'It's thought that it was the medication that finished her off'...

...said a young friend, speaking of the death yesterday of a 38 year old mother of three. It is easy enough to see the background for Kingston's N.C. stance against 'remedies'.

Perhaps, however if we are to survive, it is time to think again.

The Kingston N.C. clinic of the future would surely have to accept that other people's therapies can work, and welcome the practising therapists. Where to draw the line is of course the matter for debate.

I want to mention two therapies.

First the Bach Flower Remedies. I know nothing of their use in illness, but a psychologist recently studied these and often worked out a blend to help a disturbed child, being astonished herself at the good results. Then when Audrey wanted to help a young asperger teenager (with the usual islands of high ability and phenomenal concentration and memory when his interest was engaged), we found him quite unable to read body language or understand that people have feelings, exceptionally clumsy, and altogether most difficult to be with. After much persuasion, he proved willing to take a daily dose of the Rescue remedy with certain other Bach Remedies.

It did not cure but it certainly modified his life. He went to the local school and tutoring him became quite a pleasure.

In our future clinic if patients wished to try the flower remedies, it would seem harmless enough; a personality difficulty overcome and could open the way for a N.C. regimen.

Then I take issue with Diana Milne and her 'to hell with supplements'. Is this not the very closed mindedness, verging on arrogance that other people find difficult to accept? Has she, I wonder, read Rex Newnham on Arthritis and Osteoporosis? If so, how does she answer his cogent arguments? They lead to the idea that so much of our food is grown on mineral deficient soil, lacking in essential trace elements, that even if the ground is treated organically some people need a carefully balanced mineral supplements, as Newnham himself did in Australia on removal to a new area. Since the trace- element balance carefully worked out, can it really do any harm? Are the people who are convinced that it has stopped their painful and disabling trail of broken bones so wrong that Kingston must ban the ingestion of the supplements?

We are already cautiously adding reflexology, the Alexander technique and various types of massage to our own hydrotherapy.

Could not the debate be about other therapies which may be harmonised to all and helpful to some?

We may even have to accept the temporary suppression of certain symptoms to give a person the strength to understand and accept Nature Cure.

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