Dr. Frederick Francisco: The homeopathic doctor is in

Ripples of laughter floated from Dr. Frederick Francisco’s office at the Biological Homeopathic Health Center at 1691 Maria Orosa St., Malate, Manila. Something you don’t normally hear during consultations at a doctor’s office. But Dr. Francisco is not an ordinary doctor. Apart from being a Certified Family Physician (CFP), he is also a homeopathic medical doctor and a specialist on infectious and tropical diseases. On top of these, he is the president of the Philippine College of Integrative Medicine and Homotoxicology (PCIMH).

As medical director of the Biological Homeopathic Health Center, Dr. Francisco sees to it that the Center’s main goal is achieved. That goal is to reclaim health by establishing a state of harmony in patient’s make-up – physical, chemical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. This state of homeostasis or balanced relationship allows the patient’s defense mechanism and immune system to efficiently fight disease-causing agents as well as other harmful factors, and promote self-healing.

Foremost among the alternative therapies offered by the Biological Homeopathic Health Center (BHHC) is homeopathy, a form of medical treatment which uses remedies derived from plants, minerals, and other natural chemical substances in a much diluted form, given orally or by injection.

Homeopathy was developed by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) in Germany almost 200 years ago as a reaction against some harmful medical practices during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is considered the original alternative medicine, and is a holistic, humane, and natural approach to healing. Unlike orthodox medicine, which has a fragmented approach to the treatment of diseases, homeopathy treats any illness as a disease of the whole person. Each person has a vital force which regulates the functioning of the body. The vital force or chi is the key to a person’s capacity to heal himself. Due to certain factors like heredity, environment, or stress, this vital force weakens, causing disease. Illness is a dynamic disturbance of the vital force. The symptoms of illness are the visible manifestations of the vital force reacting against the disease.

Homeopathy differs from allopathic or orthodox medicine in that it does not treat the symptoms of disease. (Allopathy comes from the Greek word allos, meaning different, and pathein, meaning disease or suffering).

Homeopathy allows the symptoms to run their course in order to pave the way for self-healing. For instance, fever is a sign that the body is producing more white blood cells to fight infection. If you take paracetamol, it will interrupt the natural process of healing.

Dr. Francisco explains that "allopathic medicine uses drugs against disease. Anti-diabetic, anti-hypertensive – puro anti. That’s why the body fights back. Instead of temporarily helping it, you fight it. So the problem recurs. You don’t help the patient. You torture him. But in homeopathy, ‘like cures like.’"

The Latin phrase Similia similibus curantor (like shall be cured by like) is the basis of homeopathy. Father of Modern Medicine Hippocrates (4th century BC) wrote that "like cures like." Hahnemann was inspired by Hippocrates to popularize the practice of homeopathy, and he came up with a system of therapeutics based on the Law of Similars. He demonstrated that the correct remedy for a disease is that substance which, in a healthy person, would produce the same symptoms found in the sick patient. For example, a decoction of the bark of the quinine tree produced malaria-like symptoms in a healthy person. Quinine is now used as a cure for malaria. Other remedies include mineral elements and salts such as sulfur table salt, copper, and silica. Also vegetables and plants like onions, celery, grapefruit, tomato, cane sugar, belladonna, camomile, and ipecacuanha.

Homeopathic remedies are generally dilutions of natural substances from plants and minerals. These remedies are based on the three principles proven and developed by Dr. Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg, which states that "like cures like," the more the remedy is diluted, the greater its potency. and "an illness is specific to the individual."

Only one remedy is given at a time. All the patient’s complaints are analyzed together and a single remedy is determined. This remedy is one that most closely resembles the set of symptoms. This is why consultations with a homeopathic doctor take a bit longer than a visit to an orthodox medical practitioner. Dr. Francisco’s method of consultation is typical of homeopathic doctors.

"In my clinic, I apply integrative medicine, which consists of homeopathy, homotoxicology, and other healing modalities. I treat the person, not the disease. I try to see the person as an individual. I see each individual patient as different. I don’t use the same protocol on all patients with cancer. I apply individualized or personalized treatment. I evaluate the patient’s profile – his history and lifestyle, and why he is now sick. I don’t hurry. I’m not just focused on the disease but on the whole patient."

Dr. Francisco studied homeopathic medicine at the Bio-Integrative Health Center International in Reno, Nevada, USA. The Center is operated by Dr. Corazon Ibarra, a Filipino anesthesiologist who practiced in Germany, where she studied homeopathy and homotoxicology. When she migrated to the US, she set up her own center. She is one of the founders of the Philippine College of Integrative Medicine and Homotoxicology (PCIMH) whose president is Dr. Francisco. The PCIMH was founded in 2001. There are about 50 members nationwide – surgeons, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, family physicians, practitioners of internal medicine, and other specialists. The group is working on an integrative medicine curriculum which they hope would be adopted by interested medical schools.

The efficacy of homeopathy and related healing modalities is a strong argument for adoption of the curriculum. Dr. Francisco mentions several cases of cures. He says a pilot who had tongue cancer and who was due to be operated on underwent ozone therapy in his clinic and was cured. Other cancer cases – breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer and others – were also successfully treated. A seaman with psoriasis also got cured after a thorough cleansing of his intestines. Dr. Francisco says he has had numerous cases of cures that he has lost track of them.

His success in the practice of homeopathy and integrative medicine justifies Dr. Francisco’s decision to switch to homeopathy. He was into emergency medicine at San Lazaro Hospital when he learned that a friend and fellow doctor was running the Biological Homeopathic Health Center in Malate. She was using nontraditional healing aids and she asked him to try some of her alternative approaches to healing. He did, and his patients multiplied. Now he has another clinic in Alabang.

"So that means I’m doing something right," he says, smiling.

A quick scan of his Center’s alternative healing therapies shows why Dr. Francisco succeeds where allopathic medicine fails. It offers, aside from homeopathy, homotoxicology (removal of toxins in the body tissues), chelation therapy (cleansing the body), oxygen therapy, neural therapy to treat chronic pain, and mesotherapy to treat rheumatism, infectious diseases and vascular diseases. There’s also orthomolecular medicine, nutritional supplements, enzyme therapy, traditional Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion, bio-resonance therapy, live cell analysis, and micro trace minerals hair analysis.

For common complaints like colds and flu, Dr. Francisco has a "flu cocktail," an oxidative intravenous drip that cures the patient in just one day.

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Catch Dr. Francisco (tel. nos. 523-1211 and 842-7005) on the program "Doctors on Line," which is aired Mondays through Fridays on DZAS, from 8:30-9:30 a.m. and rebroadcast Sundays at 9:30-10:30 a.m.