What is homeopathy
To try and define Homeopathy is not an easy task, but its natural therapeutic approach clearly distinguishes it from traditional medicine and its main characteristics can be pointed out.
HOMEOPATHY
- considers illness as a body reaction to external aggression.
- identifies substances, which are flowing with the body's natural energy.
The body needs a minimum level of vital energy is essential in order to react. A homeopathic treatment cannot be of any help to a listless body. This capacity to react is absolutely essential in order to reap benefits from homeopathy.
- considers the patient as a whole, without limiting itself to illness-related symptoms.
- devises individual treatments according to every patient's personal reactions.
- takes into account a patient's constitution, heredity and environment, in order to compare and establish relationships between one individual's reactions and those of others who have similar characteristics or symptoms.
- tries to restore a patient's disturbed equilibrium through the use of appropriate natural substances.
- gives primary importance to a patient's own direct information.
THREE PRINCIPLES
Homeopathy is based on three important principles, which are:
1. Similitude There should be a connection between illness and remedy.
2. Infinitesimality Homeopathy uses vegetable, mineral and chemically processed mixtures of natural substances, in repeatedly diluted strength to administer minute doses.
3.Totality Since Homeopathy considers a person as a whole, every treatment is based on the assumption that every illness is the apparent manifestation of a much deeper-rooted disorder.
Other Features
Other noticeable points that distinguish Homeopathy from conventional medicine are:
- 100% natural - 100% safe
To Summarize
Homeopathy is a form of natural therapy that treats illnesses with minute, and therefore innocuous doses of certain substances, selected according to the patient's own individuality, reactions and heredity, as well as family and social environments.
A BIT OF HISTORY
Although Homeopathy has gained popularity in America throughout the seventies and eighties, it must not be concluded that it is a recent form of therapy.
In fact, we must refer to ancient times to discover its fundamental principles. Some five centuries before the birth of Christ the Greek physician known as the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, first wrote, "Equals are cured by equals". Unfortunately, that great medical principle, which means that there should always be a connection between illness and remedy, has for a long time been forgotten. However, it resurfaced by the end of the eighteenth century, thanks to a German physician who revived the Hippocratic tradition and became the true founder of Homeopathy, as it is known today.
Samuel Hahnemann
Born in the city of Meissen in Saxony (now Germany) in 1755, Samuel Hahnemann studied medicine and chemistry before becoming a practitioner. But he soon lost interest in his profession, after noticing that the doctors of his time too often applied drastic and inefficient treatments in severe cases.
Abusive use of practices such as bloodletting, purges, severe enemas and uncontrolled diets, so offended him that he became disenchanted with traditional medicine and abandoned its practice to work as a translator of scientific and medical documents.
This new occupation really excited him, because it allowed him to discover recent and sometimes ancient writings about values, principles, and truths, which captivated him. Little by little, through his reading and reflections, he came to realize that the medical practice of his day had been wrong in ignoring certain basic medical rules.
A Whole New Concept
While still translating documents to earn a living, Hahnemann continued his introspection and finally came to the conclusion that there was a need for a new kind of therapy, one that would incorporate rigorous observation and scientific objectivity.
He could no longer accept all the unsubstantiated statements that came to his attention, even when formulated by the most celebrated physicians of his time. He wanted undeniable proof. His immense curiosity led him to closely investigate many substances. He even went as far as to test them on himself.
Without realizing it, Hahnemann was already laying down the foundations of an altogether new therapeutic approach to health that would survive him and conquer the entire world, the one that we now know as Homeopathy, and about which this book is written
The Law of Similars
Hahnemann kept on making new medical experiments, each one more revealing than the previous. So one day he decided to try a new substance on himself, one that was being used against malaria, quinine. As he had expected, after absorbing repeated doses of quinine, he started developing all the symptoms of malaria.
At the risk of permanently damaging his health, Hahnemann pursued the experiment but reduced the quantities, trying to diminish the negative and toxic effects of the offending substance. The symptoms of malaria reappeared, but with less intensity.
Elated by those preliminary results, Hahnemann repeated his experiment many times, with the same substance and then with others, and then he concluded that:
"Any medicine capable of developing the symptoms of an illness in a healthy person can cure sick person who shows the same symptoms."
Thus, with proof in hand, Hahnemann reasserted a principle that had already been affirmed centuries before, in ancient times, that:
"EQUALS ARE CURED BY EQUALS."
Thanks to his incredible intuition, based on close observation and sometimes daring experimentation, Hahnemann had simply reiterated a medical principle that had already been put into practice two thousand years earlier by the famous Hippocrates.
Well-Deserved Success
After coming to his conclusion, Hahnemann prudently waited a dozen years or so before making public the results of his research, but they nevertheless raised controversy. After all, he had created so much of a disturbance by shaking the foundations of the traditional medical structures of his time, that he could not avoid controversy. He fought hard to defend his theory and, although at the end of his life he attained well-deserved recognition, nevertheless he had had to sustain a long struggle.
In spite of all, Hahnemann managed to solidly establish the basic principles of Homeopathy that we still honor today. His doctrine now has many disciples who help advance his resolutely different therapeutic approach by constantly pushing the limits of the unknown.
International Growth
Almost two centuries after the death of its initiator, Homeopathy has only recently gained respectability in America. What a great victory for the man of visions, whom, in his lifetime, had managed to make Homeopathy known and appreciated throughout Europe.
In France, where Hahnemann spent his last days, as well as in Germany, Belgium, Great Britain, India, the former republics of the USSR, Canada and the United States, Homeopathy is now recognized as a valid, natural complement to official medicine, one that is able to prevent and treat many benign, acute and chronic illnesses.
To Summarize
Samuel Hahnemann was the initiator, the actual Father of Homeopathy. His research, and especially his experimentation, allowed him to rediscover and reactivate a medical principle, the LAW OF SIMILARS, that had been stated and put into practice in ancient times by the Father of Medicine himself, the great Hippocrates. From this same principle, Hahnemann advanced the proposition of a new and natural therapeutic approach that was spread out and now enjoys worldwide recognition, that is, Homeopathy.
A Notion of Medium
We have said that the homeopathic approach seeks to be, first of all, a personal one, considering the patient and his or her reactions in relation to the illness. It should also be said that Homeopathy would not hesitate to make certain comparisons and regroup certain categories of individuals, according to heredity for instance.
It is obvious that a number of individuals will observe that their bodies react to abuses in similar ways, inasmuch as they have such things in common as physical constitution, type of heredity and predisposition to illness.
Biological Support
These various approaches involve the notion of medium. And, in this context, the word medium corresponds to a biological support, which can react in its own particular way under stimulation. That sort of predisposition explains why certain individuals would have allergic reactions when exposed to certain environmental elements, while other would not.
This notion of medium, which was first recognized in Hippocrates' time, has been carried over into our modern world and is more than ever alive and well today. As for the definition of medium, Hahnemann himself explains it by defining illness in the following terms:
"We become ill only... when our body lacks resistance and is, therefore, predisposed to succumb to whichever pathogenic cause is present at any given time."
Now, this notion of medium cannot be dissociated from Homeopathy. It puts the patient in a more global context. It considers his or her particular predisposition to react in such or such a way, in a situation where his or her health is threatened.
In that sense it can be said that sickness is the consequence of a disorder within the body itself, and, in order to treat that illness, it is necessary to refer back to its source. The body has natural defenses that homeopathic remedies are capable of stimulating. Thus, the so-called medium being used is reinforced in such a way that it becomes better able to help the body defend itself against attacking microorganisms and toxins susceptible of generating specific illnesses.
To Summarize
The homeopathic notion of medium corresponds to the fact that different individuals react in different ways when an external attack upsets their body equilibrium and threatens their health.
Substances Involved
The best way to discover Homeopathy is to make a close analysis of the substances involved in the various homeopathic remedies and treatments. It is also important to understand the different phases involved in the production of the homeopathic remedies.
Substances
Vegetable substances are definitely the most prevalent among the various ingredients being used in the production of homeopathic remedies. Whole plants are usually picked and used at full maturity, that is, just before the blooming stage. Sometimes, only the flowers, the roots, or the fruits are used. Curiously, certain toxic plants sometimes have medicinal properties which, when used in minute doses, prove highly efficient in Homeopathy. Plants being used, toxic or other, come from every corner of the earth, from more temperate as well as tropical climates.
As for the manufacturing process of homeopathic remedies, it is fairly simple. After being picked and washed, the plant is cut up and dried, after which it is sent to a laboratory, submitted to numerous controls and macerated in alcohol for at least three weeks. Finally, the resulting liquid is filtered to a juice called "Mother Tincture," from which dilutions are made.
But the production chain does not stop there. Dilutions obtained are then included in different preparations, such as drops, pellets, and globules.
Mineral Substances
Mineral substances are also natural products. For instance, there is calcium (extracted from oysters) and sea salt, phosphorus, arsenic (that's right!) and sulphur, described as simple elements, as well as composite elements such as sodium salts, potassium salts and caustic soda.
Those are but a few examples among the many mineral products regularly used in homeopathic remedies. However, new substances are being selected, experimented and tried, every day.
Other Substances
Besides substances extracted from vegetable and mineral sources, Homeopathy also uses products of microbial origin, vaccines, and even some human secretions and excretions. Those biotherapeutic products generally complement other so-called natural substances.
Finally, according to the presumed cause of illness, Homeopathy sometimes uses other made-to-measure preparations, so to speak. Special products are sometimes tailored to special cases. For instance, blood, urine, or other substances may be taken from the patient and used in the preparation of some very specific homeopathic remedies. Other so-called auto-isopathic concoctions are also derived from external substances, deemed to have - or suspected of having - caused the patient's illness, such as dust, hair, etc.
Having spoken about substances of all sorts, it is now worth repeating that, in Homeopathy, all substances and remedies are administered in minute doses, so minute that any danger of contamination, side effects or complications are inexistent.
Making The Remedies
Substances from which homeopathic remedies are produced are drastically changed before being sold to the public. From a basic Mother Tincture, also called "Herbal Extract", a final product only emerges after going through several essential stages.
Pellet and globule impregnator
Dilution
According to serious proponents of Homeopathy, it is only from this essential process that homeopathic medication draws its potency. Homeopaths correctly maintain that, contrary to many allopathic - traditional medicine - remedies, homeopathic remedies can cure sick bodies without toxicity.
I must underline the fact that many levels of dilution answer to the diverse needs of patients. A competent homeopathic therapist knows exactly how to administer the proper level to respond to a patient's individual and specific situation.
The only Korsakov dilution machine in Canada makes "K" dilutions
Dynamization
When manufacturing homeopathic remedies, each dilution is dynamized. In simpler terms, it means that every time a substance or mixture's original strength is reduced one hundred times through dilution, the flask containing it is mechanically shaken by an especially designed appliance.
This operation is absolutely essential to Homeopathy because, while making the product homogenous, it also potentializes its energy. Should that particular stage of production be omitted, any homeopathic medication would be completely ineffective.
Dynamization is what makes homeopathic remedies active. The active agent within any diluted substance is only released and made available by shaking it in a solvent, through that process known as dynamization.
Encapsulating machine
Globules, Pellets and Other Forms
Homeopathic medication is commercially offered in specialized health shops or drugstores under a variety of forms. For instance, one can purchase homeopathic remedies in the form of globules or pellets, as well as drops and suppositories.
There are also syrups, ovules (small egg form) and different tablets and ointments. A patient should seek help from his or her homeopathic specialist in order to choose correctly from the wide selection available.
On the other hand, in order to maintain the potency and freshness of these products, it is very important to store them properly. They need protection against light, high temperatures and humidity, and, after use, are best stored in a small kit or bag.
One last recommendation: Avoid opening a tube or any other container of homeopathic medication in a room where perfumes or strong odors are present. And, needless to say, keep them away from any cigarette smoke.
In Summary
The preparation of homeopathic remedies is a process that resides mainly in the dilution of medicinal substances, within which, through dynamization, active and curative agents are released.
When ready, homeopathic medication is presented on, and sold to the public from, the shelves of local boutiques in different forms, such as:
- Pellets - Globules - Tablets
- Drops - Syrups
- Ointments - Ovules
- Suppositories