WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY?

Homeopathy is practiced worldwide by numerous health professionals: doctors, dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians, homeopaths, naturopaths, chiropractors, Ayurvedic medicine practitioners, and more.

Created in the early 19th century by Samuel Hahnemann, it is based primarily on two foundations: the law of similars and the process of high dilutions.

The Law of Similars

Similia similibus curentur: like cures like. This principle, which dates back to Hippocrates, states that a substance that causes a group of symptoms in a healthy person can cure a sick person who exhibits the same group of symptoms. This principle gave homeopathy its name, a word derived from the Greek homeo and pathos, meaning "similar" and "disease or suffering," respectively.

The Process of High Dilutions

According to this foundation, diluting a remedy can increase its curative effects. Homeopathic remedies are diluted multiple times in a mixture of water and alcohol. Between successive dilutions, the remedy is subjected to a series of shakes, known as succussions in homeopathic jargon.

HISTORY

TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF HISTORY

Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a German physician, was also a chemist and linguist. Dissatisfied with the medical techniques of his time, in 1784, he abandoned the practice of medicine to collect, translate, and revise various pharmacological works written in German, French, English, Italian, and Latin.

In 1790, while Samuel Hahnemann was translating the Materia Medica of a Scottish physician, he disagreed with the author, who stated that the effectiveness of malaria treatment relied on the bitterness and astringency of cinchona bark (from which quinine was later derived). He rightly noted that other equally bitter and astringent plants had no effect against the disease. Out of curiosity, he ingested a small amount of the bark for a few days and discovered that the substance caused symptoms similar to malaria in himself, such as intermittent fever and diarrhea.

This reminded him of the law of similars, mentioned in the Cursus Hippocraticus. Six years later (1796), he published an essay in a scientific journal on "a new approach to identifying the curative properties of medicines."

Since his first experiment with cinchona bark, he had experimented on himself, as well as on his collaborators and relatives, with various substances whose pathogenicity he had established, meaning the set of symptoms caused by the experimental administration of a medicine to a healthy subject. He had also developed the dilution technique to bypass the problem of the toxicity of certain products. These were the beginnings of homeopathy.

In 1799, Hahnemann's ideas gained credibility when he successfully used a homeopathic remedy to prevent and treat scarlet fever, which was reaching epidemic proportions in Germany. In 1810, he published the Organon of Medicine, which was to become the true foundational manual of homeopathy. This therapeutic technique experienced remarkable growth in Europe and was introduced to America in 1825 by Hans Burch Gram, a Boston physician who had studied homeopathy in Europe.

The first American homeopathic medical school, the Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, was founded in 1835. In 1849, while cholera raged in Cincinnati, two homeopaths published statistics indicating that only 3% of the 1,116 patients they had treated died from the disease. Yet, at that time, it was estimated that between 33% and 50% of patients with the disease died from it.

Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the practice of homeopathy experienced tremendous growth in Europe and North America. However, in the 20th century, the creation of highly effective allopathic drugs, such as antibiotics, significantly reduced the practice of homeopathy. It would not be until the end of that century that renewed interest in the technique would emerge.

In 1994, the World Health Organization noted that homeopathy had been successfully integrated into the public health systems of several countries, including Germany, France, England, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Mexico. There are 11,000 doctors who practice homeopathy in France, England, and Germany, as well as 10,000 in Latin America. In England, 42% of doctors who do not practice homeopathy do not hesitate to refer their patients to a homeopath.

THE HOMEOPATHIC METHOD

Homeopathy is based on the premise that the body possesses the vital energy required to generate a natural process of health rebalancing. Thus, Hahnemann maintained, contrary to the dominant trend among scientists, that it was less important to know the specific cause of the disease than to find ways to stimulate the natural healing process inherent in every living organism.

Thus, the homeopath strives to meticulously identify all of the patient's symptoms in order to trigger or support the corresponding healing process. The practitioner will therefore seek to know when and how the symptoms manifest, what amplifies or reduces their intensity, the times they appear, the actions that aggravate or relieve them, etc.

Thus, two patients suffering from the same disease, in the classical medical sense, might be prescribed different homeopathic remedies because their constitution differs or their specific symptoms are not the same. For example, both might have a cold, but not the same nasal discharge. Homeopaths today have computerized databases that help them choose remedies based on the countless combinations of symptoms and the constitution of their patients.

DILUTIONS

A homeopathic preparation marked 6X refers to a remedy in which the original extract has been diluted (generally in a mixture of water and alcohol) 6 times, at a ratio of one part extract to nine parts solvent each time. This is called a low dilution or a decimal dilution. At each step, which is 6 in this case, the mixture will have been potentized by administering 100 shakes.

There are also centesimal dilutions (one part of the original extract to 99 parts of solvent, at each dilution) which are designated by the letter C, and millesimal dilutions bearing the letter M (one part of extract to 999 parts of solvent). These last two types of preparation constitute high dilutions.

The letter H (for Hahnemann) is often appended to the symbols X, C, or M (for example, 30CH). This identifies the Hahnemannian dilutions we have just described.

Some dilutions are prepared according to a slightly different process developed by another homeopath contemporary to Hahnemann, Dr. Korsakov. Korsakovian dilutions, which are generally identified by a K, are said to be more effective than Hahnemannian dilutions in low dilution, but both processes would yield equivalent results in high dilution.

In homeopathy, it is believed that remedies prepared in high dilution have a longer duration of action than those prepared in low dilution, but their onset of action is slower. Once diluted, the extract is presented in the form of tablets, granules (small soluble spheres, usually sucrose-based, that are allowed to dissolve under the tongue), or solutions taken a few drops at a time. For topical uses, some homeopathic preparations are also available in the form of lotions or ointments.

HOW TO USE THE REMEDIES

Homeopathic remedies are absorbed under the tongue.

Tablets and granules

Place them under the tongue and let them dissolve.

Liquid form

Add the recommended number of drops to 1 or 2 tablespoons of water, then swirl in the mouth for 30 seconds before swallowing.

Recommendation

Food and toothpaste can interfere with the absorption of homeopathic remedies. Therefore, it is recommended to take them at least 5 minutes before eating or brushing your teeth and at least 30 minutes after. It is also preferable to wait 2 minutes between taking two remedies.