Working closely in rural areas of this country has highlighted the difficulties of the villagers to medical assistance. Where there are government clinics they are under staffed, and doctors posted to these clinics are seldom found at the work place, only to be traced in their private clinics. Particularly, those doctors with allopathic MBBS degrees, even if their origin is from the rural areas, do not wish to be closer home in the villages (unlike other professionals) and quickly get themselves transferred (with political influence ) to urban areas.

However, those who have been trained in alternative systems of medicine are found to do yeoman service (not condoning the quacks) in the remote areas. To access some basic medical treatments in rural areas The Mahatma Gandhi Centre, under its Health and Body care programme, is promoting the use of alternative sources of medicine AYUSH ( Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani and Sidda and Homoeopathy).

The Mahatma Gandhi Centre realises that although these fields of medicine are practiced in this country, the public is not given the right knowledge about them. Homoeopathy is a case in point. Therapeutically, Homoeopathy is considered one of the advancing medical fields in other countries, and the Mahatma Gandhi Centre considers that Homoeopathy needs to be given greater exposure in this country.

Our conventional medical paradigm assumes that only large doses of pharmacological agents will create the desired biological effects in the body, and therefore, will provide cure for an ailment. However, it is invariably recognized that large doses of medication does not necessarily lead to better or improved health but, could also produce strong side effects. Most mass produced drugs are primarily developed to replace, suppress, minimize, or interfere with specific biochemical function, while ignoring the need to discover pharmaceutical medicines for augmenting a person’s own immune and defence systems.

In the recent decades modern science has increased pace towards the discovery of smaller particles, and miniaturising devices to manufacture at molecular dimensions with increased capabilities and potency compared to larger devices is now the ‘fashion’. This is popularly called "Nanotechnology". It is claimed that nanotechnology is the future, and its revolutionary impact on the health, wealth and world security will be more significant on humanity than the combined influences so far of antibiotics, the integrated circuit and synthetic polymers.

Homeopathy, based on discoveries by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, pre-dates what we call modern medicine by more than a century. Homoeopathy works on the principle that the information contained in many substances can be potentiated or strengthened by a process of dilution and mixing, and a substance that causes symptoms of a disease will - if used in homeopathic dilution – can supply the information to the body for ending the disease process.

Hahnemann observed from his experiments with cinchona bark, used for treating malaria, that when the bark was ingested it produced malarial symptoms. He therefore reasoned that cure proceeds through similarity, and that treatments must be able to produce symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the disease being treated. Through further experiments with other substances, Hahnemann conceived of the "law of similars", otherwise known as "like cures like" (similia similibus curentur) as a fundamental healing principle.

Conventional (allopathic) medicine too has applied the pharmacological principle of "similars", meaning, the use of a medicinal agent in small doses based on what it causes in larger, toxic doses to produce immunization and allergy treatments. Such treatments are claimed to work by augmenting recipient’s immune system. Homoeopathy also works on this principle of "similaris" and, its treatment is individualized to a person’s total syndrome of symptoms and not simply to a localized or defined disease. Nonetheless, homeopaths have been maligned, ridiculed, and hindered at every turn by conventional medical practitioners who, in collusion with the profitable pharmaceutical businesses, promote a common but incorrect notion that only heavy doses of medicines (contrary to what homoeopaths prescribe) can have any biochemical and clinical effects. This is unfortunate.

For many years, there has been a lot of campaign against Homoeopathy and it intensifies every time when it gets closer to the point that Homoeopathic treatment might achieve a breakthrough for wider public acceptance. Significantly, support from the British Royal family for alternative medicine, and homeopathy in particular, has resulted in a flurry of media attacks on Homoeopathy in the United Kingdom. Homoeopathy is considered unscientific by the skeptics because, it can never be tested properly using the conventional allopathic trial methods such as administering the same prescriptions to a large number of patients.

Homoeopathy considers every individual different, and therefore, it administers different medicines to suit the patient’s specific situations. What is important is not comparison of medical systems but, whether patients who have undergone Homoeopathic treatment are cured or not. There is ample evidence from this country and internationally that people have been cured, and a number of them have found remedy from Homoeopathy after allopathic medical practitioners gave up patients with no hope of cure.

The Mahatma Gandhi Centre has an open mind, and therefore, collaborates with the Sri Lanka Homoeopathic Medical Council to learn more about Homoeopathy, and to promote benefits of Homoeopathy for the wellbeing of everyone, particularly the rural people of this country. In its latest effort, the Homoeopathic Medical Council is celebrating the 255th birth anniversary of the Founder of Homeopathy, Christian Fredrick Samuel Hahnemann, at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo-3 on 25th April 2010.

The main feature will be a presentation on "Treatment and Management of Cancer with Homoeopathy" by Dr.Sahji V Kudiyat Chief Researcher and Physician, St. George Cancer Care and Research Centre, Kerala, India and Chief International Coordinator, Global Coalition for Promotion, Education and Research in Homeopathic Medicine.

Dr Kudiyat, practices homoeopathy, and has developed a new scientific theory for understanding and managing of Cancer. He also has demonstrated "Effectiveness of Homoeopathic Medicine in increasing serum platelet count" in the treatment and cure of Dengue or Hemorrhagic Fever without a need for blood transfusion. Conventional or Allopathic Medicine does not have any effective treatment for this problem, and the usual management includes blood or serum platelet count transfusion and, in extreme cases, the patient dies.

Dr Kudiyat has been travelling all over the world to explain his discoveries, and Sri-Lankans will have an opportunity to learn more about the usefulness of Homoeopathy. With the advance of nanotechnology there is likelihood that the effective basis of dilution in Homoeopathy treatment will clearly be understood in the near future. If Homoeopathy can provide cure for cancer and dengue, as Dr. Kudiyat claims, it will be a significant break though and contribution to medical science and it will tremendously benefit humanity. In the least, it will benefit the poor villager of this country. That is the basis for The Mahatma Gandhi Centre interest in Homoeopathy.

There are limited seats: seat reservation for Galle Face event contact 077-3935994, 071-4422300,071-4860781.