What is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy is necessarily a natural healing process, providing remedies to help the patient regain their health by stimulating the body’s inherent strengths or recovery. It focuses on treating the patient rather than the disease and based on the principle of “like cures like.” A substance that produces disease-like symptoms when taken by a healthy person may treat a sick person/animal with similar symptoms when administered in an appropriate form.

• Homeopathy does not create a habit. The remedies have nothing that can cause patients to become addicted to the drug.
• Homeopathy has no side effects. Since homeopathic medicines are prescribed in minute amounts, there is no risk of side effects that can occur with conventional medication.
• Homeopathy is cost-effective. Compare the cost of homeopathic treatment with other medical treatment. With homeopathy you pay for the consultation fee and (with just one or two exceptions) the medicines are included. However, with conventional treatment, there are separate charges for the consultation and the drugs. Homeopathy has been known to effect permanent changes in the health of patients. Therefore, in the long run, it is far more cost effective. For children under 14, the prices are lower.
• Homeopathy Treatment and conventional medical services can be used simultaneously. An experienced practitioner can counsel and treat people with conditions that require maintenance of traditional medicines while taking homeopathic treatment. None of these treatments adversely affect the other in the long term or in any way that causes harm to the patient.

‘The Organon’, written by Samuel Hahnemann, explains this process in detail. A drop of herbal tincture is diluted in 99 drops of alcohol. The mixture is shaken and mixed, creating 1C (power of 1 cent). From the bottle 1C, a drop is taken and placed in another bottle of 99 drops of alcohol, shaken and victorious (shaken and struck on a stationary object) and this bottle then corresponds to 2C (power of 2 cents). Serial dilution and the success of remedies make them stronger, which means that the more the treatment is diluted, the stronger the effect.

• Homeopathic remedies are made from plants, animal products, minerals and (sometimes) conventional medicines or diseases. Homeopathic remedies are not tested on animals.
• The remedies are scientifically proven. All remedies are double-blinded and written in ‘materiamedica’ before being released to practitioners. In this way, the effects and curative aspects of the treatments are known. This process can also take from one to four years before the results are finalized.
• The process of making Homeopathic medicine is simple and the more dilute Homeopathic remedies are, the stronger and gentler the effect. Therefore, there are no side effects like there are with conventional medicines. Clinical trials have validated this process, results from patients and those who initially tested the medication.

Who Can Use Homeopathy?

Treatment is individualized, as no two people are alike, and works in conjunction with conventional medicine. Homeopathy can be used to treat babies, adults, the elderly, animals, terminally ill patients, and chronic conditions. How does Homeopathy work? Homeopathy works on three basic principles:

1. A medicine, which in large doses produces the symptoms of a disease, will in a small dose cure a disease with similar symptoms. By extreme dilution, the healing properties of the drug are improved, and all toxic side effects are lost. Homeopathic Treatment and medicines are prescribed by the study of the whole individual and according to your necessary temperament.
2. Homeopathy Treatment and medicine services gently stimulate the body’s natural healing powers to restore the body to health gently and effectively.
3. Homeopathy uses the principle of “like cures like.” If you peel an onion, you usually cry, and if you drink too much coffee, you typically don’t sleep. Onion remedies (Allium Cepa) are used to treat conditions characterized by excessive laceration, such as hay fever and colds. Coffee-Based treatment is used to treat problems such as insomnia.

History of Homeopathy

Homeopathy was founded by Samuel Hahnemann (1775-1843) as a viable alternative to conventional medicine. Hahnemann, a medical doctor, supplemented his income by translating medical texts for clients.

It was on such an occasion he became aware of the first principle of Homeopathy. He was translating the ‘MateriaMedica’ (a compendium of the actions of therapeutic agents) written by Professor Cullen of London University. Cullen devoted some 20 pages of the book to the therapeutic indications of Peruvian bark (later known as Quinine), attributing its success in the treatment of malaria to the fact that it was bitter.

Hahnemann found this idea unacceptable and took some doses of Peruvian Bark himself. What happened was he developed the symptoms of malaria. When he stopped taking medicine and became himself again. Intrigued, he tried it again and developed the symptoms of the disease again. This led him to observe that a substance that causes symptoms in a healthy person cures the same symptoms in a sick person.

Hahnemann, his colleagues and (possibly) his family who has been suffering for a long time, we spent six years experimenting with different drugs and carefully recording their discoveries. Hahnemann eventually cataloged more than 200 remedies drawn from vegetable, animal, and mineral (more rarely) biological materials, all of which were proved by Hahnemann and his colleagues as substances that could cure patients suffering from similar symptoms. Some of the results were quite remarkable.

This method of testing still exists today and is known as ‘proving’ from the German word ‘pruffing’ meaning testing or trailing. At the time of his death in 1843, he and other colleagues had proven some 250 remedies, along with meticulous ‘MateriaMedica’ records.

The basic principle – “that like shall cure like” – is still the same. That is a substance which can cause an artificially induced disease state in a reasonable person can be used to treat someone who suffers from the same symptoms.

Today there are some 3000 remedies available to the Homeopath.

History

Homeopathy is based on the principle that ‘like cures like’ – in other words, a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it causes if it was taken in large amounts. This idea dates back to Hippocrates (460-377BC), who also thought that symptoms specific to an individual should be taken into account before making a diagnosis. This is also an important principle of homeopathy, where an individual’s unique symptoms are important in distinguishing the correct medicine.

SAMUEL HAHNEMANN

The idea of like curing like was not to re-emerge in any significant way until a German physician; Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) came to devise the system of medicine that we know as homeopathy. Hahnemann trained in medicine and chemistry. Working as a doctor in the late 18th century, he was dissatisfied with the conventional medical practices of his day. Blood-letting, purging and giving patients large doses of toxic materials such as arsenic and lead were commonplace. Hahnemann disagreed with these harsh methods.

He was investigating the effects of various medicinal substances on himself and other healthy volunteers when he deduced that an illness could be treated with a minimal amount of content than in larger quantities, could cause that illness. To avoid harmful effects from regular doses of the substances, he diluted each medicine until he reached the highest dilution that would still produce a response. These experiments were proving and led him to observe and describe the basic principles of homeopathic medicine.