JUMP TO: Homeopathy Simply Explained | How NOT to use Homeopathic remedies | Debunking the Myths around Homeopathy | Acknowledgement

Holistic Healing:

The word holistic is taken from the Greek word 'olos' meaning 'whole'. Classical homeopathy (as distinguished from complex homeopathy which uses several remedies combined into one dosage) is essentially a holistic therapy. That is to say homeopathy treats individuals rather than diagnosed diseases, and it recognises that individual people function on several levels: Mental; Emotional,Physical and Spiritual. The primary focus of a patient's disorder may be on any of these levels and all of these levels are taken into account when prescribing during the homeopathic consultation. Therefore the Classical Homeopath will treat a person as a whole with every aspect of their person being taken into account when selecting a homeopathic remedy with the aim of restoring health.

Treating Like with Like - Law of Similars:

The Greek physician and teacher Hippocrates (4th century B.C.) is generally regarded as the father of modern medicine. His methods went against the general thinking of the time which held that the Gods were the main force behind disease. In fact he was aware of two ways of healing the way of similars and the way of opposites. He emphasised the importance of accurate observation of the patient, saying: 'I would rather know what kind of person has a disease, than what kind of disease a person has'.

The way of Opposites is well-known to all of us from conventional medicine: If you have a pain you are given a painkiller, if you have constipation you are given laxatives, and so on. The way of Similars is rather different: a substance is given which, in a healthy person, would produce the same set of symptoms as those of which the patient complains. This is the basic law of homeopathy: similia similibus curentur - 'let likes be cured with like'. Based on this premise, the first homeopathic principle states that any substance that can make you ill can also cure you - anything that is capable of producing symptoms of disease in a healthy person can cure those symptoms in a sick person.

Hahnemann's Discovery:

A German Doctor Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843) is the modern day founder of Homeopathy. It was Hahnemann's contribution to take the law of similars and organise it into a workable methodical system of medicine. He tested this principle of like curing like, initially with his experiments with Peruvian bark or Cinchona.(which is a treatment for Malaria). He found that by taking regular doses of the substance Peruvian bark (or Chinchona) he developed symptoms of malaria. This was a turning point, as he had observed that Cinchona (China in homeopathy) produced in a healthy person (himself) the symptoms of malaria, the very disease that it was known to cure.

Homeopathy - Similar Suffering:

Hahnemann's discovery was to be of great importance in the development of homeopathic theory and practice. By observing the symptoms of any substance produced when given to a healthy person, Hahnemann would discover the healing properties of that substance. Hahnemann called this phenomenon similia similibus curentur, or 'let likes be cured with like' and this system of healing he called Homeopathy. 'To achieve a gentle, rapid, certain and lasting cure, always choose a drug capable of provoking a disease similar (homoion pathos) to the one it is to cure' - Hahnemann (Organon of Practical Medicine, Introduction).

Provings of the Homeopathic Remedy:

Homeopathic remedies are non-toxic, are made from various substances with the most common sources being flowers, plants, minerals, metals, insects, animal milks and venom.. Hahnemann tested many other substances in the same way as Peruvian bark or Cinchona, in a process known as 'proving'. He proved more than 100 homeopathic remedies in his lifetime publishing his findings in The Chronic Diseases and Materia Medica Pura. Proving - is the process associated with the homeopathic method of testing substances in order to establish their 'symptom pictures'. All symptoms physical, emotional and mental are noted in detail, then gathered in a systematic way, common themes noted collated and published in the Homeopathic Materia Medica.

Since Hahnemann first made the proving of quinine (remedy know as China) thousands of provings have been carried out by Homeopaths and their volunteers. All remedies are tested on humans. Poisonings (or Accidental provings) have provided another source of valuable information to homeopathy, substances such as deadly nightshade (Belladonna) and snake venoms and many others are of tremendous value. Homeopathy is a dynamic medicine and volunteers continue to 'prove' new remedies on a regular basis. For example Anne Walker did a proving of Apis Regina using the whole queen bee in 1998 and since then she has been using this remedy in her practice for many complaints of the female and male reproductive systems including infertility.

Constitutional Treatment:

Hahnemann found that particular 'types' of people manifested different symptoms to the same disease and so required treatment with different remedies in accordance with their 'type'. Dr. James Tyler Kent (1849-1916) furthered Hahnemann's work on the different 'types' of people and the matching of a remedy to their emotional and physical characteristics; this became known as constitutional prescribing. Many people come to a Homeopath for 'constitutional treatment' to improve their overall health without having a particular health complaint. The value of constitutional treatment is that it boosts the weak constitution and decreases its susceptibility to disease.

The Homeopathic View of Health & Disease and using remedies safely when home-prescribing for acute conditions:

In an attempt to cure a disease, a patient's vitality & immune system causes the body to produce symptoms. Except in life-threatening situations, symptoms - painful or distressing though they may be - are not the primary problem. They reflect a picture of how the individual's vitality is making adjustments to heal itself. For example, diarrhoea or vomiting is a necessary procedure for the body to rid itself of something it does not want in the quickest most effective way. The intolerable itching of eczema does not specifically mean that you have a skin disease. Rather it means that there is an imbalance in your whole system, and your body is pushing the problem to the safest possible place, as far away from the essential organs as possible. The skin is in fact an organ of elimination, and the suppressive use of steroids is not really helpful from a homeopathic point of view. When we contract an acute illness (one that arises suddenly) such as a fever or a cough, what we may not always realize is that the fever is necessary to burn up infection, and that the cough is there to prevent accumulation of mucus in the lungs. Therefore it is necessary to learn about acute and chronic disease and also the homeopathic view of health and disease before self-prescribing in order to use homeopathy safely and competently for acute conditions, otherwise you may end up using remedies in the same way as conventional medicine. The following are examples of how NOT to use remedies and also debunking some of the myths around homeopathy.

Unintentional provings

Homeopathy is safe unless you self-prescribe incorrectly, not being mindful of the homeopathic view of health and disease. For instance, if you take too many homeopathic pills over a period of time it is possible to 'prove' a remedy - that is, to suffer from the symptoms that the remedy was supposed to cure if you do not follow correct procedures. This is the danger of self-prescribing and over-the-counter prescribing without professional advise or a clear understanding of how homeopathy works. The following story from a person who was suffering from thrush for several months (as told to Miranda Castro) illustrates the simple danger of not ceasing a remedy when it has started to work:

"I was prescribed Nux Vomica 30 over the counter and told to take it three times daily. After a few days I experienced a marked improvement in my condition, so I carried on taking it. After a week of no further changes my symptoms started to get worse so I carried on taking it. I finished the bottle of pills and went back to the pharmacy and told them my thrush was now as bad as when I had started taking the remedy. They gave me another bottle of Nux Vomica 30 and told me to continue with the treatment. It is now two months since I started on this remedy and my thrush is unbearable."

[Miranda Castro advised this woman to stop taking the pills and to antidote the remedy (to counteract its effects) and within twenty-four hours she was back to her old self.]

Suppression

A homeopathic remedy can cure a superficial symptom such as a skin eruption in the same way that for example, the application of a cortisone cream can. This will only be the case if the remedy has been prescribed on the skin complaint (single symptom) without taking into account the whole person and/or the cause. The effect is to push the disease further into the body. Constitutional treatment will often commence with the original symptom resurfacing. Suppression is not common in homeopathy but is possible. In self-prescribing, if your complaint disappears but you feel much worse in yourself (i.e. your moods and your energy) then it is likely that you have made a poor choice of remedy and you need professional advice.

Myth - It is a form of herbalism:

While a proportion of homeopathic remedies are based on plants and the herbalist prescribes on the individual, the principles that govern the two therapies are quite different. Also homeopathic remedies are not used in the material dose (therefore are non-toxic); nor are they based solely on plants, also using as they do animal milks and venom, metals, minerals, and disease products.

Myth - It is a form of vaccination:

Often people say that they understand homeopathy to be like a vaccination in that the patient is given a small quantity of the disease he already has in order to make him immune to it. This is not true. Homeopathy and vaccination have similar, not the same, concepts and very different practices. Vaccines work on the physical body in a very specific way, in that they stimulate the immune system directly to produce specific antibodies as if that person had contracted that particular disease; in so doing they are, of course, stressing the immune system. Homeopathic remedies affect the energy patterns or the vital force of a person and by so doing stimulate the body to heal itself, they are administered orally in a diluted and safe dose as opposed to being introduced directly into the bloodstream. The remedies are not tested on animals and do not have side-effects.

Many thanks to Miranda Castro FSHom for her kind permission in reproducing this section on Myths in Homeopathy from her book 'The Complete Homeopathic Handbook'/published by Macmillan. Also thanks to Phil Edmonds RSHom who kindly allowed us to use some photos from the homoeopathic computer programme Radar.

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