Homeopathy
What is Homeopathy?
How does the concept of homeopathy differ from that of
conventional medicine? Very simply, homeopathy attempts to stimulate the body
to recover itself. Let's look at an example: the common cough.
First, we must accept that all symptoms, no matter how uncomfortable they are, represent the body's attempt to restore itself to health. Instead of looking upon the symptoms as something wrong which must be set right, we see them as signs of the way the body is attempting to help itself. Instead of trying to stop the cough with suppressants, as conventional medicine does, a homeopath will give a remedy that will
cause a cough in a healthy person, and thus stimulate the ill body to restore itself.
Second, we must look at the totality of the symptoms presented. We each
experience a cough in our unique way. Yet conventional medicine acts as if all
coughs were alike. It therefore offers a series of suppressive drugs something
to suppress the cough, something to dry the mucus, something to lower the
histamine level, something to ease falling asleep.
Homeopathy, on the other hand, looks for the one substance that will cause
similar symptoms in a healthy person. The person with a cough characterized by
being worse when breathing cold air, and sounding like a deep bark, will need a
quite different remedy than the person whose cough is loose in the morning, dry
in the evening, and better when sitting up in bed. We characterize both as
"coughs" but they are different illnesses in the individuals, and
therefore require different homeopathic treatment.
In conventional medical thought, health is seen simply as the absence of disease. You assume that you are healthy if there is nothing wrong with you. To a person versed in homeopathy, health is much more than that. A healthy person is a person who is free on all levels: physical, emotional, and mental. Obviously, a person with a broken leg is not free, on the physical level, to move around. But on a more subtle level, a person who cannot eat certain foods or is allergic to certain materials is also experiencing a lack of freedom. It is a good emotional release to cry at a "tear jerker" movie, but someone who continues to cry for several weeks afterwards is experiencing a lack of freedom on the emotional level. Likewise, a person who cannot absorb what he has read or cannot remember day to day appointments is experiencing a restriction on the mental level. The homeopath recognizes such limitations and attempts, through the use of the properly selected remedies, to restore the person to health and freedom.
An important basic difference exists between conventional medical therapy and
homeopathy. In conventional therapy, the aim often is to control the illness
through regular use of medical substances, even if the medication is nothing
more than vitamins. If the medication is withdrawn, however, the person returns
to illness. There has been no cure. A person who takes a pill for high blood
pressure every day is not undergoing a cure but is only controlling the
symptoms. Homeopathy's aim is the cure: "The complete restoration of
perfect health," as Dr. SamuelHahneman said.
How does Homeopathy work?
Homeopathy is the art and the science of healing the sick by using substances
capable of causing the same symptoms, syndromes and conditions when
administered to healthy people.
Any substance may be considered a homeopathic medicine if it has
known "homeopathic provings" and/or known effects which mimic the
symptoms, syndromes or conditions which it is administered to treat, and is
manufactured according to the specifications of the Homœopathic
Pharmacopœia of the United States (HPUS).
Official homeopathic drugs are those that have been monographed
and accepted for inclusion in the HPUS.
Central to all homeopathy is the determination of the effect of
substances on healthy volunteers and the use of the developed "drug
picture" by the consumer and/or trained health care practitioners
according to the homeopathic principle of similia similibus curentur -
Let likes be cured by Likes.
Historically, homeopathy has been practiced by medical doctors,
and has been used for self-care by the general public. The issuance of The
Homœopathic Domestic Physician by Constantine Hering, M.D.,
(1835) opened this health care modality to the public.
Homeopathy is an ideal therapeutic medium for self-medication of
symptoms usually associated with self-limiting conditions since the selection
of the proper remedy for the case is dependent on the symptoms that the body
exhibits in its reaction to the illness.
In the use of homeopathy for conditions which are other than
self-limiting, the consumer is advised to use the services of a health care
provider
Homeopathy is most easily understood if we look at an example: If
your child accidentally ingests certain poisons, you may be advised to
administer Syrup of Ipecac to induce vomiting. Ipecac is derived from the root
of a South American plant called Ipecacuanha.
The name, in the native language, means "the plant by the road which makes
you throw up." Eating the plant causes vomiting.
When a group of healthy volunteers took this substance to determine the effects
of this drug, they found that the drug induced other symptoms as well. The
mouth retained much saliva. The tongue was very clean. There was a cough so
severe that it led to gagging and vomiting. There was incessant nausea. While
it is expected that vomiting would usually relieve the nausea, this was not the
case.
Such an experiment, using healthy volunteers, is called a proving, and
it is the homeopath's source of information about the action of a drug.
Of what use could this plant be? If a person were suffering from a gagging
cough after a cold, or a woman were experiencing morning sickness with
incessant nausea that is not relieved by vomiting, then Ipecacuanha,
administered in a minute dose, especially prepared by a homeopathic pharmacy in
accordance with FDA approved guidelines, can allay the "similar"
suffering.
Samuel Hahnemann described this principle by using a Latin phrase: Similia
Similibus Curentur, which translates: "Let likes cure
likes." It is a principle that has been known for centuries. Hahnemann
developed the principle into a system of medicine called homeopathy, and it has
been used successfully for the last 200 years.
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