Homeopathy And How Homeopathy Remedies Work

We can define homeopathy as a branch of medicine that treats ailments with remedies similar to the problem. Or in other words using the "Law of Similars". In the world of natural health there are several branches of medicine, and homeopathy is one of them. This means using a philosophy similar to vaccination where you give small doses of the disease causing agent in order to cure the problem.

Homeopathic physicians seek to stimulate the patients' symptoms rather than suppress them as is done in conventional medicine. This is done in the belief that the body once stimulated, begins to put forth the needed energy to heal itself.

An example of this is the use of Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade for the treatment of Scarlet Fever. The effects of an overdose of Belladonna are fever, dry mouth, flushed skin, dilated pupils, etc. These are similar to the symptoms of Scarlet Fever. Thus at certain times, this herb is prescribed in minute and highly diluted doses for Scarlet Fever.

Homeopathy has existed for hundreds of years. Swiss physicians of the 16th century were known to have seen the symptoms of disease as the body's fight against that disease and thus wrote how 'like must be cured by like'. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, also wrote of using nature to heal illness and homeopathy in particular when he said "....disease is produced and through the application of like cause, it is also cured".

The founder of this branch of alternative medicine was Samuel Hahnemann, born in the mid 1700's in Saxony. He was a brilliant linguist and student of medicine at the University of Leipzig until he began seeking safer alternatives to the barbaric and ineffective practices of medicine in his day.

Hahnemann produced varying homeopathic potencies as a measure of how many times the herb or other item was diluted; in other words, the smallest dose possible to make treatment both safe and yet effective. Homeopathic formulas are still denoted by those potencies today. In the health food stores you will see them listed as 6x or 30x, etc. The higher the number, the greater the dilution.

And finally, we define homeopathy as treating the whole person rather than just the area where they are showing symptoms of sickness. A homeopathic doctor is not just concerned with the illness, but with the patient as a whole, their physical appearance, likes and dislikes, temperament, etc.

Once they have a complete idea of the person and how they function, then they treat them accordingly. Just a few of the things commonly and successfully treated with homeopathy remedies are headaches, leg cramps, cold and flu, arthritis, allergies, coughs, etc.