|
 |
| |
|
| Sanguinaria canadensis |
Homeopathy: What Is It?
Homeopathy: A postgraduate holistic medical specialty
Homeopathy is a scientific medical practice which treats
a person rather than diseases. Recognizing that the whole person, the body, the mind, and the spirit, is affected when the
person is sick, Homeopathy treats that whole person. It is this totality of the individual that Homeopathy seeks to cure,
rather than focus on the sickness or on a diseased part. It is Homeopathy's treatment of the whole person, the totality, that
makes it a holistic medical therapy. The physicians who practice Homeopathy have completed their years of professional medical
training and received their professional degrees. They then study Homeopathy as a postgraduate medical specialty.
Homeopathy: A natural medicine
Homeopathy is a natural medicine. A homeopathic medicine
is used to stimulate the person to heal himself. Homeopathic remedies are made from natural sources, be they animal, vegetable
or mineral. However, homeopathy is not herbal medicine. Those homeopathic medicines which are made from herbs are precisely
manufactured to potentized substances far beyond their herbal origins according to standards and procedures set forth in the
Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States. The Homeoapthic
remedies made from animal and mineral sources are treated similarly so that they, too, are potentized beyond their origins.
How Does It Work?
Homeopathy:
The Definition
Homeopathy,
the word, is derived from Greek.
It is made up of the Greek
root ομοίοv and παθοη. Transliterated, these roots become Homeopathy. The prefix homeo- means like; The suffix
–pathy
means suffering. Homeopathy: like suffering or like disease.
Homeopathy: The philosophy
Man does not become sick in part. The whole of him becomes
sick: body, mind, and spirit. The body will manifest symptoms in the illness, but the physical body is not the origin of the
illness. At death, the physical body remains, but it is no longer curable. That which is curable has left the body. The vital
force has left the body. An imbalance in the vital force is the origin of the illness. The symptoms expressed by the body,
the mind, and the spirit are simply the signposts telling of that imbalance. Homeopathic doctors use those symptoms to select
a remedy especially for that person in his illness, but the remedy is a potentized substance having an energy force. That
energy force acts on the vital force. Once the vital force returns to balance, the person heals himself.
|
| Rhus toxicodendron |
Homeopathy:
Three principles
Homeopathy has three principles or tenets. These principles
are the rockbed of homeopathy. They have remained unchanged over the centuries, their truth continually re-demonstrated through
successful treatment of the sick.
The first principle or tenet is similia similibus curentur which is a Latin phrase meaning likes should cure likes. Each
person shows symptoms of his body, mind, and spirit when he is sick. Some of these symptoms are common to the particular sickness
and some of them are unique to that person in his sickness. The homeopathic physician matches the symptom picture of the homeopathic
remedy to the symptom picture of the person, with particular attention paid to those symptoms which are unique to that individual.
Thus, for the homeopathic remedy to be curative, the symptom picture of the remedy must be like that picture which the sick
person shows.
The second principle of homeopathy is the single remedy.
It would be quite impossible for one to know which ingredient was doing what to a sick person if that person were given a
medicine which was a combination of ingredients. Therefore, the homeopathic doctor gives only one medicine at a time to the
sick person. The doctor allows sufficient time to pass to observe the effects of that one medicine on the ill person.
The third principle of homeopathy is the minimum dose.
Drugs given to people in material doses are frequently found to cause side effects or adverse reactions. To minimize this
problem, the homeopathic doctor gives the smallest possible dose so as to maximize the beneficial effects and minimize the
side effects of the medicine.
|
| Chimaphila maculata |
Homeopathy: What Is Its History?
The concept that like should cure likes dates back to Hippocrates,
the Father of Medicine, who lived in the 5th century B.C. It was known by Paracelsus, a Swiss physician of the sixteenth century.
But it was Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician born in 1775, who formalized this concept into a scientific system of medicine
which survives today. His first edition of the Organon,
the basic book on the subject of Homeopathy was published in 1810. Dissatisfied with the medical practices of his day, Dr.
Hahnemann had given up the practice of medicine and had turned to translation of books to support his family. In translating
Cullen's Materia Medica, he found what he believed to be
a fanciful discussion of the way that Peruvian bark, Cinchona,
worked in intermittent fever.
He experimented on himself by taking the substance. He
found that he developed the symptoms of intermittent fever. He then used the substance to treat successfully a woman with
the symptoms of relapsing fever. Cinchona was the first
of many substances which Hahnemann introduced into homeopathic medicine. Each of the remedies used in homeopathic medicine
is tested in the same way that Cinchona was tested. A particular substance is administered to a group of healthy volunteers
while another group takes placebos. No one knows until after the test who took what. Careful records are kept as to the symptoms
developed by the volunteers. These records provide the basis upon which a picture of that particular remedy is formed. In
homeopathic treatment, the doctor matches the picture of that remedy to the picture shown by an ill person. Likes cure likes.
This testing of a remedy is called a "proving." Hahnemann found that, despite his use of medicines which had pictures to
match the pictures of the sick person, he had trouble with adverse effects on administering the drugs to patients. This led
him to the concept of potentization of the remedies. By this process, which consists of serial dilutions of a medicine with
agitations of the solution at each step in dilution, he reduced the physical dose of the medicine, while raising its energy
level. Such a potentized medicine he found to be very beneficial to the patient, while avoiding the side effects of the crude
drug.
|
| Hypericum perforatum |
Homeopathy: What About Treatment?
There are two categories of treatment in homeopathy: acute
and chronic. Acute treatment has to do with the treatment of a self-limited illness. Such an illness, for example, a cold,
might be handled by the body sooner or later. But the homeopathic medicine gently stimulates the person to recovery. Moreover,
since the homeoapthic medicine treats the person rather than just the symptoms, it does not suppress the symptoms. Without
suppression, the person is returned to a better state of well being.
The other category of treatment is chronic treatment, sometimes
called constitutional treatment. This has to do with the treatment of a long-standing problem within the person. Such a problem
would be considered chronic whether present all of the time or whether recurring intermittently. The difficulty and the length
of chronic treatment is affected by many factors, such as the nature of the problem, the family medical history, the kind
of previous treatment, and the person's inherent constitutional strength. The goal is to bring the person to a state of well
being.
©2001
Sandra M. Chase, MD
|
|
|
