What is Homeopathy?
Homeopathy
is a holistic system of medicine, which aims to stimulate the body to
heal itself. It is based on the principle ‘like cures like’. It was founded by a
German doctor Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) in the late 18th century. The word ‘homoios’ means ‘like’ or ‘similar’ and ‘pathos’ means
‘suffering’ and so Homeopathy is a ‘Medicine of likes’. It is a method
of curing the sufferings in a diseased individual by administration of remedies
that have the capacity to produce similar sufferings in a relatively healthy
individual. Although Hahnemann discovered the law in the 18th century, the
principle in fact dates back to the 4th century B.C., when Hippocrates and
Paracelsus concluded by observing nature, that cure could be attained by the
“Law of Similars”.
Homeopathy considers that all
symptoms of ill health are expressions of disharmony within the whole person and
that it is the individual who needs treatment and not the disease. It creates
balance between mind, body and spirit; treating the man as a whole and not as
parts… “The organs are not the man, the man is prior to the
organs”.
Discovery of Homeopathy
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, a German
doctor, discovered the principles of practicing the art and science of
homoeopathy and established it as a system of medicine in the 18th century.
The medical science in the 18th
century was undeveloped and empirical. The understanding of the human body, the
illness affecting it, and their cures, were also very limited and barbaric to
term them lightly. Methods like leeching, bloodletting etc. were adopted as
treatment for certain illnesses. Many theories prevailed during that time
regarding the illness affecting the human body and its proposed cures. One of
the popular ones was ‘CONTRARIA CONTRARIS CURANTUR’
(opposite cures opposite), but none gave satisfactory results.
Dr. Hahnemann, who was a
brilliant student and a child prodigy, soon got disappointed by the prevailing
practice of medicine and gave up his practice. Disillusioned by these
happenings, he started studying chemistry, and worked as a translator to support
himself. He had already studied and mastered eight languages before studying
medicine, which proved to be of great help to him as a translator. While Dr.
Hahnemann was translating ‘Cullen’s Materia Medica’,
he came across an observation made by the author that cinchona bark cures ‘swamp fever’ (malaria) because it is bitter and has tonic
effect on the stomach. This aroused his interest and made him curious to seek
the truth.
In his quest for the true
explanation, Dr. Hahnemann ingested 4 drachms of juice of the cinchona bark
twice daily for a few days and was surprised to find that he himself developed
symptoms of ‘malaria fever’. This experiment gave rise to the idea; that a
substance cured illness in a sick person because it was capable of producing
symptoms, similar to the illness in an apparently healthy individual. To further
prove the principle, Dr. Hahnemann started similar experiments on himself and
other individuals with various substances, which had known curative action in
illness, and also with some other new substances. After a diligent observation
with similar experiments for several years, he established the principle of
‘SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR’ (like cures like) in
1796.
During his experiments, to
prevent adverse effects of toxic materials, he started diluting the substances.
While further diluting them, he administered vibrations to the diluted solutions
and found that this made the diluted solutions more potent in producing symptoms
in a healthy individual and reduced its adverse action on the person. He then
concluded that, more the dilution, the deeper was the action of the medicine;
and deducted that such dilutions produced no side effects when given as a remedy
to an ailing person.
Dr. Hahnemann published his
article ‘The Medicine of Experience’ in 1805, followed by ‘Organon of Medicine’
in 1810. He further laid the foundation of homeopathy with publications like
‘Organon of Healing’, ‘Pure Materia Medica’, and ‘Chronic Diseases’.
Thus Dr. Hahnemann’s keen mind
and extensive scientific observations gave birth to an art and science of
healing namely ‘HOMOEOPATHY’.
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