Homeopathy is a 200 year old system of medicine, pioneered by Dr Samuel Hahnemann. Hahnemann was born in Germany in 1755. He qualified as a medical doctor in 1779, but soon developed an aversion to the orthodox medical practices of the day, which he claimed were ‘murderous’. He stopped practicing in 1790.

The Principles of Homeopathy

Law of Similars

In 1801, following years of research Hahnemann began practicing homeopathy based upon the ‘similia similibus curentur’ principle, which means ‘treat like with like’

The origin of this principle dates back 2000 years to Hippocrates, but Hahnemann’s first major breakthrough occurred in 1790 whilst translating the materia medica of Dr William Cullen of Edinburgh. Hahnemann observed that the eighteenth century wonder drug, quinine, obtained from cinchona bark and used to treat malaria, was also capable of creating malaria type symptoms in a healthy person.

Hahnemann speculated that the curative effect of the drug might lie in the similarity of the symptoms produced by both drug and disease, as opposed to the tonic effect on the stomach, as Cullen had suggested.

Hahnemann began to experiment using other popular drugs such as belladonna, camphor and aconitum, and ultimately developed the new medical principle which became known as the law of similars.

The law of similars became the founding principle of homeopathy, but over time Hahnemann’s research gave rise to others and today the practice relies upon a fixed set of principles, or fundamental truths, and therefore rests on very stable foundations.

The Vital Force

Hahnemann was influenced by the concept of the vital force which he described as ‘the dynamis that animates the material body’. He suggested that it is immortal and permanent, leaving the body at death, but during life it reacts automatically to protect the organism.

The vital force will do whatever it can to keep the body in a state of good health, and by doing so, a healthy vital force will push the symptoms to the extremities to protect the internal organs. A disturbance in the vital force can allow disease to flow in and this is manifested by symptoms.

Orthodox drugs are designed to eliminate symptoms, as it is incorrectly believed that if symptoms do not exist, the disease is cured. However, homeopaths view this as ‘suppressing’ the symptoms. If the vital force is prevented from expressing its disharmony on the least harmful level, disease is driven inwards against its natural flow, thus becoming more deeply seated within the organism, and potentially more harmful.

Minimum Dose

Hahnemann discovered that by using the minutest dose of a substance that produced symptoms, similar to the disease symptoms, he was able to effect a cure.

However, through persistent experimentation, he realised that dilution and succussion (banging the remedy between each dilution) somehow made the remedies more effective.

The term ‘minimum dose’ refers not only to minimal material doses, but also to immaterial doses. Although some find it difficult to grasp the concept of energy and dismiss the idea that immaterial doses can have an affect on the organism, modern scientific research is beginning to reveal an increasingly subtle world of energy and the interconnectedness of all things.

Provings

Hahnemann tested his remedies on healthy people, and these experiments became known as provings, derived from the the German word ‘prüfung’, meaning experiment. All homeopathic remedies are tested in this way as it is the only way to find out what symptoms a particular drug will create in a healthy person, thereby creating a drug ‘picture’. This ‘picture’ is then matched to the symptoms of the sick individual to stimulate healing.

Homeopathy today

Hahnemann wrote extensively about the homeopathic principles, which have survived along with homeopathy until the present day. He proved 99 remedies during his lifetime, but today there are over 5000. Homeopaths still seek to find a remedy to match the symptoms that the individual is expressing. The appropriate drug is then prescribed in the minimum dose that would be sufficient to disturb the vital force just enough to effect a gentle cure.