To explain what Homoeopathy is, I have to go back to its beginnings:In
the late 18th century Homoeopathy emerged as a highly systematic medical science
through the effort of the german physician Samuel Hahnemann. Living in Leipzig,
he had been an esteemed physician, pharmacist and chemist and was a personal doctor
of the german royalty and the author of the most respected texts on chemistry
in his days.Despite his success, he left his own orthodox medical practice;
he felt he was doing more harm than good with the routine use of blood-letting,
poisonous doses of mercury and arsenic and other often harmful practices that
were in vogue.But because he had to support a family, he resorted to
translating various medical and literary texts. When he translated a medical book
about drugs used in this time, he found himself disagreeing with the current explanation
of the action of quinine in the treatment
of Malaria. He proved the author wrong by preparing an even more bitter and astringend
mixture that was useless against Malaria.Then he decided to test the
physiological effect of quinine by taking small doses himself. To his surprise
the developing symptoms were similiar to those of Malaria. He wondered whether
the curative powers of quinine resulted from its capacity to create symptoms similiar
to those of Malaria.By studying the records of accidental
poisonings from other commonly used medicines, such as mercury, arsenic, belladonna
and silver nitrate, and by testing these poisons on himself and others, he found
that in overdose the medicines caused similiar symptoms to those of the illnesses
for which they were used: ----- Mercury, used to treat syphillis, could
cause syphillislike ulcers. ---- Silver nitrate, applied for eye-inflammation,
caused severe irritation and discharge from the eye.With the phrase
'let likes be cured with likes' he described the discovery that substances
in small doses stimulate the organism to heal that what they cause in overdose.That
means, according to our example, if quinine, given to an healthy organism, can
cause a certain kind of fever which is similiar to the Malaria-fever, then a very
small dose of quinine can cure a person who suuffers from Malaria.Hahnemann
termed the medical system based on this principle 'Homoeopathy' from the greek
word 'homois' for similiar and 'pathos' for suffering or desease. This principle,
known as the
'Law of Similiars' states that any substance which can cause symptoms when
given to healthy people, can help to heal those who are experiencing similiar
symptoms. |