What is homeopathy? How does it heal?
The power of homeopathy is based on the principle that “like cures like”. By taking a very tiny amount of a material which would CAUSE symptoms like yours in a healthy person, those very same symptoms are relieved in you. Your vital force is stimulated in very specific ways by a well-chosen remedy to throw off disease.
Conventional, western medicine views symptoms as something that should be gotten rid of. That form of medicine uses medications (often chemical and toxic) to attack or suppress symptoms. The medications themselves often cause side effects or addiction. Homeopaths, on the other hand, pay careful attention to your symptoms, as they are your body's unique way of dealing with toxins and imbalances. Itches, inflammations, discharges and such are ways your body is trying to throw off disease and toxins. The aim of homeopathy is to assist that process, not to suppress it. Well chosen homeopathic remedies stimulate healing in the same tissues and organs which are generating your symptoms. By healing the cause of disease, the body is able to stop producing uncomfortable symptoms.
Homeopathic remedies (medicines) are not addictive, or toxic. Nor do they cause damaging side effects.
Homeopathy was developed in the 1700’s by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, a brilliant German physician and prolific author. Hahnemann was discouraged by the medical practices of his time, which included blood letting and use of caustic poultices. He noticed that often more harm than good came of the practices which were used. But
he was intrigued with the medicines which DID work and he studied them carefully. He noticed that quinine (made from cinchona or Peruvian bark), which was used to treat malaria, was one of these effective medicines. He decided to take small amounts of quinine himself to see what it would do to a healthy person. He found that quinine produced in him the very symptoms of malaria—the periodic fever, the malaise, headache, and disorders of the nervous system.
Hahnemann understood the potential of the fact that like cures like. For the rest of his life he documented the effects of hundreds more medicinal substances and worked to develop the best way to produce and prescribe homeopathic remedies to relieve suffering and disease.
Because the most effective mediciinal substances can cause unwanted side effects, Hahnemann also investigated how small a dose was absolutely necessary for cure of symptoms. He found that extremely diluted doses were most effective and produced the fewest aggravations. Homeopathic remedies of the 30C potency are so dilute that the original substance (from which the remedy is made) is not discernible under microscope.
Even more remarkable a discovery, Hahnemann recognized that substance taken in homeopathic doses produces changes (symptoms) not only a physical level, but also on mental, emotional and even dream levels. He and his colleagues began to carefully document these effects. The detailed materia medica which they began, allows us the find remedies to treat the WHOLE PERSON. Homeopaths who have followed them have extended the materiae medicae to include thousands of homeopathic medicines.
"My husband lay in the hospital bed, on morphine, waiting for kidney stone to pass. Minutes after taking the Berberis homeopathic remedy I brought him, the pain passed.....but no kidney stone. We think the remedy dissolved the stone or helped his body dissolve it. Years later, I crawled to my remedy kit with acute ureter pain. Assuming this was also a kidney stone, I took the same remedy that had worked for my husband. Minutes after taking the Berberis I was relieved of all pain. (We subsequently learned to deal with the effects of heavily mineralized water, living in the desert.....Lots of watermelon during the warm months!)"
How are homeopathic remedies made? What are they made of?
Homeopathic medicines are made from over 2,000 different plant, mineral, animal
and chemical substances. Some of these substances—oyster shell, chamomilla, for example—are benign of themselves but become increasingly potent as they are diluted and succussed according to Hahnemann's method of preparation. Others, like arnica and rattlesnake venom, are toxic in gross form, but safe AND effective as potentized, homeopathic remedies. Many new remedies are being made from substances which are increasingly influencial in our lives—petroleum products, radioactive materials, chemical medicines, etc. Hahnemann would be pleased to see that many other substances which have been used as natural medicines in parts of the world he did not have access to are also being made into homeopathic remedies. These powerful plant and animal medicines can now be applied safely and studied for more far-reaching applications.
Remedies in this country are prepared by special Homeopathic Laboratories and Pharmacies which are inspected and licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In addition to the FDA's requirements, homeopathic manufacturers must also meet the strict controls of the United States Homeopathic Pharmacopeia which is defined by US law as the official standard for the production of homeopathic medicines.
Because homeopathic medicines are so safe, the FDA regulates almost all of them as OTC, or over-the-counter medicines, as opposed to prescription-only medicines.