Homeopathy is a 200 year old system of medicine based on treating the individual, not the disease. Central to this form of medicine is the “like cures like” philosophy or “Similimum” principle. Individual ill patients are treated with a tiny amount of highly diluted dynamic medicine, that could cause the identical symptoms and illness picture if administered to a healthy person. Any effective homeopath will match the symptoms of the patients whole illness picture with the most appropriate individual homeopathic medicine.
The “like cures like” approach to healing is not new.. It can be traced back to the father of modern medicine Hippocrates about 2500 years ago.. Modern homoeopathy was re-discovered by a German doctor, physician and chemist, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) over 200 years ago. He was struggling at that time with many of the treatment protocols, and undesirable side effects as a consequence of medicines and medical treatments used at that time. He discovered that by diluting and energising medical substances and toxins, he could retain a valuable response in the patients condition, without the toxic and harmful consequences.
Another important part to effective homeopathic treatment is using the minimum dose. This means using as little of the remedy as possible to evoke a response from the individuals body. Homeopathic medicines (or remedies) are prepared by specialist pharmacies following regulated methods which have been used for over 200 years. In their preparation, the active ingredients become diluted – and this remains one of the most controversial elements about homeopathy. “How can a more diluted substance have an effect?”
There are a number of current theories about how homeopathy works and research into this area is ongoing. While science, research and human reasoning still has a bit to uncover, conceptualise and explain, there is a worldwide base of clinical evidence which demonstrates that homeopathy has a more positive than negative effect (see Resources – research).
Homeopathy is widely used by millions of patients around the world either privately or within the health systems in say Germany, India and France. Recent research published by the British Faculty of Homoeopathy from one of the UK’s own homeoapthic hospitals treating patients with a wide variety of conditions, concluded 70% of the 6,500 patients who took part and attended follow up appointments experienced an “improved health” with 50% experiencing “major improvement” under homeopathic treatment for a range of conditions1. Again in February 2011 information published by the “GP Magazine” showed “a third of the UK’s PCT’s were still funding Homeopathic treatments”2, even with the recent funding cuts.
References
1) Spence DS, Thompson EA, Barron SJ. Homeopathic treatment for chronic disease: a 6 year university hospital outpatient observational study. Jour of Alter & Comp Medicine, 2005;5:793-798.
2) http://www.gponline.com/News/article/1055121/Third-PCTs-fund-homeopathy
image courtesy http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2011/aug/30/homeopathy-nhs
