By: Muhammad Dabir Uddin (A Practitioner of Homeopathic Medicine) Homeopathy is a system of medicine guided by the therapeutic law conformable to and based on the ‘Law of Nature’ or ‘Law of Similars’. It seeks to cure in accordance with the natural law of healing the ‘Law of Similars’(i.e., like cures like). In practice, this […]
By: Muhammad Dabir Uddin
(A Practitioner of Homeopathic Medicine)
Homeopathy is a system of medicine guided by the therapeutic law conformable to and based on the ‘Law of Nature’ or ‘Law of Similars’. It seeks to cure in accordance with the natural law of healing the ‘Law of Similars’(i.e., like cures like). In practice, this means that a medicine capable of producing certain symptoms when taken by a healthy human being, is capable of curing any illness that displays similar symptoms. It uses the medicines mainly made from Plants, Animals and Minerals.
The word ‘Homoeopathy’ (also spelt as Homeopathy) has been derived by the father of modern ‘Homeopathy’ Dr. Samuel Hahnemann from the two Greek words, ‘homois’ meaning like or similar, and ‘pathos’ meaning suffering or sickness. Early references to the idea of homeopathy can be found in ancient Greek medicines. The writings of Hippocrates contain references to agents that can cause disease being capable of helping to overcome it. Hippocrates was writing approximately in 4th century B. C. He was called the ‘father of medicine’. Another source of early reference to the idea of homeopathy is the writings of Paracelsus, a German physician in the early 16th century.
Although such early references were made to the idea of using agents that caused illness were used to treat it, ‘Homeopathy’ was discovered and founded by Dr. Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), born in Germany, in the late 18th century. He acquired a good education, became master of more than nine languages including Greek, Lain, English, Italian, Hebrew and Arabic. He studied chemistry and medicine. After receiving his degree of ‘Doctor of Medicine’ on the thesis “A Consideration of the Etiology and Therapeutics of Spasmodic Affections” from the University of Erlangen in 1779, he set up medical practice and soon earned the reputation of being a brilliant chemist and most distinguished physician in Germany and in Europe.
As he continued his practice he became more and more dissatisfied with the current medical practice of his day. European physicians of 18th & 19the century believed that disease was caused by morbific agents (disease-matter) and acridities that had to be removed from the body by every possible means. To achieve that ends, they used “the leeches, cupping and frequent blood-letting for almost any disease, together with strong cathartics, emetics and other powerful drugs of vegetable and mineral origin, often dispensed in extremely high doses and complex mixtures. Treatment could kill the patients as well as the disease”1. He strongly protested against those brutal and senseless methods of treatment that had no scientific or logical basis.
Being dissatisfied with the mode of current medical practice he wrote to Hufeland’s Medical Journal that “I could not conscientiously treat the unknown morbid conditions of my suffering brethren by these unknown medicines, which being very active substances, may so easily occasion death, or produce new affections and chronic maladies, often more difficult to remove than the original disease”2. He became very frustrated when one of his children became critically ill and died but he could not do anything for her. That is why, in 1784 he gave up his medical practice and started translating scientific and medical books and journals though it meant that giving up luxury and living in poverty. But he persisted in his life-long goal and felt sure that “God must have ordained some certain method of healing the sick.”3
It was in 1790, while Hahnemann was translating a ‘Treatise on Materia Medica’ by Dr. William Cullen of Edinburgh (a Scottish doctor and chemist who was the authority on the subject of the Materia Medica of his day) then he came across the tiny seed which was to flower into a whole system of medicine. Dr. Cullen stated that quinine, an astringent substance purified from the bark of the ‘Cinchona Tree’, was a good treatment for malaria because of its ‘astringent and bitter properties’. But Dr. Hahnemann could not agree with Dr. Cullen because, as a physician and chemist he knew some other more powerful astringents could not cure malaria.
So he decided to experiment with it upon himself and to see what effect it would have upon a healthy person. The result is given by Hahnemann’s own words:
“I took by way of experiment, twice a day, four drachms (approx 15.5grams) of good China. My feet, finger ends, etc., at first became cold ; I grew languid and drowsy ; then my heart began to palpitate, and my pulse grew hard and small ; intolerable anxiety, trembling ( but without cold rigor), prostration throughout all my limbs ; then pulsation in my head, redness of my cheeks, thirst, and, in short, all these symptoms, which are ordinarily characteristic of intermittent fever, made their appearance, one after the other, yet without the peculiar chilly, shivering rigor…………this paroxysm lasted two or three hours each time, and recurred if I repeated this dose, not otherwise ; I discontinued it, and was in good heatlh.”4
We should note that when Hahnemann stopped taking the drug the symptoms disappeared, but when he repeated his experiment identical symptoms returned. The symptoms he developed exactly corresponded to the symptoms of ague or malaria. He repeated the quinine tests (provings) on his acquaintances and found the similar results. Thus Hahnemann proved and came to the conclusion that malaria was cured by ‘Peruvian Bark’ or ‘Cinchona Bark’ not because of its ‘astringent and bitter properties’ but owing to the fact that the drug produces the similar symptoms of malaria in a healthy person. That was the first ‘PROVING’(testing) of medicine on a healthy human body. After experimenting on himself, he engaged in an extensive program of ‘Drug Proving’ on a large number of people from his family, friends, relatives and volunteers.
For six years Hahnemann continued his provings, studies, experiments and observations of various substances including arsenic, belladonna and mercury which were in widespread use, on healthy individuals before making his findings and discovery known to the world. He then published an article in 1796 in current ‘Hufeland’s Medical Journal’ entitled: “An Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs.” In this article he reviews the current medical condition and practice of his day and argues that chemistry is not the proper exponent of the curative action of drugs. He also argues that the experimentation on animals with poisons is of little use since many plants deadly to human, are innocuous to animals and the true method of experimentation with drugs is by testing them on healthy human body.
He presents his new theory in the following words: “Every powerful medicinal substance produces in the human body a kind of peculiar disease; the more powerful the medicine, the more peculiar, marked and violent the disease. We should imitate nature which sometimes cures a chronic disease by super-adding another, and employ in the (especially chronic) disease we wish to cure that medicine which is able to produce another very similar artificial disease, and the former will be cured; similia similibus”5. This was the discovery of “Law of Similars” or ‘Similia Similibus Curentur’ which means ‘Like cures Like.’ He introduced the term ‘HOMOEOPATHY’ meaning similar suffering to describe the new system of medicine based on the ‘Law of Similars.’
Using the results of his ‘Provings’, he went on to test various substances on sick people. But before he did so he questioned them thoroughly about their symptoms, general health, way of life and attitudes, and gave them a physical examination i.e., he examined the person as a whole. From each interview and examination he built-up what he called a ‘symptom-picture’, and then prescribed the substance (the Single Remedy) the ‘drug-picture’ of which most closely matched it. The closer the match, the more successful the treatment. But still some of his patients reported that their symptoms actually got worse before they got better. To prevent such ‘aggravations’ or ‘toxic effect’ he started to dilute his remedies. Then he found that, diluted remedies not only prevent the aggravations but act much faster and more effectively.
Hahnemann’s scientific experiments led him to the process of potentization (dilution & succussion). A step by step dilution and succusion of the drug makes it extremely powerful and at the same time renders it harmless. In his ‘Introduction to Homeopathic Medicine’ Dr. Hamish W. Boyd, FRCP, M.D., says, “a potentised remedy is not simply a very dilute solution but a scientifically and accurately prepared remedy”6. About the Potentised Remedy, in ‘The Complete Book of Family Homeopathic Medicine’ Dr. M. B. Panos, M. D., says, “what is left is the medicinal essence of the substance, or what a physicist has called energized medicine”7. Dr. Rajan Sankaran of India says about the potentization “This is in direct contrast to the toxic drugs of modern medicine, and their side-effects”8.
Being a chemist Hahnemann knew that whatever active principles his dilute remedies contained, could only be present in infinitesimal quantities. And yet merest trace of them was enough to produce a strong effect. At some level in the body, he reasoned, “there must be something which responds to such tiny hints, an extremely subtle something capable of switching the body from sickness to health and vice versa. He called that something, “Vital Force”9. This ‘Vital Force’ is responsible for maintaining and running the internal healthy condition of the body and for co-ordinating the body’s defenses against disease. In fact, Hahnemann thought of the ‘Vital Force’ as a form of ‘electromagnetic energy or vibration’. If this energy (Vital Force) is disturbed by stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, inherited constitutional problems, climatic change or any other triggers, illness would result. The signs and symptoms of the illness are nothing but the body’s attempts to restore order.
In the introduction to ‘The Organon of Medicine’ he said by observation and experience, he discovered, contrary to the old allopathic method, the true, the proper, the best mode of treatment is contained in the maxim: “To cure mildly, rapidly, certainly, and permanently, choose, in every case of disease, a medicine which can itself produce an affection similar to that sought to be cured”10!
In 1811 he published the results of his provings in the form of a book called ‘Materia Medica Pura’ with full details of his experiments and observations of the signs and symptoms of the remedies that are produced in the ‘specially controlled provings’ on healthy people. Hahnemann the ‘Experimenter’ discovered the symptomatic source of both pathologic and therapeutic diagnosis and thereby made the practice of medicine scientific.
IN CONCLUSION we can say that, Homeopathy is the system of medicine guided by the therapeutic law, conformable to and based on the ‘Law of Similars’ (Law of Nature), or ‘Similia Similibus Curentur’(like cures like) that tries to restore the disturbed ‘Vital Force’ (vital energy), by a Single Remedy, using the Minimum Dose, and treats not the disease but the patient as a whole, mildly, rapidly, gently and permanently.
Homeopathy is recognized by The World Health Organization (WHO). WHO has called for closer incorporation of homeopathy into ‘western medical system (WHO Bulletin, 1999, 77, 2, 160-165). Homeopathy is one of the world’s most frequently used complementary therapies (Rheumatic Diseases Clinics of North America, 2000, February, 26, 1, 117-123). Thousands of millions of people all over the world are getting benefited by Homeopathic treatment and it is rapidly gaining more and more popularity everywhere. “It is the alternative of Allopathy” (writer).
For Further Information & Suggestions,
Please Contact:
Muhammad Dabir Uddin, Homeopath, JP
Dip. Hom. Med; Sydney, Australia
A.I.N. Cert III; St. George TAFE, NSW
MATMS; NSW. Reg. No – 18588
(02) 9758 9931
Mob: 0421 080 687
Email: m.dabir1953@gmail.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1) Homeopathy – By Dr. Christopher Hammond, MBBS, LCH, P- 16, Pub – Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia.
2) Life and Letters of Hahnemann – By Bradford, P-33, Pub – B. Jain, New Delhi, India.
3) Life and Letters of Hahnemann – By Bradford, P-33, Pub – B. Jain, New Delhi, India.
4) Life and Letters of Hahnemann – By Bradford, P- 44-45, Pub – B. Jain, New Delhi, India.
5) Life and Letters of Hahnemann – By Bradford, P- 58, Pub – B. Jain, New Delhi, India.
6) Introduction to Homeopathic Medicine – By Dr. Hamish W. Boyd, M.D., FRCP, P- 4, Pub – Keats Publishing, Inc. New Canaan, Connecticut.
7) The Complete Book of Family Homeopathic Medicine – By Dr. M. B. Panos, M. D., Jane Heimlich, P- 29, Pub- Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi, India.
8) The Spirit of Homoeopathy – By Dr. Rajan Sankarn, P- 4, Pub – Homeopathic Medical Publishers, Mumbai, India.
9) The Family Guide to Homeopathy – By Dr. Andrew Lockie, P- 11, Pub – Hamish Hamilton, London.
10) Introduction to Organon of Medicine 5th & 6th edition, P- 56, Pub – Indian Books & Periodicals Syndicate, New Delhi, India.
11) Mosby’s Medical, Nursing, & Allied Health Dictionary, 4th edition, Pub-Mosby.
