Gentle Medicine: The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health by Dr Joachim-F. Grätz

And in this corner, weighing-in at 1000 g and 600 pages with a height of 9 inches tall, is Dr Grätz’s Gentle Medicine, a clinical and methodological heavyweight hailing from Germany! Joachim-F. Grätz (b. 1963) is a German classical homeopath whose initial homeopathic mentor was Dr Otto Eichelberger (1918–2005) of Munich. Dr Eichelberger was one of the first to take into account the miasms in therapy and who also popularised the use of the Q-potencies in the German speaking world. Grätz, too, attended seminars given by Gerhard Risch (1927–1998), Dr Mohinder Singh Jus (1947–2019), George Vithoulkas, Michael Barthel, Yves LaBorde, Rajan Sankaran and Paul Herscu etc. This varied background provided the author with several different homeopathic perspectives to rely upon. For a period of time, Dr Grätz also served as lecturer in classical homeopathy at various academies of naturopathy in Munich, Salzburg and Vienna, and at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University. Dr Grätz’s other important source of inspiration came from Ryke Geerd Hamer (1935–2017) and that man’s recent contribution, German New Medicine (GNM). See Hamer’s opus, Kurzfassung der neuen Medizin, which appeared in 1994 (3rd edition, 2000). Since that time, others havewritten on this subject, e.g. Dr Katherine Willow’s German New Medicine: Experiences in Practice -An Introduction to the Medical Discoveries of Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer (2019; Hamer did not publish any substantive works in the English language). See also the works of Andrea Taddei and Björn Eybl. Hamer’s approach, without going into detail, introduces the five biological laws essential to understanding disease and healing. He came upon his discoveries after the homicidal death of his son, Dirk. Grätz’s tome is essentially a summary of his approach to health and disease while also serving as critique of the dominant health care system which he spearheads in Chapter 1 (40pp), ‘Today’s Healthcare system A Critical Review’. Additionally throughout, he tackles all the various weak points of the conventional medical model in particular vaccination which he does so from the European Union perspective. Chapter 2 (50pp), ‘The Chronic Laws of Classical Homeopathy’, discusses just that, while Chapter 3 (40pp), ‘General Medical Basics Based on the Laws of Nature’, discusses GNM and Grätz’s understanding of it. Then comes Chapter 4 (20pp), ‘Encephalopathy: A Necessary Consequence of Vaccinations’, before the largest chapter of 350 pages, ‘Gentle Medicine: Helping People in the Third Millennium’. It is in this section that he explains his Gentle Medicine methodology which consists of three aspects, classical homeopathy plus GNM plus the heroic or interventionistic aspects of allopathic care. He does not offer a clear or concise explanation of GNM so one must supplement that area with other texts or information gleaned from the internet. He does mention Hamer’s 5 biological laws but offers little detail. Biological conflicts and shock experiences and fears are especially important and are a large part of what makesup GNM yet these aspects as well as left-right handedness, brainmanifestations etc. requiremore of an exploration than the few paragraphs within. In this 350-page section, he offers many cases with about a third or so containing reportorial cross-table analyses. Nearly all of the cases are discussed at length which allows one to obtain good insights into the author’s approach. This chapter consists of 21 sub-chapters each dealing with a particular condition or subject, i.e. neurodermatitis, psoriasis, an autosomal-dominant inherited dermatosis? Tendency to infections, allergies, rheumatism and polyarthritis, mental illness andmood disorders (the case of Selenia is particularly fascinating as it concerns demon possession), Lyme disease,