practice of homeopathy worldwide.

His book, A New Model for Health and Disease, published in German and English in 1991, makes a fundamental critique of conventional allopathic medicine and sets out a new paradigm for the science of medicine.

He has been an international teacher of classical homeopathy for 20 years. In the year 1996, he was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize for his work in the field of Classical Homeopathy.

From 1987-1991, in co-operation with the University of Namur in Belgium, he worked on creating and programming a highly sophisticated computer system, the V.E.S. (Vithoulkas Expert System) developed for the RADAR computer program. The VES has sold over 1,000 copies and has brought classical homeopathy within the reach of practitioners worldwide. Mr. Vithoulkas has also produced a series of video courses made from his lectures.

George Vithoulkas' overall vision is the establishment of homeopathy on a worldwide basis. A major goal in this vision is the foundation of homeopathic medical colleges in the USA and Europe where homeopathy can be taught at the highest level. Towards this end, a New York branch of the International Academy of Homeopathy has been established, classicalhomeopathy.com

At present Mr. Vithoulkas is writing a new homeopathic Materia Medica Viva, in 16 volumes, including contemporary knowledge and his own experience from the more than 150,000 cases treated at the Center in Athens. At present six volumes have been published.

George Vithoulkas continues to teach, both in Greece and internationally. As the practice of homeopathy becomes more widespread in many countries, Mr. Vithoulkas is seen to have made a major contribution to its establishment as a science that can substantially benefit human health and welfare.

Major Publications:

• Homeopathy - Medicine Of The New Man 1970
• Homeopathy - Medicine For The New Millenium
  Published in May 2000
  This is a new, expanded version of Medicine of the New Man
• The Science Of Homeopathy 1980
• Materia Medica Viva 9 volumes
• A New Model For Health And Disease
• Talks On Classical Homeopathy
• Essence Of Materia Medica
• Homeopathic Conference Esalen
  First edition in English 1980
• The Bern Seminar 1987
• The Celle Seminars 1992

Mr. Vithoulkas' website can be found at www.vithoulkas.com

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Reviews

From
THE HOMEOPATH
Reviewed by Mike Strange

Mike Strange MSc, RSHom practises at tile Lavender Hill Homoeopathic Centre in South London where he has a large number of patients with HIV and AIDS.

This book is a major contribution to the philosophy and science of medicine, written by one of this century's greatest exponents of the art and science of healing.

In it, George Vithoulkas attempts the mammoth task of sorting out the almost total mess into which established medicine has led humanity with regard to the nature of health and disease, and so the appropriate approaches to therapeutics.

He sets out his objectives as firstly, showing what has gone wrong, secondly, presenting his new model in terms of the observed natural laws, and thirdly, pointing out what currently available therapeutic modalities would offer the optimum results.

The aim is to stimulate thought, research and discussion, and Vithoulkas does not claim that this book is the last word.

The style is highly polemic, driven by the author's vision of approaching disaster for the human race. It comes over as a damning critique of allopathic medicine and of the materialist, antispiritual way of life of the developed countries, but he constantly urges doctors, scientists etc. of integrity, to rethink the course of their research and to help to develop appropriate methods of therapy.

The Introduction is a concentrated barrage of statistics which shows that in essence the great development of allopathic medicine has produced no benefits in terms of reduced morbidity, or of increased longevity or quality of life.

People who have less access to allopathic medicine than in the West seem to have done as well as we have, or in many cases, a lot better. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics and other strong drugs can be shown to have given rise to new conditions which are much more devastating and more difficult to manage than the diseases that went before.

His conclusion at this stage is that researchers have been asking the wrong questions, initiated by the pharmaceutical industry's priorities rather than by genuine considerations of health. This section, and all subsequent chapters are well supported by an extensive bibliography.

The central thesis is that a human (and other life forms of course) is an energy complex and not just a mechanical being, This concept,familiar to all classical homoeopaths, is developed along lines which will also be familiar to all modern students of homoeopathy who have studied Vithoulkas' The Science of Homoeopathy.

The three planes (mental/spiritual, emotional/psychic, physical/material) depicted as three concentric cones are described in terms of their hierarchy and interrelationship, which leads on to the definition of health on each plane, summarised as 'the degree to which an individual is free to create'. (Rendering this in non-sexist terms reminded me that one aspect of this book which many British readers will find distracting is the entirely male-oriented language - but try not to be distracted!).

As a logical outcome of this pattern of human energy, Vithoulkas emphasises that in order to build health we must look to the building of the spiritual and emotional life of people as well as the physical, instead of the current practice which concentrates almost exclusively on the material and technical aspects of education and achievement.

A very moral tone pervades the book - it rings true to me but might make problems for some of our allopathic colleagues to whom it could be seen as a digression.

Other everyday homoeopathic concepts such as predisposition and susceptibility, and what they mean in terms of the manifestation of underlying imbalances of the Vital Force are covered and related to the idea of the 'immune system', and to why changes in a person's overall level of health mean corresponding changes in susceptibility to different pathological agents.

The idea that certain pathogens can consistently arise endogenously by mutation from non-pathogenic organisms within a person in response to negative stimuli is one that will raise certain eyebrows, but Vithoulkas manages to make it a plausible possibility.

He then goes on to use the example of the advent of AIDS as an illustration of how this Model of Health and Disease hangs together, In brief, excessive allopathic drugging and vaccination have ruined the internal ecology of people already weakened by sexually transmitted diseases, poor diet and other adverse aspects of their lifestyle, and has made them susceptible to the endogenous mutation of a newly virulent organism, HIV, which is now being spread among a receptive population worldwide by sex, blood transfer etc.

A few details are a bit weak, but the theory as a whole is persuasive and will find support from many prominent 'AIDS rebels' who are rejecting the simplistic and exclusive HIV=AIDS=Death paradigm and are looking for something that fits the observed facts better.

Vithoulkas warns that AIDS will not be the last or the most deadly disease to appear if we continue to undermine the Vital Force by means of crude and inappropriate medicine.

Allopathic medicine has won many battles, but it is clearly losing the war, and the answer must lie elsewhere - most probably in homoeopathy and the other holistic therapies, as well as in a major revision of our lifestyle and life's goals.

This book deserves to be read and studied widely by all health professionals and I urge you to get a copy. Study it carefully and test the arguments in discussion. If you have friends in allopathic medicine, persuade them to read it, and try to discuss the concepts with them.

I hope that the Society of Homoeopaths might be able to sponsor one or more inter-disciplinary seminars to give interested allopaths and others a chance to work out new ways of tackling the declining health of our species.

The Homoeopath Vol.12 No.3 1992
Reprinted with permission from the Society of Homeopaths

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Contents

Foreword -- ix-x
Introduction -- 1 to 22
Ch. 1 The necessity of a Model -- 23-26
Ch. 2 The existing situation in medicine -- 27-30
Ch. 3 Preliminary ideas -- 31-41
Ch. 4 The energy complex of the human body -- 42-44
Ch. 4.1 The mental-spiritual plane -- 45-48
Ch. 4.2 The emotional-psychic plane -- 49-51
Ch. 4.3 The physical plane -- 52-56
Ch. 4.4 Hierarchical importance within the physical body -- 57-61
Ch. 5 Definition and measure of health -- 62
Ch. 5.1 Definition of health for the physical body -- 63
Ch. 5.2 Definition of health for the emotional plane -- 63
Ch. 5.3 Definition of health for the mental-spiritual plane -- 64-65
Ch. 5.4 Measure of health -- 66-67
Ch. 6 The relation of the human being with the universe -- 68-73
Ch. 7 Dissociation of levels -- 74
Ch. 7.1 Sleep -- 75-76
Ch. 7.2 Somnambulism (sleepwalking) -- 77
Ch. 7.3 Fainting -- 78
Ch. 7.4 Surgical anesthesia -- 79
Ch. 7.5 Hypnosis -- 80
Ch. 7.6 Yogic and religious trances -- 80
Ch. 7.7 Schizophrenia -- 81
Ch. 7.8 Chemically induced "dissociation" using hallucinogenic drugs -- 82
Ch. 7.9 Apparent death -- 82-89
Ch. 8 Evolution or degeneration -- 90-92
Ch. 9 Stimulus or information -- 93-100
Ch. 10 Saturation -- 101-102
Ch. 11 The nature of the cause of disease -- 103-105
Ch. 12 Universal energy-construction of the Model -- 106-110
Ch. 13 The significance of the planes -- 111-113
Ch. 14 Predispositions -- 114
Ch.14.1 Hereditary complexes -- 115
Ch. 14.2 Inappropriate treatments received -- 116
Ch. 14.3 External circumstances that affect thinking -- 117-123
Ch. 15 The defense system -- 124-134
Ch. 16 The concept of regeneration-degeneration -- 135-139
Ch. 17 Direction of disorder -- 140-153
Ch. 18 The hypothesis about AIDS -- 154-158
Ch. 18.1 Factors that promote degeneration by compromising the immune system -- 159
Ch. 18.2 High-risk individuals -- 160
Ch. 18.3 Low-risk individuals -- 161
Ch. 18.4 Factors promoting the degeneration of the human body -- 161-173
Ch. 19 Practical suggestions for those who care to protect themselves and others from AIDS -- 174
Ch. 19.1 Individual level -- 174-181
Ch. 19.2 Family level -- 182
Ch. 19.3 Societal level -- 183-184
Ch. 19.4 National Government level -- 185-186
Ch. 19.5 International level -- 187-188
Some pertinent theoretical questions -- 189-190
The deeper reasons for this state of affairs -- 191
The need for expanding alternative methods of therapy -- 192-194
The New Corners of Medical Education -- 195-197
Suggested Reseach -- 198-199
Resources -- 200-205

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