History of homeopathy.

History of homeopathy

Dr. Christian Samuel freidrich Hahnemann(1755 -1843) developed a system of medicine and called it homeopathy. It is based on the principle "like cures like"

what does it mean? It means that a drug can cure in a sick patient what it can cause in a healthy person.  For example , Arsenic is a remedy in homeopathy. When it is given to healthy volunteers it produces vomiting, diarrhea of rice water stools, a rapid pulse and prostration. The patients showing such symptoms are cured by Arsenic. 

This principle "like cures like"  was known much before Hahnemann from the time of Hippocrates (460 - 361 B.C.).  Hippocrates prescribed mandrake root which produced mania in healthy persons and with the same mandrake root he cured a patient suffering from mania. Kalidasa, an ancient poet (4th Century) said " poison is the remedy of poison". Parcelsus (1490 - 1541), a pharmacologist proposed that a small dose of 'what makes a man ill also cures him'

However, Hahnemann worked systematically on this principle and developed  the system of Homeopathy. It began with the process of proving. Various remedies were tested on normal, healthy individuals (provers) The symptoms experienced by provers were recorded in exact detail and they form homeopathic Materia Medica. These remedies are arranged alphabetically in the Materia Medica.

     

As Hahnemann started exploring this system he observed that the workers in the quinine factory suffered from the cinchona poisoning which resembled malaria. These workers were cured by a small dose of cinchona. This experiment on cinchona bark was to Hahnemann what the falling apple was to Newton.  He himself had taken cinchona as a prover which developed symptoms similar to malaria. 

Following this experiment on cinchona bark several drugs were tested (proved) in healthy volunteers. Hahnemann himself tested several drugs on him along with other healthy volunteers and recorded the effects of various drugs in these provers so that these drugs could be used when similar symptoms were found in sick people.

                                                                         

 This period witnessed the ugly side of western medicine. Bloodletting and such harmful treatments like drastic purgatives, and emetics were widely practiced. It was very much worse than what it is today. This was the reason that prompted Hahnemann to develop homeopathy which was subtle and effective, using natural substances of plant, mineral and animal origin and which aimed to cure mildly, rapidly and permanently.    

"In therapy, first do no harm. Life is short, art is long, the occasion fleeting. Experience deceitful and judgment difficult".(Hippocrates: 460 -361)

The provings  are the bed rock of the Materia medica. It is an ongoing process. Now, there is a trend to conduct proving during a seminar. This is called as the group provings which was initiated by Rajan Sankaran, a leading homeopath.

  For example, during a seminar on homeopathy the participants were given a single dose of a remedy to be proved days before the start of the seminar. These provers were asked to note the symptoms, delusions and dreams during the next week and during the three days of the seminar. On the last day of the seminar each prover narrated his own symptoms and dreams.Nobody knew the name of the drug they are proving. Based on their symptoms and the dreams experienced by them the main themes of the remedy were defined. For example there is a remedy prepared from the venom of snake called Naja.

Here are the main themes of the remedy (Naja) that emerged from the proving:

1. Sense of duty and responsibility towards one’s own family.

2. A split in the mind between duty on one hand and being wronged on the other hand

  e.g. someone has harmed and betrayed the patient, and the same person after some time in future needs help and approaches the patient begging for the help. The patient will help that person. But at the same time feel bitter for what he had done in the past and feel that she should not help him. This is the 'split' in the mind. 

Another example would be of a daughter-in-law in our joint Indian families who has been harassed by mother-in-law. After some years, the mother-in-law becomes old and bed ridden. This is the time the daughter-in-law feels whether she should look after her and why she should? She is very bitter but still she would look after her as she is duty bound,but the bitterness in the mind will remain.

3. A feeling of being injured/affected

4. A feeling of being wrong or wronged

5. Anger, violence

6. A feeling of being neglected

If you find a patient with similar symptoms, Naja will be very effective, and it will remove the 'split' in her mind and she will experience peace of mind.

The symptoms reported during the povings of all the remedies are extremely reliable and this is the basis of selection of the remedy in a given patient.

When this patient who needs Naja goes to a psychiatrist, she will get an antidepressant which will give symptomatic relief  but it will not remove the 'split' in the mind. 

Depression is the result of a prolonged stressful situation. The symptoms are due to a deficiency of a neurochemical in a specific area of brain. Antidepressants elevate the levels of this neurochemical in the brain and relieve the symptoms of depression. However, depression can result from various life situations and the perceptions of that situation by the patient. For every life situation there is a specific homeopathic medicine and that medicine can give a long term relief. Antidepressants only will relieve the symptoms.

There is no such classification as antidepressanta, anti anxiety drugs in hiomeopathy.