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Homeopathy
Homeopathy (meaning ‘similar suffering’) was developed by a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann at the end of the 18th century. Increasingly disillusioned with the conventional medicine of his day, he began to research alternative treatments.
He began a series of ‘provings’, giving repeated doses of common remedies to healthy volunteers and carefully noting the symptoms they produced. Hahnemann experimented further and formed his theory that like cures like, calling it the Law of Similars.
This research led him to discover that quantities of common substances would produce certain symptoms that mimicked those of the patient’s condition. For example, herbalists claimed that Peruvian bark cured malaria. Hahnemann swallowed a quantity of Peruvian bark and began to experience the symptoms of malaria itself such as fever, intense thirst, drowsiness and agitation.
Homeopathic remedies are said to work by stimulating the body’s own healing processes to treat the patient’s condition. However, homeopaths also believe that the whole person should be taken into account when treating any physical disease, so their diagnosis is normally based on three components:
- physical symptoms (e.g. blocked nose, feverish, pain)
- current emotional state (e.g. irritable, weepy)
- general constitution of the individual (eg temperament, physical attributes, lifestyle)
The right remedy for a particular condition addresses all of these components, resulting in a diagnosis that is specific to the individual. This contrasts with conventional treatment, where two patients diagnosed with the same condition will normally be given the same medicine.
