Happy New Year

A New Year and New Decade are always times of promise. May you have a happy, healthy, wise and wealthy 2010 and beyond.

Happy New Year

GLOBAL WARMING RAIN, HAIL WIND AND FLOODING

With record rainfall and river levels in large parts of Ireland at record levels leading to large areas of flooding showing what can be expected as global warming gets going here in Ireland. (The photo above shows Washington Street in Cork City, Ireland) Many elsewhere have already experienced these changes with places like Bangladesh having ceeded land to rising sea-levels and pacific islands worried about disappearing like the famed Atlantis . This is a warning to all of us of as to how we will have to adapt not just as individuals, but as a global community and requiring real action at a global level. Many of these changes are beyond the ability of local communities to deal with as they have been created at a global level. For many in Ireland these are scenes reminiscent of monsoon floods only ever seen on TV in far off lands. For many there will be no going back to what was before with businesses already coping with the effects of a severe recession, let alone a meter or more of water, but it is at times like this you see the true resilience and wonder of human nature at its best. With people out helping neighbours, people coming off strike to help those most in need. My heart and thoughts go out to all those affected both directly and indirectly. With all the groups so badly affected on land across the world also spare a thought for those at sea. Some of the problems were the result of poor planning decisions in the past, but as is so often, it is what we do now in the present that is most important.

It is these weather events which have prompted me to add a weather button to my site (the button on the left works the same way), which links to the latest weather in Ireland hopefully it will give people easy access to information as to when to move their animals to higher ground as well as themselves You can click on the weather button now to try it out, just as clicking on the logo top right will bring you to my website. I will over time add more features and links to elsewhere, but this is the country where I live in and hopefully this button will help people have some amount of forewarning, if only even by a couple of hours as to what is coming. It links to information provided by Met Éireann the Irish Weather Forecast Service, who do an excellent job in warning of weather when warning is needed. The button idea came from something I do everyday when going to walk my dogs, make large animal appointments outdoors as a veterinary homeopath. As someone who loves to sail and rarely gets to do, as well as being a son of a father who loved not only to fly himself from A to B, but whose lively hood was originally in the Agri-business and the grandson of a hill farmer, I have an inherent and keen interest in weather forecasts not that they always can predict exactly what the weather is going to do they can give you a fair idea. There was many a trip up the hills in snow to rescue lambs for bottle feeding, so having an idea of when to move animals to a safer place was vital and in my granfathers day that was based primarily on the signs of weather . I was once stuck at sea during the great storm of 1987 often linked somewhat unfairly to Michael Fish, who did predict a storm just not the severity that occurred. We were unfortunately at sea in a small Fisher 25 going from Humble in England to Ballycotton in Ireland, but luckily in the hands of a master sailor who was also the chief pilot of a large airline. I learned the full impact of natures power first hand as we sailed up and down giant waves having being contacted by the RAF when the under-estimation of the storms true strength had been realised and told we were too far from port to risk returning and so we were best proceeding directly into the storm. As I am writing this you will gather that all went successfully.

This interest in weather extends to judging when I go for walks with my dogs by quickly checking the latest rainfall radar to see exactly when the dry spell will be or if it has to be in the rain when it will be lightest.

I even use this to book my large animal appointments so that I generally do them in the dry. I also use it to watch for thunder and lightening storms both from a pets point of view (Homeopet Storm Stress has been proven to work here) as well as when to plug out sensitive electricals. So what does the weather have to do with homoeopathy well it can help when choosing remedies that are worse for damp, cold wet, heat, thunderstorms etc as many homeopathic remedies have very definite weather modalities. Mind you my Labrador in the photo above is a testament to both homeopathy and raw food diet. The picture above is her at 12 years of age doing her favourite thing riding the waves. As you can tell she is not bothered by any amount of rain, unless it interferes with her family or food supply! Homeopathy can also help people and their pets, as well as farm animals cope with the trauma that occurs with these hopefully freak weather events, such as those Ireland is just experiencing, which hopefully will not become the norm either here or elsewhere. To paraphrase Einstein "the truth in science is what stands up to experience" and for many of us we are experiencing changes! But to finish on a happy note at least we now have not just signs which are still as important as ever both to homeopaths, doctors and farmers among many others, but we have some marvellous technology that when used properly can make a huge difference in these situations also of huge importance to homeopaths, doctors, sailors , farmers in fact all of us - the weather forecast is just one of these!

GLOBAL WARMING RAIN, HAIL WIND AND FLOODING

H1N1 SWINE FLU LATEST NEW UPDATE

With the unfortunate death of a cat in the Oregon in the USA from laboratory confirmed H1N1 infection, we have set up a latest news button link on our website. Pressing the home page button below will bring you to my website home page where the LATEST NEWS is obtained by pressing the CURRENT NEWS button link. The page this button brings you to will carry the latest updates we are aware of, not just on H1N1 (Swine flu), but on a range of other important topics as we become aware of them, with some advice or links to such advice so you can make informed decisions on what is best for your pet. At the moment the simple advice is not to panic in general H1N1 (Swine Flu) is not a severe condition in most animals who have picked it up, but with the ability of viruses to mutate one needs to keep informed of the situation. Veterinary Homeopaths have much to offer in these situations by way of holistic advice covering preventative measures by ensuring your pet is in the best health to deal with the virus, should it come in contact with it. The CURRENT NEWS button puts you into touch with relevant advice sources. To get to the CURRENT NEWS button press the HOME PAGE picture button

My latest article for Irish Animals may read at http://irishanimals.newsweaver.ie/1gy6fezg7o5

H1N1 SWINE FLU LATEST NEW UPDATE

A Homeopaths Botanical Day Out

As a homeopathic veterinary surgeon a visit to the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland in Glasnevin, Dublin. http://www.botanicgardens.ie/ gives one a wonderful opportunity to view first hand some of the plants that not only are beautiful, but are also used to provide food, fiber, medicines and a multitude of other uses; including acting as the source material for many homeopathic remedies with almost magical healing properties. The Botanic Gardens are an oft neglected resource, which are free to visit and with so much to offer in terms of beauty. There are buses to the entrance as well as car parking nearby and there is even a restaurant For many it is well within walking distance of their home, work or place of study.

Picture Delphinium - homeopathic remedy Staphysagria

National Botanic Garden Glasnevin Dublin October 2009 - Tom Farrington

I have always loved plants and remember in my college days visiting the Botanic Gardens to view the medicinal and poisonous plant beds, so that I could recognise them in cases of poisoning in what would be my future patients. Little realizing at the time that many plants that were not used as poisons or medications still had healing properties. (I often think there is little difference between the poisonous and medicinal plants when I hear of all the cases of death by medical misadventure)

Picture Turmeric Plant

National Botanic Garden Glasnevin

Dublin October 2009 - by Tom Farrington

It is such a pleasure to see the delicate beauty of plants from which the some many homoeopathic remedies are made. My next article for IrishAnimals www.irishanimals.ie is on Turmeric one of the many plants on display in the central pavilion of the Curvilinear Glasshouse Range and not just a valuable spice, but has a long history of use in medicine with the latest confirmation of its medical use coming just after my visit to the botanic gardens. In an article by Eithne Donnellan The Irish Times - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 she quoted research published in the British Journal of Cancer that researchers in University College Cork lead by Dr Sharon McKenna had found that Curcumin the main active chemical in Turmeric when extracted and brought in contact with oesophageal cancer cells they self digested within 24

hours. It is now to be tested against other cancers, but there are still obstacles to its use as a way to get it into the body avoiding the digestive process has yet to be developed.

It is of particular interest in the pharmaceutical world as it works with a novel mechanism that means it can be used for cancers resistant to current chemotherapeutics. Turmeric has many more medical uses some of which are covered in my article shortly to appear at www.irishanimals.ie.

The following day a visit to the National Museum of Ireland - Decorative Arts and History, Collins Barracks, Benburb Street, Dublin 7,(Another free day out once again with a nice restaurant)

http://www.museum.ie/ yielded an equally fascinating if round about insight into homeopathic remedies in the section on Silver. In homeopathy silver is the remedy Argentum Metallicum and it 's related salts such as Argentum Nitricum (silver nitrate).

Picture Silver Ingots and Silver Ore - Tom Farrington

In homoeopathy Argentum Met. or Silver is used, among other uses, for conditions of the throat, such as loss of voice in the "Silver Tongued Speaker" . It is thus no surprise that it is a remedy for performers when one realises that the best flutes and trumpets are made from silver - one has just to hear the music a silver coin makes when it hits the ground. Silver is one of the top performance medals and greatly prized cups for performance are generally of silver more commonly than gold which is often the top medal. One of the aims of alchemy was to turn lead to silver and then gold. In the case at the museum beside the silver ingots was a piece of silver ore showing the natural relationship of the beautiful silver so often associated with the moon in archetypal images and mythology, while in nature it is closely associated with the dull lead appearing as a leaden stripe through the ore. Silver is used in what is now old fashion photography as silver nitrate (also known as lunar caustic) which changed on exposure to light Yet in the digital photographic revolution that has followed silver is still one of the doping metals used in CMOS and CCD chips used to capture a digital picture. Mirrors are "silver" backed showing that silver not just captures light but also reflects it. Silver both as a metal and a homoeopathic faithfully reflects the world around it. One wonders how much of history is so accurately reflected, as while in the same museum we saw a cabinet given by Oliver Cromwell to his daughter on her marriage. The cabinet was puritanically plain black on the outside and absolutely beautifully adorned on the inside. I commented to my wife how much it conflicted with what I new of Cromwell who wanted to be painted warts and all to which my wife quipped back maybe he had never opened it. With that final comment I suggest you explore some of these wonderful free Irish national treasure troves mentioned in this blog, when you are in their vicinity, and may be take a fresh tour of my website pages and links there in at http://farrington.vet.googlepages.com/

A Homeopaths Botanical Day Out

SEEKING NEW & OLD INFORMATION

The internet is to me is a wonderful resource where one can quickly find information. (I do thankfully have a fast broadband connection - many years ago a client living in New York and
working for a major news corporation sent me a picture of a pets ailment which took me three full days to download, but was in the end a wonderful help in treating the patient, as I lived a continent away) I often use this wonderful resource to look up a word or phrase within a book I have sitting in my own shelf knowing that I have seen what I am looking for within a book, but unsure where especially when it is something which isn't indexed.

An example of a recent search related to the use of a homeopathic mother tincture. I regularly use search sites such as Google Books http://books.google.com/books ; The Guttenberg Project http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page or The Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/index.php and then when I have the exact page for something which isn't in the index take out my own book, go to the exact page and sit back and read it.

There are so many wonderful resources like this and gradually I am adding some of them to my website http://farrington.vet.googlepages.com/homeopathyresources%26links. The internet also gives one the chance to put out there some of the knowledge that one gains through ones own work and perspective on a subject or work built on the knowledge others have freely and generously shared their knowledge with you and to this end Pets & People Homeopathy have added a new button to its main page http://farrington.vet.googlepages.com/home called FIRST AID REMEDY SERIES. Clicking on this button

will take people to a master page with buttons, such as the one heading this blog, for various remedies initially starting with those with a first aid theme. Each of these remedies will have information which will be updated over time and will link out to other resources in relation to that remedy. Much of the information will come from cases where there has been a successful outcome to the use of the homoeopathic remedy or typify that remedy either as a description or via a picture of a patient. The first in this series is Arnica Montana probably the most famous of homeopathic remedies in general use for all sorts of first aid situations for more click http://farrington.vet.googlepages.com/arnicamontana.

SEEKING NEW & OLD INFORMATION

THE DOORS OPEN

Welcome to my new blog Pets & People Homeopathy. The doors have finally opened in all senses of the word. The premises has been completely revamped with all the clutter removed and a nice calm clean healing space has been provided for both humans and animals.

The doors have also opened via the internet and phone with cases being handled via e-mail farrington.vet@gmail.com and also via Skype Tom Farrington Ireland, by landline 023 8848811(locally) ++353 23 8848811 (Internationally) by text and mobile on ++ 353 87 2494059.

We hope have regular updates via this blog about all items touching on Pets & People Homeopathy from tips to links such as the interview I have done for Darlings Real Dog Food Company now on You Tube - Natural Nutrition being a subject very dear to my heart and at the core of the practice and homeopathic philosphy of first removing all obstructions to cure they also have a lovely tip on liver treats . You can click the back key on your browser from any of the links above to continue to explore this blog. You can also visit the Pets & People Homeopathy Website by clicking on the logo on the page at anytime. The website is constantly being updated so it is worth returning regularly to it. For homeopathic vets other than myself you can visit the Irish Society of Veterianry Homeopaths and see up coming events this can also be accessed via the Pets & People Homeopathy Website.

THE DOORS OPEN