About Homeopathy
Mar
2009
Homeopathy is a natural system of healing that seeks to resolve a problem, not just manage it. It has a 200+ year track record as a healing science and art. It uses natural substances in the form of “remedies” to address physical, mental and emotional conditions.
Law of Similars
Homeopathy is based upon the premise of the Law of Similars. This law states that a substance (given in “crude” form) that produces certain symptoms in a healthy individual can, when diluted and potentized as a homeopathic remedy, provide relief to a person ill with those same symptoms. Thus, a homeopath seeks to match an ill person’s symptoms with a remedy known to alleviate those symptoms.
Holistic Approach
Homeopathy is a healing art that addresses the whole person, not just an individual symptom. It’s goal is to find and resolve the root cause of the condition or ailment, rather than merely to palliate. A homeopath is interested in the collective physical, mental and emotional picture of the individual in order to address the whole person.
Brief History
Homeopathy was discovered and developed by German physician and chemist, Dr. Samual Hahnemann, in the late 1700’s. Hahnemann had been disillusioned by the crude and often harmful medical practices of his day, and suspended his practice and turned to translation of medical texts to earn an income. While translating a text by William Cullen, he came across a case of cure of malaria by cinchona (Peruvian Bark, from which quinine is derived). Cullen attributed the cure to the bitter and astringent properties of the substance. Hahnemann knew this to be false, for there were other bitters that would not result in relief from the symptoms of malaria. Thus, the chemist and experimenter Hahnemann ate Peruvian bark over the next few days and found it produced symptoms similar to malaria. This was his first “proving.” This began his experimentation that would ultimately lead to his medical principle of homeopathy: similia similibus curentur, or like cures like.
The concept of “Like Curing Like” was not original. The theory dates back to the fifth century BC. It was Hippocrates, who is known as the father of medicine, who wrote about two methods of healing: by contraries and by similars.
Upon his personal discovery of this principle of healing, Hahnemann thus began an exhaustive experimentation (what we now call “provings”) of natural substances to document their medicinal properties and applications. This began the accumulation of clinical information about specific natural substances that would become the materia medica (remedy information directory) of homeopathy.
Homeopathy Today
Homeopathy is widely used and accepted as a system of healthcare in many European countries and in India. In England, it is offered as part of the National Health Service and there are homeopathic hospitals in London, Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow. The British royal family are great patrons of homeopathy.
In the United States homeopathy is experiencing a resurgence of interest as peoples’ awareness and desire for a better quality of healthcare grows.
Famous Quotes About Homeopathy
“Homeopathy is wholly capable of satisfying the therapeutic demands of this age better than any other system or school of medicine.”
- Dr. Charles Menninger M.D., founder Menninger Clinic
“Homeopathy…cures a larger percentage of cases than any other method of treatment and is beyond doubt safer and more economical and most complete medical science.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
“Homeopathy is the safest and more reliable approach to ailments and has withstood the assaults of established medical practice for over 100 years.”
- Yehudi Menuhin, World Famous Violinist
“There have been two great revelations in my life: the first was bebop, the second was homeopathy.”
- Dizzy Gillespie, great jazz musician
“The introduction of homeopathy forced the old school doctor to stir around and learn something of a rational nature about his business. You may honestly feel grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of allopaths (the orthodox physicians) to destroy it.”
- Mark Twain