The Philosophy of Homeopathic Medicine
In 1796 Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician and chemist, developed a new way to heal the sick. He called this new form of medicine homeopathy, from the Greek words meaning ’similar suffering’, and set out his philosophy in a book entitled The Organon: The Role of the Physician in Sickness and in Health. Like Hippocrates in the fourth century BC, Hahnemann had realized that you could treat the sick by applying an opposite force to the sickness or similar force.
Orthodox treatment developed the system of using medicines to produce opposite effects to the patient’s symptoms, which would aim to cancel out the illness. Homeopathy uses medicine which in a healthy person would produce symptoms similar to those seen in the patient to be cured. This
stimulates the patient her/himself to respond against the direction of force of the medicine (and of course the symptoms), restoring a natural health. For this reason we call orthodox medicine allopathy (opposite suffering), as opposed to homeopathy, which through same suffering, stimulates the body’s own power to heal itself. However, the great advantage of homeopathic medicine lies in Hahnemanns’ discovery that by a special process of dilution and agitation we can get rid of the potentially harmful chemical side-effects common to so many orthodox drugs, while retaining that which stimulates the curative response in the patient. Even more remarkable is that the more we dilute and agitate (or succuss) the original remedy, the greater is its potency, or capacity to produce a curative response in the patient.
One of the major advantages of homeopathy is that we do not have to think we know exactly what complaint someone is suffering from before we can help them. We simply need to find a remedy that matches the symptoms that are evident in the patient. Why is this such an advantage? Simply because we can use the facts before our eyes; the first-hand evidence of the person sitting in front of us. We may be aware of the diagnosis, but we are also aware that they are very often wrong. Fortunately, we do not have to base a treatment on such an uncertain premise, nor do we have to subject a patient to batteries of unpleasant, worrying and potentially harmful tests. Instead, we are guided by careful observation of the symptoms, the constitution and the past medical history of the patient and their family.
Many people choose homeopathy as a last resort, when allopathic treatment has not only failed to produce a cure itself (as it always must), but has caused additional health problems. Sometimes these result from suppression. This is when the original symptoms (the body’s attempt to cure) are stopped, forcing the sickness to a deeper and more serious level within the patient. Often, the additional health problems result from the side-effects of prescribed drugs.
Complaints like vertigo, high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease, cancer etc. can all be caused by prescribed drugs and other forms of orthodox treatment, so it is no surprise that many patients eventually withdraw from the aggressive mechanistic and weakening approach of drugging, cutting, burning, freezing etc. and opt for the supportive, strengthening process of homeopathy. Increasingly, homeopathy and other therapies are becoming the first choice for a disillusioned public.
This despite the fact that, unfortunately, it is often less accessible than they would like, due to the continuing political support for the very powerful and wealthy drug companies. The more we learn from an early age to take responsibility for our health – mental, physical and emotional, then, increasingly, in the future we will not tolerate much of what passes today for medical treatment; the suppression of the disease but at what cost to the patient’s overall health?
Because homeopathic remedies are diluted to minute doses, they do not damage organs or turn people’s minds or emotions off. Instead, they help the physical, mental and emotional (whole person) to process their disease and thereby reach a higher level of health. This is a true cure, rather than suppression by continually having to supply an opposing force to stop symptoms reappearing; or surgically cutting something out and hoping you can weaken the body so much with cocktails of toxic chemicals that it will not grow back. Surgery and drugs do have their uses of course, but preferably as a last resort!
Antibiotics are becoming less effective due to the development of resistant strains of bacteria and many people are reluctant to risk the side-effects of steroids. Homeopathy offers a very safe and well proven alternative – one that does not seek to stop the body from showing the symptoms of ill health, but rather seeks to restore health so that the individual no longer has any reason to produce symptoms.
Extracts from Simple Guide To Using Homeopathy by Keith Smith (L.C.P.H., M.H.M.A.)
Published by Global Books Ltd.