Chapter One THE ORIGINS OF HOMEOPATHY The principle of "like can cure like" -- that is, an illness can be treated with a substance capable of producing similar symptoms to those being suffered by the patient -- is the basis of homeopathy. This principle dates back to the Greek physician Hippocrates who lived in the 5th century BC. He is considered the seminal figure in the history of medicine because he was the first person to think that disease is the result of natural forces, not divine influences. Central to his beliefs was the idea that careful observation of the symptoms specific to an individual, and of that person's reaction to disease, should be taken into account before reaching a diagnosis. He also believed that the patient's own powers of healing are essential in choosing an appropriate cure and should be encouraged. Hippocrates had a collection of several hundred remedies. One of the best examples of like curing like that he proved was the use of the root of Veratrum album (white hellebore) in the treatment of cholera. In large doses, this highly poisonous root causes violent purging that leads to severe dehydration, mirroring the symptoms of cholera. Most medical treatment in Hippocrates' time was based on the Law of Contraries, which held that an illness should be treated by a substance capable of producing opposite symptoms in a healthy person. Relieving diarrhea with a substance such as aluminum hydroxide, which constipates, is an example of treating an illness according to the Law of Contraries. Roman Influences From the 1st to 5th centuries AD, the Romans made great advances in medicine. They introduced more herbs into the pharmacopoeias and placed greater emphasis on the importance of preventive health care by improving public hygiene. Roman physicians, especially Celsus, Galen, and Dioscorides, increased the knowledge and understanding of the structure and function of the human body. Hippocrates' theory that "like can cure like" and his idea of an individual prescription for an individual patient, however, were largely ignored. During the Dark Ages in Europe, after the decline of the Roman Empire, there was little medical advancement. Although Greek and Roman medical traditions survived in Persia and throughout the Muslim world, it was not until the 16th century that European medical study resumed and progressed. New Ideas Despite an improved understanding of the workings of the human body, knowledge about the nature of disease, in particular what causes it, remained firmly tied to the notion of a mystical force. It was not until the early 16th century and the work of the Swiss doctor Paracelsus (1493-1541) that the causes of disease were linked to external forces, such as contaminated food and drink. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim changed his name to Paracelsus as a mark of respect for the Roman doctor, Celsus, and also to imply that he had surpassed Celsus in his abilities. One of Paracelsus's greatest achievements was laying down the foundations for modern chemistry by concentrating on practical experimentation rather than alchemy and its quest to transform base metals into valuable ones. He believed that plants and metals contained active ingredients that could be prescribed to match an illness. This belief was based in part on the notion that the external appearance of a plant gave an indication of the ailments it would cure, a theory that became known as the Doctrine of Signatures. For example, Chelidonium majus (celandine) was used to treat the liver and gallbladder because the yellow juice of the plant looked like bile. Paracelsus also believed that a poisonous substance which could cause a disease could also cure the disease, if given in very small doses, and that physicians should take into account the body's own natural ability to heal itself. Again, the "like can cure like" principle was advocated but it was ignored by Paracelsus's fellow physicians. It did not gain popularity for another 300 years, when homeopathy was founded. Medical Practices From the 16th to the 19th centuries, medical knowledge in Europe increased unabated. The great herbals, namely The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes , by John Gerard (1545-1612), and The Pharmacopoeia of Herbal Medicine , by Nicholas Culpeper (1616-54), were published and translated from Latin into English, allowing ordinary people to understand them. Many of the most important healing herbs and other remedies were later used in homeopathy. Despite the growth in medical knowledge, the general health of the population slowly deteriorated as more people moved to crowded, dirty, industrial cities, and standards of public hygiene declined. Medical practice became increasingly invasive, with many physicians using bloodletting or purging as a means of cure. Treatments with extremely toxic materials, such as arsenic, lead, and bismuth, which often shortened a patient's life or so weakened it that the afflicted were no longer capable of complaining, became more widespread. It was against this background that homeopathy was born. THE WORK OF HAHNEMANN The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Christian Hahnemann, was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1755. Despite an impoverished background, he acquired a good education and studied chemistry and medicine at the universities of Leipzig, Erlangen, and Vienna. After qualifying as a doctor in 1779, he set up in practice. Although Hahnemann worked mainly as a doctor, he supplemented his income by writing articles and books on medicine and chemistry. In these writings he protested against the harsh medical practices of the time, especially bloodletting, purging, and the massive doses of medicines that were administered to patients, often with terrible side effects. He argued for better public hygiene and advocated the importance of sensible eating, fresh air, exercise, and less cramped housing conditions. At a time when overcrowding was common and standards of hygiene were poor, he advised regular bathing and cleanliness of bed linen. By the late 18th century, Europe had entered a period of upheaval and social change. With the Industrial Revolution came widespread technological advances and many new scientific discoveries. In medicine, considerable work was done to identify and extract the active ingredients of herbs and other plants. The first important breakthrough occurred in 1803 in Germany, when Friedrich Serturner isolated morphine from the opium poppy. The First Proving Hahnemann became increasingly disillusioned with conventional medical practice, eventually giving up his work as a doctor to become a translator. In 1790, while translating A Treatise on Materia Medica , by Dr. William Cullen, Hahnemann came across a passage about Peruvian bark, or cinchona, which was to change his life as well as the lives of many people throughout the world. In his book, Cullen stated that quinine, which is a substance purified from the bark of the cinchona tree, was a good treatment for malaria because of its astringent qualities. This made no sense to Hahnemann who, as a chemist, was aware that there were other much more powerful astringents which had no effect whatsoever on malaria. He decided to investigate further. For several days he dosed himself with quinine and recorded his reactions in great detail. To his astonishment, he began to develop the symptoms of malaria one after another, despite the fact that he did not actually have the disease. The symptoms recurred every time he took a dose of quinine, and lasted for several hours. If he did not take any quinine, he had no symptoms. Was this, he wondered, why malaria was also cured by quinine? To test out his theory, he repeated the doses of quinine, which he called "provings," on people he knew well, again noting the reactions in great detail. He then went on to repeat the process with other substances that were in use as medicines, such as arsenic and belladonna. These provings were carried out under strict conditions, and the provers were not allowed to drink or eat anything that might confuse the results, such as alcohol, tea and coffee, and salty or spicy foods. Understanding Symptoms Hahnemann found that the provers' responses varied; some showed a few mild symptoms in response to a substance, whereas others experienced vigorous reactions with a variety of symptoms. The symptoms that were most commonly found for each substance he called first-line, or keynote, symptoms. Second-line symptoms were less common and third-line symptoms were rare or idiosyncratic. The combination of symptoms made up a "drug picture" for each substance being tested. Hahnemann continued to carry out his experiments and provings, testing a wide range of natural sources. He had rediscovered the principle of "like can cure like," and his work would bring about the establishment of a new system of medicine. THE DEVELOPMENT OF HOMEOPATHY After six years of conducting provings on many different substances, Hahnemann had accumulated a great deal of information about their effects. From this careful research and the "drug pictures" he had compiled, Hahnemann embarked on the next stage of his work, which was to test each substance on the sick to see whether they benefited or not. Before he began his tests, he gave his patients a physical examination and questioned them thoroughly about their symptoms, what factors made them better or worse, their general health, the way they lived, and their outlook on life. By taking note of all these details Hahnemann was able to build up a "symptoms picture" of each patient. He would then match an individual's symptoms picture to the drug picture of the various substances. Only when he had established the closest match would he prescribe a remedy. He found that the closer the match, the more successful the treatment. New Medical Principles Hahnemann surmised from this that he had indeed discovered a new system of medicine, in which a drug and a disease that produce similar symptoms cancel each other out in some way, thereby restoring the patient to health. He described this phenomenon as similia similibus curentur , or "like can cure like," which is the first and foremost rule of homeopathy. In 1796 Hahnemann's first work on this new medical system, A New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs and Some Examination of Previous Principles , was published. In it he stated: "One should imitate Nature which at times heals the chronic illness by another additional one. One should apply in the disease to be healed, particularly if it is chronic, that remedy which is able to stimulate another artificially produced disease as similar as possible and the former will be healed." He called this "homeopathy," from the Greek, homeo , meaning "similar," and pathos , meaning "suffering." In 1810 he set out his principals in The Organon of Rationale Medicine , and two years later began teaching homeopathy at the University of Leipzig. Diluted Remedies Some of the medicines administered by Hahnemann were poisonous, so he gave them to patients in very small, dilute doses. He was disturbed to learn, however, that some of his patients' symptoms worsened before becoming better. In order to prevent these "aggravations," as he called them, he changed the method of dilution. He devised a two-step process whereby he diluted each remedy by "succussing," or shaking it vigorously, and banging it down on a hard surface, at each stage of the dilution. He believed that by vigorously shaking a remedy the energy of a substance was released. To Hahnemann's surprise, not only did the diluted medicines cease to produce such strong aggravations, but they also seemed to act faster and more effectively than more concentrated solutions. Although they were weaker, they were actually more potent. For this reason, Hahnemann called his new homeopathic remedies "potentizations." In homeopathy, "potency" is used to describe the dilution, or strength, of a remedy. Hahnemann continued to experiment with diluting remedies throughout his life, using gradually weaker and weaker solutions, which paradoxically became increasingly potent. The remedies became so dilute that they no longer contained a single molecule of the original substance used to make them, yet they remained extremely effective. During his lifetime, Hahnemann proved the efficacy of about 100 homeopathic remedies. He believed that only a single remedy dose should be given, for the shortest period of time necessary, to stimulate the body's healing power. Hahnemann's Followers During the 19th century, Hahnemann's philosophy spread rapidly from Germany across Europe, and to Asia and the Americas. Although there were many in the medical profession who disputed Hahnemann's ideas, homeopathy became established in many countries and its reputation grew steadily. In 1831 there was a cholera outbreak in central Europe. To treat the disease, Hahnemann gave the remedy Camphor . Where this homeopathic treatment was used, the results were very successful. Hahnemann also advised that those infected should be quarantined. Again, he proved himself to be ahead of his time. One of Hahnemann's followers, Dr. Frederick Foster Hervey Quin, was among many people cured of cholera by Camphor . He had been interested in homeopathy for some time, but the success of his treatment so enhanced his respect for it that, in 1832, he set up a homeopathic practice in London and founded the first homeopathic hospital there in 1849. The cholera epidemic of 1854 allowed Dr. Quin the chance to prove the success of homeopathy once again. The death rate from cholera at the London Homeopathic Hospital was about 30 percent less than in other hospitals. These results, however, were suppressed and published only after Parliamentary intervention. The author of the official report concluded by saying, "If it should please the Lord to visit me with cholera I would wish to fall into the hands of a homeopathic physician." The Influence of Hering and Kent Homeopathy was established in the US during the 1820s, and quickly gained a widespread following. Dr. Constantine Hering (1800-80) and Dr. James Tyler Kent (1849-1916) were two important American homeopaths who continued Hahnemann's work in proving remedies and also introduced new ideas and practices to homeopathy. The Laws of Cure, devised by Dr. Hering, explain how disease is cured in homeopathy. There are three basic Laws of Cure: symptoms move from the top of the body downward; from the inside out; and from the most important organs to the least important. Hering also believed that a cure occurred in reverse order to the onset of symptoms. For example, people generally feel better emotionally before the physical symptoms disappear. Dr. Kent observed that different kinds of people reacted to certain remedies more strongly than to others. He maintained that people with similar body shapes and personalities tended to suffer from the same types of disease. This formed the basis of his theory that remedies should be prescribed according to an individual's emotional makeup and appearance, as well as his or her physical symptoms. He grouped people according to "constitutional types." For example, Nat. mur. types tend to be pear-shaped, have a dark complexion, be fastidious, keep to themselves, crave salt, and suffer from constipation. High-potency remedies were prescribed according to the patient's constitutional type and physical symptoms; this became known as classical homeopathy. High versus Low Potencies Toward the end of the 19th century, the English homeopath Richard Hughes (1836-1902) had begun to question the use of higher potencies prescribed constitutionally and insisted that pathological information only should form the basis of diagnosis. He also advocated using lower potencies. This division between the followers of Kent, who used high potencies and believed that a person's emotional characteristics should be taken into account as well as physical symptoms, and those of Hughes, who used low potencies based on physical symptoms, led to a split in homeopathy. Because of this internal split in practice, homeopathy, despite having become a strong rival to the conventional medical establishment, was in a weak position in comparison with conventional medicine, and by the 1920s had been almost totally suppressed. Since that time, however, homeopathy has experienced a resurgence throughout the world and the practice of classical homeopathy, in particular, has gained widespread recognition from homeopaths and conventional doctors alike. (Continues...) Copyright © 2000 Dorling Kindersley Limited. All rights reserved.
