Everything you need to know about Homeopathy in a nut shell
is a Greek word that means ‘similar suffering’. It is a system of medicine based on a natural law that “Like cures Like”. This means if a substance can make a healthy person ill it can also be used to make a person who is ill, in a similar way, get better.
Examples of ‘similars’ Apis (made from bee sting) helps angry red, hot swellings. Lachesis (snake venom) helps blood poisoning.
Coffea (coffee) helps over-excitement and sleeplessness. Alium Cepa (onion) helps hay fever.
2000 years ago Hippocrates identifies that there were two distinct approaches to medicine:
The use of ‘contraries’ or ‘similars’.
‘Contraries’ use the opposite suffering (the Greek word for this is ‘antipathy’) to restore well being.
Examples of ‘contraries’:
– An antacid makes stomach acid more alkaline.
– An anti-inflammatory combats inflammation.
– A sleeping pill overcomes insomnia.
– A laxative eases constipation.
Hippocrates noted that, over time, ‘contraries’ make the original problem worse, then more medicine is needed. Many people who’ve taken antacids or sleeping pills will be familiar with this phenomenon. Hippocrates was a fan of the use of ‘similars’. They already had a long and successful history in traditional, herbal medicine.
Statue honoring Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of Homeopathy, in Washington DC
About 200 years ago a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann further developed the use of ‘similars’ and founded Homeopathy.
Hahnemann was curious to know why quinine protected people against malaria. He took some quinine himself and found that he got all the symptoms of malaria. He realized that quinine was able to cure malaria because it was capable of producing malaria-like symptoms, similar suffering, in a healthy person. Hahnemann was thrilled by this “Eureka” moment and spent his life testing substances on volunteers, carefully recording their effects.
He diluted the substances he tested to avoid the risk of side effects and found that by a process of both diluting and succussing (a fancy name for shaking and bashing) he was able to make substances deeper acting and more potent. He called this remedy preparation method potentization. The work of discovering what symptoms different substances can produce continues to this day with thousands of substances already tested and new ones being introduced all the time.
Homeopathy has its roots in traditional herbal medicine, but with three major improvements:
1. the original substance is only used in a potentized form so there are no side effects
2. any substance, not only plants, can be used
3. all substances are tested on human volunteers to see what symptoms they produce and the results recorded (often on searchable software)
Incidentally, Quinine is often used in Homeopathy to treat weakness caused by dehydration. It is known by a different name, China and it is in our Deluxe kit.