CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF HOMEOPATHY

CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF HOMEOPATHY

        Hippocrates (460 BC -370 BC), the father of medicine, had insisted that the physician has to study the patient, not just illness. In treating patients, he should do everything to assist the nature, the great healer, to affect cure. He advocated similimum. Rig Veda, the source book from which ayurveda originated, states that ‘a cure for poison lies in the poison itself’.

      It was by an accident that the German physician Dr. Christian Fredericke Samuel Hahnemann came across a similar statement by Dr. Cullen that the Cinchona barks’ decoction (which helps to relieve the symptoms of malaria) causes intermittent fever in healthy persons. 

To understand the effects of Cinchona barks in intermittent fevers, Hahnemann experimented on his own self. intake of Cinchona resulted in occurrence of condition simulating intermittent fevers. This effect that Cinchona bark produced on him gave birth to the idea of homoeopathy. Hahnemann continued to experiment on himself and on others, close to him, noting that every substance he took produced definite distinct symptoms. He further noted that no two substances produced, exactly the same set of symptoms. Each substance provoked its own unique pattern of symptoms, both on physical and mental plane. 

At first, Hahnemann tested substances commonly used as medicines in his time (such as Antimony and Rhubarb) and also, poisons like Arsenic and Belladonna. To avoid harmful effects from normal doses of the substances he diluted each medicine until he reached the greatest dilution that would still produce a response.

       These experiments were called provings and led him to observe and describe the basic principles of homoeopathic medicine. One can observe the similarity of basic concepts of homoeopathy for curing diseases with Hippocrates’s statement and the Rig Veda. Dr. Hahnemann today is considered as father of experimental pharmacology . and father of homoeopathy.

       According to World Health Organisation, homeopathy is the, second largest system of medicine in the world. The etymological origin of the word homoeopathy, which means ‘Similar sufferings’, is from Greek words homoios (similar) and pathos (suffering). Homoeopathy is also spelled as Homoeopathy and Homeopathy. As per the primary principle of Homoeopathy, the ‘Law of Similars’ or the ‘natural law of healing’, diseases are treated by medicines, which are capable of producing symptoms similar to those of the disease in healthy persons.

Key concepts of homoeopathy include

(i) homoeopathy seeks to stimulate the body's defense mechanisms and processes so as to prevent or treat illness,

(ii) treatment involves giving very small doses of substances called remedies that, according to homoeopathy, would produce the same or similar symptoms of illness in healthy people if they were given in larger doses

(iii) treatment in homoeopathy is individualized (tailored to each person). Homoeopathic practitioners select remedies according to a total picture of the patient, including symptoms, lifestyle, emotional and mental states, and other factors behavior and thought patterns, etc. These all factors become contributors in the disparities and flaws in one’s constitution.

         In Homeopathy, cure is only achieved by the complete elimination of symptoms and even effects of other treatments. The cases where continued treatment is necessary, it is called “palliation” not “cure''. The vital force stimulates the material organism in health and disease. In homeopathy, the person is taken as a whole and diseased organ symptoms alone are of no value. In Homeopathy, it is assumed that entire life processes either on physical, mental or psychological levels depend on the strength of the vital force.

       

          Suppression of disease is another concept in Homeopathy that is based on the idea that the individual should be assessed as a whole rather taking local complaints in a disease process. When only symptoms are treated rather than treating the individual as a whole, the disease is suppressed and appeared in a more worsen form. The familiar example of suppression is the appearance of asthma alter treatment of eczema with cortisone. Dermatologist thinks that eczema is effectively treated but actually disease became suppressed and causes a worse condition. In the same case, if asthma is tried to be treated with sympathomimetic inhalants etc., asthma is apparently treated. Now disease became suppressed to a deeper level and the patient develops depression, anxiety or confusion (suppression to emotional plane), paranoid (suppression to the intellectual plane).                 

           Allopathic medicines are usually suppressive and this system of medicine has no concept of suppression. So, it is often unnoticed because in allopathy there are disease specialists and they never think holistically. Thus, suppression remains unnoticed when it occurs.

     

          There is a need of authentic research in Homeopathy with sound scientific protocols. Homeopathy is a holistic system of medicine having its own philosophy. It could be proved as an important alternative therapy that will treat many so called incurable diseases by following its unique concept of health and disease. But to come this dream in to reality, a series of sound scientific researches on homeopathy with reproducible protocols should be done.