Homeopathy: Small, Big Medicine

Definition of Homeopathy is a system of balanced healing, not just tiny, sweet pills.

It stands next only to modern, or orthodox, medicine, despite the fact that it is classified as one among a number of alternative, or complementary, systems of medicine.

By Rajgopal Nidamboor

WHO estimates that there are over 500 million people in the world, today, that take homeopathic medicines, at some point of time.

Learn more about High Quality Homeopathic Remedies

Homeopathy was discovered, founded and established by Samuel Hahnemann, MD [1755-1843], a conventional medical physician, in Germany.

Hahnemann’s disgust with the prevalent practice of medicine, which was based more on a code of belief, not substantiation, led him to give up his medical practice, and make a living by translating scientific works into German and other languages. Hahnemann was a polyglot — a master of 14 languages.

While translating William Cullen’s Lectures on the Materia Medica, in 1790, a standard work of his time, Hahnemann came across the proclamation: that cinchona [quinine] bark possessed specific febrifugal [fever-fighting] properties, because it was both the most aromatic and bitter substance known. Hahnemann was not impressed. He thought there were more barks, more substances, having bitter and aromatic properties, which did not have the power to cure fevers. He decided to find out the why and how of it.

Hahnemann prepared a decoction of cinchona bark, and took it for the first time in medical history. And, pronto, he developed symptoms of malaria in himself.

While critics point out that quinine, in small doses, does not produce symptoms of malaria, Hahnemann discovered, “that a drug that is capable of producing a set of its own peculiar and characteristic symptoms when given in the proper form to a healthy, sensitive individual, can cure harmlessly, permanently, and quickly, a patient with disease exhibiting a similar set of symptoms.”

He also observed: treat the individual, not the disease, based on a proper understanding of the individuality of the patient, and administering the drug that suits that individuality the most. For example, there may be two persons affected by a common illness. While one of them does not need blankets [feels warm], the other may throw away the covering [feels cold]. This is “individuality.” It calls for the use of two different homeopathic medicines for treatment.

It was also discovered by Hahnemann that drugs after undergoing the process of homeopathic preparation, where their medicinal power is increased by repeated succussion [shaking] for crude medicinal substances in the liquid form, and by trituration [grinding] of unmedicinal powders [e.g., sand], developed their inherent curative action manifold, and became very powerful — and, yet, very safe agents in the treatment of the sick. He called this potency, and his system, homeopathy [homoios = similar; pathos = sickness].

While the potency theory continues to be a big question mark between homeopathy and orthodox medicine/science, Hahnemann diligently proved his laws of homeopathy. To cull one example: when you add the first non-lethal dose of a “like” as Belladonna [atropine, or deadly nightshade] to a “like,” such as scarlet fever, which is like adding fire to engulfing flames, you are liberating more and more curative power. Hahnemann’s inference: Belladonna can cause scarlet fever, when taken in its minutest form, and, as such, it can cure a “like” patient of that state, when taken in its homeopathic potentized form.

Hahnemann also explained that a drug produces an artificial disease. Like any foreign material, it produces a specific stimulus, internally. Its curative effect, therefore, lies in eliciting the reaction from the human organism. This also forms the foundation, or principle, of homeopathic provings — where medicines are given to healthy individuals/volunteers and their reactions, or symptoms, recorded, thereafter. Reason enough why some experts also call homeopathy, “the medicine of vital stimulation, or immunological medicine.”

Here’s more evidence: the amount of stimulus required to provoke reaction in an organism rendered oversensitive by disease is rarely material. The human body, for example, manufacturers only fifty-to-a-hundred-millionth of a gram of thyroid hormone, each day. Yet, a small excess, or diminution, in this “infinitesimal” amount, can affect our health.

You cannot cure [relief, yes] constipation with purgatives, nor sleeplessness with hypnotics, or pain with analgesics. To cure, you need to strike at the root cause. Homeopathy does just that. You can, with homeopathic medicine, end constipation by the agent capable of causing just that kind of constipation [e.g., Nux vomica, in individuals who are fond of high living, lazy habits, smoking, alcohol etc.,] and insomnia, by the very “rebellious” agent that can bring about that kind of sleeplessness [e.g., Coffea cruda, in lack of sleep, caused by excitement).

Just think of it: what is fundamental to the idea behind vaccines, or X-ray and radium therapy? It is almost homeopathic, even though it would be going too far to claim that any of these forms of treatment is an example of homeopathic medicine. Nevertheless, they are all used in treating diseases [e.g., cancer], that they can also cause.

Some more examples: hyperactive children are sometimes treated, not with tranquillizers [modern medicine], but with stimulants [homeopathy]. Likewise, many of the cytotoxic drugs used in cancer chemotherapy are themselves capable of causing cancer.

These parallels are not only suggestive, but also indicative of homeopathy’s true healing powers — in illnesses of the mind, body, spirit, and soul.

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A very popular natural remedy is homeopathy arnica montana. It is used as a homeopathic remedy for plastic surgery, pain management, labor and child birth trauma, and even helps with brusing.

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