Vedic Heritage

Homeopathy is a science of healing suited to all : The young, the old, the rich, the poor, people of all religions, castes and creeds, people indeveloped as well as undeveloped countries, people in any place, under any climactic condition.

At the onset of the 21st century as Homeopathy emerges from obscurity, gaining wider global acceptance as a Complementary / Alternative & Scientific System of Medicine, we find it shrouded in a veil of mystery, misconceptions and fallacies… It has been the Cinderella of medicine for so long. It is time that this lowly hand-maiden shed her cloak of humility & boldly proclaimed to the world of what good she could do.

(Initially we shall discuss about the History, Basic-Principles and the Status of Homeopathy; followed by The Facts and Fallacies and end with presentation of a few Unusual Case-Records giving a glimpse of the wide and varied Cures achievable through Homeopathy.)

The History & Discovery
The discovery of Homeopathy is indeed very & fascinating & interesting. Homeopathy as a System of Medicine was founded and developed as a viable alternative to conventional medicine, by a German Physician Dr. Samuel Hahnemann between 1796 & 1843.

Hahnemann [1755-1843] was born a genius. One amongst the eleven children of a very poor parentage, he went on to study medicine against all odds and opposition, encouraged by his teachers & mentors. (An example of his exemplary genius is that at a young age he could speak 14 languages and read & write in seven).

After his medical education, he went on to set up a very busy & lucrative practice with many of Europe’s Royal, Noble & Elite as his patient clientele. As his practice and experience grew, he started becoming disillusioned with the existent mode of treatment. Blood-letting, Leeching , Purging etc. were the prevalent methods adopted. He found that either the patient came back repeatedly with the same ailment or many a times the patient died, not because of the illness, but due to the treatment given.

Medical Science was still very unscientific then. Knowledge about human body, diseases and modalities of treatment was still poor & vague. Virtually the whole of 18th century Europe was marked by a plethora of theories & hypothesis concerning the nature of disease and its causation. Hence the methods of therapeutic practice (treatment) were equally numerous and diverse.

This disillusionment led to relinquishing his medical practice and Dr. Hahnemann devoted himself to translation of great medical classics of his time. In 1790, while he was translating Cullen’s Materia Medica from English to German, he came across a foot-note which said that the CINCHONA bark cured malaria because of its bitter & astringent properties. He found this explanation totally unconvincing, as there were many other substances more bitter, yet incapable of curing malaria. To seek an answer, he started taking large quantity of the infusion of Cinchona bark, and to his astonishment in a few days he developed symptoms similar to malaria (fever, chill etc.)

This unexpected result opened his mind to an entirely new vista of thoughts. He conducted similar experiments with other well known medicinal substances on himself and other healthy individuals only to discover that they too produced symptoms similar to what they cured in diseased individuals.

Hahnemann concluded that medicines cure diseases, because of their properties of producing similar symptoms in healthy human beings.

This account epitomizes Hahnemann, for 6 years later in 1796 he published the first article proclaiming the doctrine of the “Law of SIMILARS” that formed the basis of an entirely new Science of Healing.

The Basic Principle
The Law of Similars based on the Latin phrase “SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURENTUR” (likes cure likes), finds its very first mention by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, in 5th century B.C. and later on by peers like Paraselsus, Aristotle, Von Haller etc. and also the Hindu texts. It was also utilized by many cultures, including the Chinese, Greeks, Mayans, Native American Indians and Asian Indians. But it was Dr. Hahnemann who studied and experimented in depth, to codify this law into a full fledged, systematic science of medicine. He named this science ‘HOMEOPATHY’ ( Homoios, in Greek means Similar, & Pathos means Suffering ).

Some of the other important laws
a) The law of Single Remedy…. Suggests use of a single remedy selected on the symptom totality of the patient.
b) The law of Single Dose… whereby just a single dose of rightly selected remedy is enough to activate the curative powers of the body’s own Vital-Force & repeated occasionally depending on the acuteness or chronicity of the condition.
c) The law of Minimum Dose … Advocates the use of highly diluted (potentised) form of the drug, just subtle enough to activate the curative powers of body’s own vital force.
d) Herring’s Law … States that cure of the disease condition will take place in the reverse order of its appearance, i.e. :
From above, downwards.
From within, outwards.
From more important to less important parts of the body.

The complete systematization of the principles & practice of Homeopathy as an art of healing was effected with the publication of Dr.Hahnemann’s Organon of Medicine, in 1810, followed by Organon of Healing Art, Materia Medica Pura & the invaluable Chronic Diseases.

With Dr.Hahnemann discovering the method of testing the positive action of each individual drug, and a law guiding the selection of a drug to cure diseases; the art-of-healing was ultimately placed on a scientific footing.