Homeopathy, as a healing modality, was developed by Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843), who was born in Meissen, Saxony, the gifted son of poor but educated parents. After completing his education, he started on a career as a physician but became progressively more disillusioned with what he had learned. Finally, he renounced medicine altogether and, for some years, made a living by translating works on chemistry and other subjects from English, French and Italian to support a large and rapidly growing family.
While translating William Cullen's Materia Medica, he made a discovery that was to completely change and redirect his life. Dissatisfied with Cullen's explanation of how Peruvian bark (Quinine) acts to cure malaria, Hahnemann decided to test the substance on himself and observe its effect. He found tat he was developing the symptoms of malaria: chills, drowsiness, heart palpitations, trembling, prostration through all the limbs, pulsation of the head, redness of the cheeks, thirst, rigidity of the joints, etc. This discovery acted as a catalyst to his medical thinking and gave birth to the science of homeopathy.
If Quinine (China), which caused the symptoms of malaria in a healthy person, could cure malaria, this signified that it acted as a similar medicine, curing the sick by virtue of its ability to produce the same symptoms in the healthy. After repeating the same experiment with other substances, Hahnemann generalized this observation into the "law of similars", i.e. that all substances - animal, vegetable and mineral - cure their similar conditions. Hence the name homeopathy, from the Greek "homoios pathos" meaning "similar disease".
Hahnemann formulated the principle of similars only a few years before Edward Jenner discovered that smallpox was prevented, and its virulence mitigated, by previous inoculation with the "similar" disease, cowpox. He hailed Jenner's discovery (while most other physicians were berating him for "quackery") as a good example of the law of similars.
Hahnemann had then to devise a method for ascertaining the curative powers of medicines (in order to use them as similars). This where his genius came particularly to the fore. He discovered and elaborated a method known as the "proving" (from German Pruefung meaning "test" or "trial") by which substances are administered to healthy persons over a period of days or weeks while the recipient, physician and others close to the recipient observe and record any physical, emotional and mental changes. The "provings" have revealed that each substance in nature has the power to bring out a set of symptoms peculiar to itself when given in this way to the healthy.
For instance, Belladonna is indicated homeopathically when the patient presents with dilated pupils, violent congestion of blood to the head with throbbing headache, high fever with hot red skin, cerebral excitement, dryness of mouth and throat, muscular twitchings, especially when these symptoms have appeared quickly. Any physician will recognise these symptoms as the well-known effects of Belladonna poisoning, but when a case of disease is characterised by these symptoms, very small doses of the deadly nightshade can bring about recovery.
Once the homeopathic physician has a complete and exhaustive listing of the patient's physical, emotional and mental symptoms, he compares them with the listings of symptoms in the homeopathic books of "provings", or materia medica, and selects his remedy on the basis of the totality of the patient's symptoms. Recovery will take place, even in chronic disease, when there is precise correspondence between the patient's symptoms and the "symptom picture" of the medicine administered; the one which brings about recovery is called the simillimum, the "most similar" remedy.
In other words, the homeopathic physician does not treat the disease entity but rather the symptom complex of each individual who has heart disease, arthritis, migraine headaches, colitis, cystitis, influenza, dysmenorrhea, insomnia, a cold or Parkinson's disease.
In homeopathy, the expression "constitutional remedy" signifies the medicinal substance which encompasses the sum total of the individual's physical, emotional and mental picture. A patient is said to be a Phosphorus, a Silica, a Pulsatilla, or some other type, according to the constitutional remedy which most closely approximates their total picture. To find this constitutional remedy the physician not only records painful sensation, symptoms, pathology, and the like, but also how the patient looks and behaves when in health, what they say, how they respond, their temperament and disposition, strengths and weaknesses. After collecting, arranging and evaluating these characteristics, he matches them to the remedy which most expresses this "wholeness" of the patient.
Homeopathic remedies may be prescribed "acutely", i.e. to help recovery from an acute disease such as colds, influenza, diarrhoea, etc., or constitutionally to assist the patient to return to health from along-term or chronic disorders like arthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Parkinson's disease. Classical Homeopaths generally prescribe only one remedy at a time, and believe that it is best to use no other healing modality while pursuing this road to recovery. Other Health Care Professionals may use homeopathy as one of a number of modalities selected to assist each individual return to health. |
