WHAT IS HOMOEOPATHY?
System of Internal medicine or Medical therapeutic based on the Principal or definite law of “Like cures like “(Similia Similibus Curantur).
This means that a medicine when given in definite doses to healthy Person, must Produce Symptoms Similar to those which are Complaint by
Patient during a disease. The fundamental principles of homoeopathy are embodied in a system of doctrines, laws and rules of practice which
were first formulated, named and systematically set forth by the German doctor Dr. Christian Frederic Samuel Hahnemann.
Homeopathy is a Greek word where ‘homeos’ means ‘similar” and pathos means ‘suffering’.
The Philosophy of homoeopathy rests upon the following general interpretations of the system of Nature which science universally recognizes as
fundamental
The laws and ways of Nature are uniform and harmonious.
Effects follow causes in unbroken succession.
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
Action and reaction are ceaseless, equivalent and reciprocal.
Motion is ceaseless and transformation continuous.
Matter is indestructible and infinitely divisible.
Force is persistent and indestructible.
The quantity of action necessary to effect the any change in nature is the least possible.
(Stuart close)
Homoeopathy stands on pillars or fundamental principles, these are:
Law of Similia
Law of Simplex
Law of Minimum
Doctrine of Drug Proving
Theory of Chronic Disease
Theory of Vital Force
Doctrine of Drug-Dynamisation
Law of similia
It means that a medicine or a remedy to be curative to a disease, or a state of ill health, must be similar in medicinal nature and range of action to
the disease, as it is manifested in the patient by the symptoms present. In other words, the medicine in its proving on healthy people must
have brought out or produced symptoms similar to those of which the patient complains.
This includes all the symptoms, both the objective and subjective; but from the standpoint of prescribing the correct remedy, the subject
symptoms are more important because they represent the individual reaction of the disease process within the body.
Law of simplex.
The homoeopathic drug is always given singly, so that its action is complete and unmodified by other.
(Aphorisms 272-274 of ‘Organon of Medicine’).
The homeopathic remedies were proved singly on healthy human being, and the Materia Medica was built up on the observed effects of drugs
when given singly.
Law of Minimum
Medicines administered in simple form at long intervals, in doses so fine as to be just sufficient, without causing pain or debility, to obliterate
the natural disease, through the reaction of the vital energy."
(Org., Preface.)
According to this principal, remedy selected after totality of symptoms is given to the patients in very minute doses.
The minute dose means that quantity of a medicine which is though smallest in quantity produces the least possible excitation of the vital force
and yet sufficient to effect the necessary change in it.
The quantity is minimum, yet appropriate, for a gentle remedial effect. This concept of minimum dose lead to the discovery of a practical process
called potentization.
Dr Fincke explained the action and efficiency of infinitesimal doses by applying the law of the least quantity.
Discovered by Maupertuis, the great French Mathematician and accepted in science as a fundamental principal of universe that principal is stated
as “the quantity of action necessary to effect any change in nature is the least possible.”
Doctrine of Drug Proving
“This spirit-like power to alter man's state of health which lies hidden in the inner nature of
medicines can in itself never be discovered by us by a mere effort of reason; it is only by
experience of the phenomena it displays when acting on the state of health of man that we can become clearly cognizant of it.”
$ Aphorism [No 20]
To introduce the substance under consideration into healthy human beings and Observe and record the results. This process we call "proving of
drugs" or a "drug proving"
In homoeopathy.
As drug proving is the very basis of our Materia Medica - it is not surprising that this activity has been the main contribution to medical
research which the school of Homoeopathy has made.
Hahnemann While translating Cullen’s Materia Medica from English to German, he came across with Cullen’s remark on the curative power of
Cinchona -bark in marsh-ague and decided for testing its positive effects on himself.
He was surprised to note that the similarity of the symptoms of ague with that produced by Cinchona-bark, then he formed a tentative
hypothesis in his mind that the specific curative power of a drug lies in its power of producing similar symptoms in a healthy individual.
He then continued his researches and experiments from 1790 to 1796 and wrote about fifty drugs which specifically cured the diseased conditions,
the similar pictures of which they produced when administered to healthy individuals.
He then suggested a new way of ascertaining the specific curative powers of drug. It was published as an article in Hufeland’s journal with the
title “An Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative powers of Drug”
Theory of Chronic Disease
“I have striven night and day for the last four years to discover the missing key notes, and thus find the means of stamping out the old
chronic diseases. By thousands of experiments and experiences, as well as by uninterrupted meditation I have at last attained my
object.”
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN
The theory of chronic disease originates in Hahnemann's book "The Chronic Diseases" which was published in 1828;
He declared that the theory was the result of 4 years of the most painstaking work on difficult cases of a chronic character combined with his own
historical research into the diseases of man
The word miasm means a cloud or fog in the being.
The theory of chronic disease suggests that most of all disease is miasmatic, out of these maximum are due to the primary and atavistic miasm
Hahnemann called Psora.
The remaining of all disease he said are either syphilitic or sycotic, being derived from suppressed Syphilis or suppressed Gonorrhea.
Hahnemann attached no moral dimension whatsoever to the sexual nature of the two latter miasms.
PSORA
'Psora is that most ancient, most universal, most destructive, and yet most misapprehended chronic miasmatic disease which for many thousands
of years has disfigured and tortured mankind...and become the mother of all the thousands of incredibly various chronic diseases...' [Chronic
Diseases, p9]
Psora is Greek a word and means a groove or stigma. Hahnemann said that all non-venereal chronic diseases are Psoric.
Hahnemann also said that Psora was the most ancient and insidious miasm, and that psora was derived from skin eruptions of various types in
the past, such as scabies (Itch), leprosy and psoriasis.
These had been contracted by ancestors or in one's own early childhood.
The suppression of these conditions especially through the use of ointments he held to be the primary cause of Psora.
Most diseases of a chronic nature, most dysfunctional diseases of organs, most mental illness other than syphilitic ones, allergies, varicose veins,
hemorrhoids, and systems, all skin diseases etc. are psoric in nature.
He also lists among others, catarrhs, asthma, pleurisy, hemoptysis, hydrocephalus, stomach ulcers, scrotal swelling, jaundice, swollen glands,
cataract, diabetes, tuberculosis, epilepsy, fevers and suppressed urine as all being typically psoric manifestations and all skin problems.
SYPHILIS
Syphilis is a miasm which is responsible for many diseases of the nervous system, the blood and skeleton as well as a range of psychological
disorders, including alcoholism, depression, suicidal impulses, insanity, loss of smell and taste, blindness, deafness and ulcerations.
It is also associated with many heart conditions, some vesicular skin eruptions and diseases that have a definite nocturnal periodicity.
SYCOSIS
Sycos is a miasm which is responsible for many sexual and urinary disorders, and affections of the joints and the mucous membranes.
Also those conditions worsened by damp weather and by contact with the sea.
Thus arthritis and rheumatism, asthma, catarrhs, bronchitis, cystitis and warts are all regarded as partly or mainly sycotic in character.Sycosis is
also held responsible for all warty excrescences and growths.
Theory of Vital Force
In the healthy condition of man the spirit-like vital force, the dynamis that animates the material body, rules with unbounded sway and
retains all the parts of the organism in admirable harmonious vital operation as regards both sensations and functions, so that our
indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely employ this living, healthy instrument for the higher purposes of our existence.
The material organism, without the vital force, is capable of no sensation, no function, no self-preservation; it derives all sensation and performs
all the functions of life solely by means of the immaterial being ( the vital force) which animates the material organism in health and in disease.
Organon of the Healing Art
Homoeopathy recognizes life as trinity of the body, the mind, and the Spirit.
This trinity is always present in all life and in some form in every part of our organism.
No organ, no tissue, no cell, no molecule, is independent of the activities of the others, but the life of the each one of these elements is merged into
the life of the whole.
There is very harmonious flow of vital force or vital energy in whole human being and the influence of this vital force on the whole organism is
so delicately adjusted and so intimately connected with every part, that seemingly distant organs or unrelated symptoms show the effects of
any disturbance of the vital force;
Without this vital energy, the cell, or the whole body, becomes inanimate and is dead. It is only when the vital energy is present that there is a
living organism, capable of physical action and of the exercise of mental powers and the ability to take hold on the spiritual forces.
Any disturbance of this vital energy immediately shows itself through the outward manifestations of our beings; in other words, symptoms.
When harmonious functioning is disturbed, we get sickness as a result, and it has as its base and inception this lack of harmony in the flow of
vital energy through the body. This is manifest in disease as it naturally develops because of disturbed vital force,
And also while proving the remedy the vital force is disturbed but due to the influence of the remedy given.
Doctrine of Drug-Dynamisation
‘’With the discovery of potentization, or dynamization, began the first practical tests of the newly-discovered law of cure.”
Morgan
We may define potentization or dynamization as a process peculiar to Homoeopathic, or a mathematic o-mechanical process which reduces,
according to scale, the inert substance in a crude form to a state of physical solubility, physiological associability reduction in the drug
substance by a qualitative increase in its medicinal or therapeutic property.
Hahnemann while experimenting his law of similar with the proven drugs for the cure of the sick by using drugs in their full strength.
He found that many times the patient became aggravated severely.
Hahnemann reasoned that the dose was too large, and he experimented by diluting the drug on a definite scale; to his surprise he found that he
secured better results.
He continued this process until he discovered that the curative power of drugs bore no proportionate relationship to the crude quantity, but that
under his peculiar and systematic reduction by a regular scale, and the proper manipulation, many drugs in common use, and many
substances supposed to be inert in their crude states, became endowed with new and hitherto unsuspected activities and powers.
There are two methods of drug dynamistion or potentization.1. TRITURATION 2. SUCCUSSION
TRITURATION
This is one of the processes of potentization for dry and crude substances.
In this process particles of a crude medicinal substance are reduced to a finer degree by continues grinding in porcelain mortar and pestle and
then mix with inert homoeopathic sugar of milk (vehicle) and then mixed homogeneously.
SUCCUSSION
This is a process of potentization for all soluble substances, may it be in water or alcohol.
Excepting in a few cases, alcohol is used as a vehicle in most of the drug preparations.
Water soluble drugs, when they attain 3c attenuation, are converted into alcoholic preparations. This transfer is necessary for preservation of drug
substance.
The technique utilized here is to take one minim of the drug substance and add it to nine minims of vehicle in a clean glass vial filling it up to 2/3
of the bottle. After carefully corking the bottle ten downward strokes are given either on the palm of the hand or on any soft but firm surface.
Every time a fresh bottle is used.
This takes the drug-vehicle mixture in the bottle to the level of first decimal potency
