| About
Homeopathy
If you have reached
this web site without knowing anything about Homeopathy, this section will
give you a short introduction to this good and gentle medicine. There is
no way we can teach you everything about Homeopathy here, just as there
is no way you could learn to play the violin by reading a few paragraphs.
But we will try to give you an appreciation of the depth, beauty, and subtlety
of this wonderful system of medicine, which is most fully realized in the
hands of Homeopathic professionals who have, like master violinists,
spent a lifetime learning their art.
Homeopathy was
discovered and developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, one of the great geniuses
in the history of medicine. Dr. Hahnemann learned fourteen languages in
order to read every medical text available in Germany in the late 1700's.
His discovery of the fundamental principles of Homeopathic Medicine occurred
when he was in his forties in the 1790's. He continued to practice, write,
and teach until his death in 1843 at the age of 88 years.
The principles
which Dr. Hahnemann discovered are still the basis of Homeopathic Medicine
today. Over fifty thousand doctors around the world use Homeopathic medicines
to treat their patients effectively, relieving their suffering, and removing
disabilities. The fundamental principles of Homeopathy are first, that
in order to cure a person's symptoms, the doctor will give a medicine which
causes in healthy people the same set of symptoms that the patient is suffering
from. This is called the Law of Similars.
THE
BASIC PRINICPLES OF HOMEOPATHY
"Law
of Similars"
To understand the
basic principles of Homeopathy, it is essential to know that the word homeopath
literally stands for "similar symptoms." The similar symptoms correspond
to similar symptoms of the disease of the person. They include ones
mental, emotional and physical qualities. The Greek word homois means
similar and pathos means affliction or suffering.
This is explained in Aphorism 19 of the "Organon
The Art of Healing." Homeopathy is based on the "Law of Similars"or
"let likes be treated by likes."
Using this premise the following principles may
be applied:
- That every remedy or substance when taken
in the natural state by healthy people produces a group of symptoms
similar to itself which we call proving of the remedy.
- That every disease has its own peculiar
group of symptom characteristics that we call clinical symptoms.
- That a
substance with a group of symptoms similar to but not exactly the same
as the illness can be selected and given in a homeopathic dose, then a
cure will follow if the disease is curable.
INFORMATION
ON HOMEOPATHY
History of Homeopathy
A brilliant German
physician Dr. Samuel Halnemann is the founder of Homeopathy. When he was
translating a book written by a distinguished Scottish physician,
Dr. William Cullen, 'A Treatise on Materia Medica' from English into German
he performed an experiment in 1790 that lay the foundation for a new system
of medicine.
He came across
the account of the drug Cinchona or Peruvian Bark. It was used for fever
in the treatment of malaria. Dr. Cullen stated that it worked because it
was the most aromatic and bitter substance known. Hahnamann thought this
was totally unreasonable. He knew that there were many substances
in the vegetable kingdom that were as bitter or aromatic as Cinchona, but
none of them had any curative action on fevers.
He then proved
or tested the drug on himself. For several days he took large doses
of the drug and carefully noted the symptoms. His feet and
finger tips became cold, he became drowsy, his heart began to palpitate,
his pulse quickened and he experienced trembling in all his limbs,
a thirst and redness of cheeks occured. The symptoms would last a
few hours only. They reocurred each time he repeated the dose. The conclusion
was that Cinchona taken by a healthy person induced symptoms similar to
malaria, the very disease the drug was used to cure.
The result of the
experiment was that Cinchona or Peruvian Bark not only produced fever but
also produced many other symptoms both physical and mental. He knew that
coffee, pepper, arnica, ignatia and arsenic are capable of provoking a
kind of fever. They also could relieve some kinds of fever.
WHAT WERE THE IMPLICATIONS
The experiment
suggested to him the idea that a drug should be curative in a disease,
if it has power to produce similar symptoms, when given to a healthy person.
After six years of experimenting in 1796, his views on the remedial action
of drugs had taken a definite shape and he first published his essay "New
Principles for Ascertaining the Curative Power of Drugs" in the Hufelands
Journal.
THE CONSCLUSIONS
WERE
One should proceed as rationally as possible by
experiments of the medicines on the human body. Only by this means called
provings, can the true nature, the real effect of the medicinal substance
be discovered. Every effective remedy incites in the human body an
illness peculiar to itself. One should imitate nature, which at times
heals 'Or that every powerful medicinal substance is capable of producing
in a healthy human body a peculiar set of disease symptoms, and that every
one of them is also capable of curing in the sick the symptoms which are
similar to those that it can produce in the body in its healthy condition.
Thus Hahmemann discovered and promulgated the
Law of Similars,
"Similar Similibus Curentur," or
" let likes be treated by likes."
The new system
was named Homeopathy by the discoverer himself.
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