The symptoms of any illness are signals that your body is struggling to maintain a state of good health.

Homoeopathic Medicines turn to nature to provide a potent preparation designed to work With your body to achieve good health and balance.

At the outset of classical homeopathic treatment, your homeopath will need to know details about you and your life in order to find the right remedy for you as an individual. This will include your past medical history, lifestyle and any general complaints. This initial consultation may last an hour or more and will be treated in the strictest confidence.

In classical homoeopathy, a single remedy in a single potency is given to you, the patient. This will be given with precise instructions on when and how often to take the remedy, and when to stop.

The homoeopath may need to consult with a homoeopathic repertory (a book or computer program that lists symptoms and correlates these with remedies) in order to find the correct remedy for you, the individual, at that time. For an unusual case, this can be a time consuming process. The aim is to find the remedy that matches all the symptoms that the patient presents with.

As the case progresses, the remedy used may change, as the symptoms change. Or, the potency of the remedy given may change to stimulate another layer of the same imbalance in your vital force.

This is the style of Homoeopathy that was practised by homoeopathy's founder Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843).

Classical Homoeopathy

Discovered in the late 1700’s, homeopathy is a low-cost, non-toxic system of medicine. The system of homeopathic healing assists the natural tendency of the body to heal itself. It recognises that all symptoms of ill health are expressions of disharmony within the whole person and that it is the patient who needs treatment not the disease.

There are three principles upon which homeopathy is formulated:

• Like cures like (Law of Similars): Any substance that can produce the symptoms of an illness in a healthy human being can cure those same symptoms in a sick human being.
• The more dilute the remedy, the greater its potency (Law of the Infinitesimal Dose): Homeopathic remedies are usually prepared through a process of diluting with pure water or alcohol and succussing (vigorous shaking) such that the more diluted a substance gets, the more potent it becomes.
• An illness is specific to the individual (a holistic medical model): Homeopaths consult compendiums called repertories to determine the remedy that most closely matches the patient’s symptoms.

Homeopathic medicines are drug components made by homeopathic pharmacies consisting of plants, minerals and animal extracts. Remedies (usually in liquid, tablet or powder form) are prescribed in accordance with a patient’s symptoms and health conditions while individual characteristics such as emotions and physical condition are also taken into account.

Homoeopathy can assist with the treatment of many physical ailments as well as mental and emotional disorders.

Homoeopathy is a system of healing that exists in its own right using the inherent power of the human body to heal itself in times of sickness, but nevertheless relying upon the ingestion of a homoeopathic remedy to give the body something upon which to operate more efficiently in order to resume good health and normal workings. However, there are unique differences between homoeopathy and other healing systems.

The fundamental philosophical premise of homoeopathy, the formulation and potency of the homoeopathic remedy, and the minute dose of the homoeopathic prescription are all quite different from other forms of healing or prescribing.

By comparison, the larger doses of the herbal preparation and the intentions and expectations of the herbal practitioners who deliver the formulations to their patients may well have some similarities in the healing outcome that they seek, however, the methods employed to achieve the desired results – whether by diagnostic basis or prescription formulation - are quite different.

History

In the early days of “Homoeopathy” (basically translated as “similar suffering”) when its founder Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) used the expression to describe the particular form of healing that he chose to use, it was quite unknown. Hahnemann’s Organon of Medicine: A New Translation, (1986), Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, translated from the sixth edition, provides us at the Preface with a short history.

“Samuel Christian Hahnemann (1755-1843) was a German physician, born in Meissen, who discovered what he believed to be the key to curing the sick while translating a Scottish medical book in the early 1800s. His formulation of a fundamental law of healing, called the law of similars, states that a patient may be cured by a medicinal substance that would produce the same symptoms in a healthy person. Hahnemann died at the age of eighty-eight in 1843. Since then the scientific basis of homoeopathic medicine has been both enlarged and refined. But Hahnemann’s writings still remain the ultimate authority on its doctrines and practice, and of all his works the Organon gives the key to his ideas.”

The first edition of the Organon in 1810 gave an entirely new perspective on what was then regarded as the ‘healing arts’, but it nevertheless attracted immense criticism from the orthodox medicine practitioners of that time. Relegated to obscurity for many years, it emerged once again in the 1900s to later become an acceptable form of medical practise.

Provings

Experiments by Hahnemann gave him the insight to discover the fundamental basis of homoeopathy - the Law of Similars - namely, “Like Cures Like”. Discouraged from allopathic medicine by his displeasure of using for medicines the harmful substances of the day, Hahnemann experimented on himself. he first used Peruvian Bark (Cinchona), thereby showing to others the characteristic symptoms of Peruvian bark poisoning.

From this discovery, Hahnemann developed the ‘Law of Similars’, noticing that small doses of a particular substance given to a healthy individual would produce symptoms in that person that would be a reflection of the actual symptoms seen in a person suffering from a condition related to that substance.

For example, a person poisoned by Deadly Nightshade - Belladonna (Atropa belladonna) - a plant containing the alkaloids ‘hyoscyamine’ and ‘atropine’, would present with severe fever, exhaustion, mydriasis and hallucinations. These very same symptoms might appear in a healthy person to whom Belladonna is administered in a small homoeopathic dose. And it is from experiments such as these that the original “provings” were obtained.

Remedies

A homoeopathic preparation can be formulated from any animal or mineral substance - from a 'mother tincture'. But whereas a herbal substance contains active ingredients, a homoeopathic preparation, after serial dilution, may contain absolutely nothing of its originating active or inert ingredients.

Homoeopathic medicines are best taken between meals or half an hour away from food.

Homoeopathy is a well-accepted method of treatment for sickness and injury.

"The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of the health or removal and annihilation of the disease in its whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable and most harmless way on easily comprehensible principles”. - Samuel Hahnemann, founder of Homeopathy.

“The long-term benefit of homeopathy to the patient is that it not only alleviates the presenting symptoms but it re-establishes internal order at the deepest levels and thereby provides a lasting cure”. - George Vithoulkas, Director, Athenian School of Homeopathic Medicine.