Homeopathics

“Homeopathic Medicine At Home”

Homeopathy is a system of medicine with principles older than Hippocrates (who lived in Ancient Greece around Socrates’ time). It seeks to cure in accordance with natural laws of healing and uses “medicines” made from natural substances: animal, vegetable, mineral and nosodes.

Homeopathy was “discovered” again in the early 1800’s A.D. by a German physician, Samuel Christian Freidrich Hahnemann. Shortly after setting up practice, Hahnemann became disillusioned with medicine—and with good reason. Eighteenth and nineteenth century physicians believed that sickness was caused by humors, or fluids, that had to be expelled from the body by every possible means. To achieve this end, patients were cauterized, blistered, purged and bled. Hahnemann protested against these brutal and senseless methods, and his colleagues quickly denounced him for heresy. He was also opposed to the way doctors prescribed medicines. In those days it was customary to mix a great number of drugs into one prescription. (In his book “Who Is Your Doctor and Why?”, Dr Alonzo J. Shadman mentions seeing in Pharmacopoeia of 1875 a prescription that contained fifty ingredients.) Hahnemann’s outspoken criticism of this “degrading commerce in prescription” naturally enraged chemists, who were as powerful as our drug companies today, and they were to hound him the rest of his life.

Hahnemann gave up his practice of medicine and turned to medical translating as a livelihood. But he persisted in his lifelong goal to discover “if God had not indeed given some law, whereby the diseases of mankind would be cured.” His sense of frustration increased when one of his children became critically ill and he could do nothing for her. It was while translating lectures on the Materia Medica by William Cullen, Scottish professor of medicine, that Hahnemann stumbled upon the key to curing sick people. In this work Cullen claimed that cinchona bark, or quinine, cured intermittent fever (malaria) because of its astringent and bitter qualities.

This explanation did not sound plausible to Hahnemann, who knew of other substances equally bitter that did not reduce fever, so he did a daring thing: he tested the medication on himself. And he found that by taking the herb, he developed the symptomology of malaria. When he discontinued the herb, good health returned. This was the first “proving”: a testing of medicine on a healthy person. Hahnemann then reasoned that quinine was the cure for malaria—not from its bitterness but from the composition of the herb and its properties to invoke malaria symptoms in a healthy person. After experimenting on himself, Hahnemann enlisted the help of his friends and supporters and embarked on an extensive program of drug testing. When he died at age 88 in 1843, he had conducted or supervised provings on ninety-nine substances. More than 600 other medicines were added to the homeopathic pharmacopeia by the end of the century. Homeopathy is an energy medicine. A fuller understanding of homeopathic pharmacology helps us to grasp the energetic concept.

by B. Panos M.D. and J. Heimlich, 1980

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I take my homeopathics?

Take your homeopathic drops or tablets under your tongue, where they are most easily absorbed into the body. Do not eat, drink (except water), smoke or use any mint product for twenty minutes before and after taking the remedy. This gives the remedy the best chance of working.

How do homeopathic work in my body?

Quite simply, they stimulate your body’s own healing processes through the immune, lymphatic and adrenal systems. The energy of the remedy acts upon your vital force (the balancing mechanism that keeps us in health) to alleviate causes and symptoms, enabling wellbeing.

How long until I see results?

This depends upon the severity of your issues as well as on your constitution, susceptibility, stress level, emotional balance, and other factors.

Will I have to stay on this remedy forever?

No. The goal is to eliminate root causes and decrease susceptibility to disease. Sometimes outside factors (such as stress or emotional trauma) cause relapses, or illnesses that had been suppressed in the past will resurface as the body cleans itself out. It can take time (and several different remedies) to complete the process.

Why am I taking this remedy and not some other one that does the same thing?

Remedies are suggested based on specific information about you and not the dis-ease alone. The concept of considering the person is central to homeopathy—stemming from the idea that symptoms, diseases and pains do not exist in isolation but within the context of the whole person. Individuals with similar symptoms do not always respond to the same product because the context of the dis-ease is different.

Homeopathic Concepts

~ Consider the whole person
~ Suggest remedies based on the individual rather on the one-size-fits-all approach
~ Give the body the necessary tools, and it will heal itself
~ Eliminate root causes, not just the symptoms
~ Health is more than the absence of disease -- it is the sense of wellbeing of balance, and of personal freedom

Homeopathic Potencies

The more a remedy is diluted and succussed (vigorously shaken), the stronger it becomes. There is a pharmacological law stating that although a large dose of poison can destroy life, a moderate dose will only paralyze and a very small dose will actually stimulate those same life processes.

The two scales for diluting remedies are the decimal and the centesimal. In both cases the starting remedy is made from a mixture of the substance itself, which has been steeped in alcohol for a period of time and then strained.

For the decimal scale, 1/10 of this tincture is added to 9/10 alcohol and succussed. This first dilution is called size 1X. The number of a homeopathic remedy reflects the number of times it has been diluted and succussed. For the centesimal scale, 1/100 of the tincture is added to 99/100 alcohol and succussed. This first dilution is called 1C.

Paradoxically, a 6X remedy is a low potency remedy while a 200C remedy is high potency—again, the greater the dilution, the greater the potency.