HOMOEOPATHY-5

The principle of medical similars

Homeopathy is based on the 'Principle of Similars', first expressed by Hahnemann in the exhortation similia similibus curentur or 'let likes cure likes'. This is the opposite of 'contraries' upon which the Galenic medicine of his day was based, which Hahnemann initially practised and in which he had been trained.

The 'law of similars' is an ancient medical maxim, but its modern form is based on Hahnemann's conclusion that a constellation of symptoms induced by a given homeopathic remedy in a group of healthy individuals will cure a similar set of symptoms in the sick. Symptom patterns associated with various remedies are determined by 'provings', in which healthy volunteers are given remedies, often in molecular doses, and the resulting physical, mental and spiritual symptoms are compiled by observers into a 'Drug Picture'.

Hahnemann says of the attitude his first proving inspired in him: "with this first trial broke upon me the dawn that has since brightened into the most brilliant day of the medical art; that it is only in virtue of their power to make the healthy human being ill that medicines can cure morbid states, and indeed, only such morbid states are composed of symptoms which the drug to be selected for them can itself produce in similarity on the healthy."

Homeopathic practitioners rely on two types of reference in prescribing. The Homeopathic Materia Medicae comprise alphabetical indexes of Drug Pictures organized by remedy and describe the symptom patterns associated with individual remedies. The Homeopathic repertory consists of an index of sickness symptoms, listing all remedies associated with specific symptoms. The first such Homeopathic repertory was George Jahr's Repertory, published in 1835.

Hahnemann first tested in homeopathic provings substances commonly used as medicines in his time, such as Antimony and Rhubarb, and also poisons like Arsenic, Mercury and Belladonna.

Hahnemann recorded his first provings of 27 drugs in the Fragmenta de viribus in 1805 and later in his Materia Medica Pura, which contained 65 proven drugs. He was most heavily engaged in proving in the 1790s and early 1800s, but he never abandoned these experiments. Another phase of proving commenced with his Miasm theory and The Chronic Diseases, published in 1828, and containing 48 freshly 'proven' drugs.

Kent's Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica (1905) lists 217 remedies, and new substances are continually added to contemporary versions. Homeopathy uses many animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances. Examples include Natrum muriaticum (sodium chloride or table salt), Lachesis muta (the venom of the bushmaster snake), Opium, and Thyroidinum (thyroid hormone). Other homeopathic remedies, ('isopathic' remedies'), involve dilution of the agent or product of the disease. Rabies nosode, for example, is made by diluting the saliva of a rabid dog. Some modern homeopaths are exploring the use of more esoteric substances, known as "imponderables" because they do not originate from a material but from electromagnetic energy presumed to have been "captured" by alcohol or lactose (X-ray, Sol (sunlight), Positronium, and Electricitas (electricity) or through the use of a telescope (Polaris). Recent ventures by homeopaths into even more esoteric substances include Tempesta (thunderstorm), and Berlin wall.

Today, about 3000 remedies are used in homeopathy; about 300 are based on comprehensive Materia Medica information, about 1500 on relatively fragmentary knowledge and the rest are used experimentally in difficult cases based on the law of similars, either without knowledge of their homeopathic properties or through speculative knowledge independent of the law of similars. This modern approach also harks back to the ancient 'doctrine of signatures,' which Hahnemann definitely rejected as uncertain guesswork: "The ancients imagined that the yellow colour of the juice of... (Chelidonium, Yellow Poppy) was an indication (signature) of its utility in bilious diseases. The moderns from this extended its employment to hepatic diseases...the importance of human health does not admit of any such uncertain directions for the employment of medicines. It would be criminal frivolity to rest contented with such guesswork at the bedside of the sick. Only that which the drugs themselves unequivocally reveal of their peculiar powers in their effects on the healthy human body – that is to say, only their pure symptoms – can teach us loudly and clearly when they can be advantageously used with certainty; and this is when they are administered in morbid states very similar to those they are able to produce on the healthy body."

Examples of this impulse to expand the materia medica include: the use of an isopathic (disease associated) agent as a first prescription in a 'stuck' case, when the beginning of disease coincides with a specific event such as vaccination; the use of a chemically-related substance when a remedy that was well-indicated fails. A good example of this is found in the Bowel Nosodes which were introduced by the British homeopaths, Edward Bachbacterial flora thought to be associated with persons of different homeopathic constitutional types. Though receiving more attention today, the Bowel Nosodes are rarely used outside British homeopathy. (1886-1936), John Paterson (1890-1954) and Charles Edwin Wheeler (1868-1946) in the 1920s. Their use is based on the variable bowel

More recently, homeopathy has embraced substances based on their elemental classification (the periodic table or biological taxonomy). This approach may create neat systems for grouping remedies and classifying the ever-burgeoning Materia Medica, but its usefulness is questioned by some purists on the basis that it involves speculation about remedy action without provings.

There are many methods for determining the most-similar remedy (the simillimum), and homeopaths sometimes disagree. This is partly due to the complexity of the 'totality of symptoms' concept; homeopaths do not use all symptoms, but decide which are the most characteristic; this subjective evaluation of case analysis rests crucially on knowledge and experience. Finally, the Drug Picture in the Materia Medica is always more comprehensive than the symptoms exhibited by any individual. These factors mean that a homeopathic prescription can remain presumptive until it is verified by testing the effect of the remedy on the patient.

Alternative modes of selecting remedies include medical dowsing or the use of other psychic powers. However, these methods are controversial and not accepted by most homeopathic practitioners.

The law of similars is more of a guiding principle than a scientific law. It is not built on a hypothesis that can be falsified; a failure to cure homeopathically can always be attributed to incorrect selection of a remedy:

"I have often heard physicians tell me that it was due to suggestion that my medicines acted so well; but my answer to this is, that I suggest just as strongly with my wrong remedy as with the right one, and my patients improve only when they have received the similar or correct remedy". --JT Kent.

(These things are essential to learn Homoeopathy and hence reproduced from WIKIPEDIA)