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Rheumatoid Arthritis

· A pilot study comparing the relative values of homoeopathic treatment and salicylate therapy in rheumatoid arthritis has been previously described (Gibson, Gibson, MacNeill, Gray, Dick & Buchanan, 1978).
· The selection of the appropriate remedy depends on the patient's symptoms and signs, the patients were divided into two groups: those with good prescribing symptoms, R patients, and those with poor prescribing symptoms, U patients, (Dhawale, 1976;Mitchell, 1975; Clarke, 1978).
· The Scientific Rationale used in this study was mainly statistics. The results were analysed by the x2 test, the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test (Wilcoxon, 1945), and the Mann-Whitney U-test (Mann & Whitney, 1947).
Evaluation
· There were, however, two main criticisms of this study.
· Firstly, the patients who received homoeopathic treatment were allowed to continue their previous orthodox anti-inflammatory therapy whereas the patients who received salicylates had to discontinue all other previous anti-inflammatory drugs.
· Secondly, since different doctors from those being given salicylate saw the patients who received homoeopathic treatment, it could be argued that the better response of the patients on homoeopathy was due to the doctor and not the drug.
· In order to evaluate the importance of these two points a second, more rigidly controlled trial was designed
· The results of this trial confirm the impression obtained from the preliminary study that homoeopathic treatment is effective in the control of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
· The design of the trial was such that differences in orthodox anti-inflammatory therapy and in the doctor treating the patient were eliminated.
· Both AM and RG obtained significant improvements in pain scores, stiffness, grip strength and functional index in their patients on active homoeopathy whereas their patients on...