Every book advocating a better understanding of homeopathy deserves to be noticed, and Vitality! by Dr. Kathleen K. Fry commands special acclaim.  Here, Dr. Fry presents a concise, honest and practical approach to every day homeopathy.  Each chapter is a mini-lesson on the most confusing topics in homeopathy today – how it works, why it works and how to use it.  Dr. Fry’s extensive clinical background gives this book the authority that homeopathy needs – and that health care in this country so desperately needs – to demonstrate that healing is possible without pharmaceuticals!  Finally, she offers a practical approach to using the principles of homeopathy in everyday life – including a comparative mini-guide to the remedies typically found in health food stores.

Reading this book is like having a conversation with Dr. Fry over a cup of coffee (oops…am I allowed to drink coffee?).  The flow of topics covers the questions so commonly heard in clinics, especially for the vast majority who have been taught that homeopathy is merely placebo.  This book is accessible to everyone from the casual reader to the most hardened skeptic.

My only complaint is that Vitality! is too short.  Perhaps the intended audience (being the casual reader, I presume?) requires bite size information for something ‘new’ to be made palatable?  Dr. Fry does well to cover every possible topic in homeopathy – the Organon, provings, potency, first aid, case examples, homeopathy for children, etc.) but with such brevity that I am left wanting so much more.  At the end of each chapter I found myself asking, ‘…but what about…?  And what if…?’ It is my opinion that 93 pages simply isn’t enough space to let the information really sink in.  When it comes to case examples, I would be more interested in the long-term chronic cures that Dr. Fry has seen in her clinic, especially where she employed both her background in ‘modern’ medicine and her passion for homeopathy.  Also, introducing something as heavy and (occasionally) terse as The Organon  in an introductory text requires slow and thoughtful dissection (Hahnemann is hard to fit into a sound-bite!).  I enjoyed reading her life story, how such a well trained doctor realized that allopathy could not answer ‘What is health?’ to her satisfaction.  And yet, I am left wanting to read more about that journey, as we are all on the journey to sickness or health, and can only stand to benefit by seeing the living example of an honest search for health.  I would urge Dr. Fry to consider this book as useful for lay people and practitioners, both ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’; and not to be shy with sharing her vast wealth of clinical knowledge – perhaps in the next book?

The greatest contribution of Dr. Fry’s work is to show that homeopathy and modern medicine are not mutually exclusive.  I applaud her ability to walk the tightrope of Homeopath and MD.  There are very few in the field of homeopathy who will pursue both ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ medicine, and even fewer who will pursue both paths to the level of mastery that Dr. Fry has attained.  The growing recognition of homeopathy as a legitimate and effective system of healing owes much to Dr. Fry’s work, and one day we may even see homeopathy as the first choice in heath care, rather than the last resort “where conventional medicine has failed.”  The American public at large has much to gain – and nothing to lose – from this important book.