Objectively speaking, homeopathy is a medical and pharmaceutical speciality that consists in giving the patient minimum doses of the homeopathic medicine to avoid intoxication and stimulate the organic reaction.
It is a practice that serves to restore the balance of health with a focus on the individual, not on the disease.
To know what homeopathy is, it is important to know its principles, organised by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann, appointed as the creator of the practice, in 1796. Read on!
So how does homeopathy work?
Homeopathy works as any other therapy that obeys the principles of biology. It is a science that uses diluted medicines capable of promoting the harmony and balance of the vital energy of the organism. Homeopathy makes use of a minimum amount of substances, but it is scientifically proven that biological models – human beings, plants, animals and even the soil – respond to micro stimuli and that they are able to promote a realignment, an adjustment of this biological model. Disease is a disturbance of one’s vital energy and homeopathy restores the balance.
What are the principles of homeopathy?
Strictly speaking there are eight homeopathic principles, however some of them are highly specialised, therefore only four of those principles are mentioned in this article.
Law of Similars
As one of the main principles of homeopathy, the law of similars indicates that the substances which are capable of causing certain symptoms in a healthy individual may stimulate the cure in individuals who are sick and present the same symptoms caused by the substances. The Law of Similars was first observed by the Greek physician Hippocrates.
This is one of the pillars of homeopathy, known as the Law of Similarity – similar cures similar (from Latin: similia similibus curantur). In other words, the central idea of how homeopathy works is that substances capable of triggering in a healthy individual a set of signs and symptoms, can also cure these symptoms in a sick individual”.
To exemplify: a medicine capable of causing, in a healthy person, fever, headache and fatigue may be used to cure a sick person who presents the same symptoms. Making an analogy, it is like using snake venom to cure someone bitten by it. Science advocates that when two equal forces meet, they cancel each other out. That’s why homeopathic therapy works so well.
Experimentation in the Healthy Man
The second principle of homeopathy is related to the experimentation of the substances used in homeopathic medicines.
Also called pathogenetic, homeopathic or pure experimentation, it is the procedure of testing medicinal substances on healthy individuals to identify the symptoms that will reflect their action.
The substances are tested at different doses and concentrations. Thus, physical, functional, emotional and mental symptoms are identified so that the pathogenesis is recorded. The term means the set of signs, objective and subjective, that a healthy organism presents when experimenting a certain medicinal substance.
With the identification of the pathogenesis, it is possible to indicate the application of the substance in sick individuals who present the same symptoms.
Minimum doses
In the beginning of homeopathy studies, physician Samuel Hahnemann identified that, when starting the treatment with high doses, it was noticed the worsening of the symptoms. This happened due to the sum of the natural symptoms caused by the disease and the artificial symptoms caused by the medicine.
So, Hahnemann started to make tests reducing the doses with a dilution technique in water and alcohol. Besides diluting the homeopathic medicament, he started to homogenise the solutions through agitation, called succussion.
Through this technique, the reduction of aggravation of symptom observed in doses with high concentration, besides the greater potential of cure were identified.
You may have heard the expression “homeopathic doses” when someone wants to relate something that happens little by little or in small quantities, right? The expression comes from the maintenance of homeopathic medicines, presented in reduced and diluted doses.
Unique Medicine
This last principle of homeopathy refers to the experimentation of medicines. The technique established by physician Samuel Hahnemann points out that, in order to identify the pathogenesis of each medicine, it is fundamental that it is studied in isolation.
By analysing one substance at a time, it is possible to avoid interferences of other drugs and relate the symptoms to the effects in a more precise manner.
What is the main differential of homeopathy?
Western medicine has two opposing therapeutic currents: allopathy and homeopathy. Allopathy is the system of medication used by traditional medicine. Unlike homeopathy, the basic principle of allopathy is to combat disease by using drugs that produce effects contrary to the symptoms caused by it.
This is why many drugs are called “anti”, such as anti-flu and antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and etc. Allopathy focuses on the disease while homeopathy focuses on healing the body. While homeopathy is based on the cure by the similar, allopathy, related to conventional medicine, treats diseases and symptoms with medicines that produce opposite effects.
Unlike allopathy, homeopathic treatment focuses on the patient and not the disease and gives the stimulus that the body needs to promote self-healing. With the use of homeopathic medicines, the patient gets a treatment without aggression to the organism. The same occurs in paediatric homeopathy; a child’s health is restored without side effects. An identical process is verified in homeopathic dentistry and homeopathic veterinary medicine.
The homeopathic doctor, the homeopathic practitioner, the homeopathic dentist, the homeopathic pharmacist are responsible for indicating adequate medicines, which will be acquired in homeopathic pharmacies. In the same way, the homeopath veterinarian is a professional qualified to prescribe homeopathy for the treatment of animals.
The use of homeopathy also in agriculture and in veterinary medicine, either in the treatment of cattle or domestic animals, has obtained excellent results, a reality that answers with a big “no” the question: is homeopathy a placebo?
Homeopathy works and was developed to treat patients in its entirety and can be used to treat all patients, regardless of the diseases they have, as proven by numerous scientific studies conducted worldwide. The renowned homeopathic veterinary doctor, post-doctorate, Leoni Villano Bonamin, who was president (2002-2008) and vice-president (2008-2014) of the GIRI (Groupe International de Recherche sur l’Infinitésimal), is a scientist who has a long work related to proving the effectiveness of homeopathy. It is based on her years of studies and research that she categorically states: “homeopathy works” and she defends that “homeopathy is the medicine of the past, the present and the future”.
The Homeopathy Research Institute in Switzerland also has been carrying out extensive research on homeopathy.
Does homeopathy work? How to prove it?
“Yes, homeopathy works. It is already proven by the body of evidence experimental evidence in biological models, which do not have placebo effects. However it is necessary to understand that it is not a classic pharmacological phenomenon, hence the confusion. There are almost 6000 articles indexed in the PubMed database on homeopathy, many of which show how such biological effects occur. One only has to study these articles with an open mind to understand that there are other models of biological reasoning than the keyhole model.” – Professor Leoni Villano Bonamin
Nanoparticles that heal
Homeopathy is a cutting-edge science. It is considered “high tech” and may be defined as a nanotechnology, since it works in an infinitesimal scale, that is, infinitely small. This happens because the production method of the homeopathic medicine, which is dynamisation – successive dilutions of substances in a suitable vehicle and vigorous and rhythmic agitation – leaves minimal particles of substances. Homeopathic medicines produced from this process can be used to treat illnesses even before they manifest themselves, as a way of maintaining or restoring the balance of the organism’s vital energy in a subtle way.
Homeopathy is also used in the care of plants and animals, and through the use of diluted preparations that act to re-establish the vital energy of these organisms, there is no aggression to the system or impact on the environment.
“There are nano structures identified in homeopathic preparations, but it is still not known exactly what is their role in the mechanism of action. It is still too early to make such a statement. It is likely that the mesoscopic structure of water is more linked to the biological activity of homeopathic preparations than the microscopic or nanoscopic structures that appear in electron microscopy.
“Incidentally, René Descartes is much wronged in the homeopathic community, as he is remembered only for the statement that man is a machine, made under the target of the religious inquisition” – Professor Leoni Villano Bonamin
Is Homeopathy a speciality?
Currently, the World Health Organization recognises homeopathy as a practice of Traditional and Complementary Medicine (TCM). The specialty has a wide social recognition and acceptance.
Researches show that, worldwide, approximately 500 million people use homeopathy as a therapeutic form, which represents around 7% of the world population.
Understanding what homeopathy is and what its principles are is relevant in order to consider the technique as an alternative to take care of health.
What does Homeopathy treat?
Every person – from babies to the elderly – as well as all kinds of animals, plants and soil, can be treated with homeopathy, and in principle, any disease can be treated with homeopathy, from a pest in the field or a contamination in an animal, as well as a flu or an infection, and diseases such as anxiety and depression.
In the case of diseases such as cancer, homeopathy can be seen as a complementary therapy, being then used to treat the bad effects of conventional treatment such as loss of appetite and nausea caused by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
This science is used to re-establish the balance of vital energy and to treat a myriad of physical and psychological illnesses, and is even considered an important therapy for anxiety. Homeopathy is also used to treat pests and diseases in plants and animals.
Child Homeopathy: Paediatric Health
Paediatric homeopathy affords the child less susceptibility to common illnesses such as colds, sinusitis, bronchitis and others which, when appearing repeatedly, signal the weakening of vital energy. Homeopathy also has very positive effects on emotional disorders, favouring the overcoming of imbalances from gestation to growth.
As homeopathy for children has no contraindications, parents have increasingly opted for this therapy, considered a safe option for the treatment of the child.
Homeopathy in Agriculture
The aim of using Homeopathy in agriculture is to prevent and control diseases and insects, stimulate the physiology of plants and strengthen their resistance. This technology presents itself as a great tool in the treatment of crops for the production of pesticide-free food.
Homeopathy acts in plants as a stimulant of the defence mechanisms, and repairs the metabolic imbalance that impairs the use of nutrients. The results are an increase in vigour and resistance and a reduction in pests and diseases. This agronomic result demands less use of agrochemicals and, with their use, excellent results of productivity and quality are achieved, with positive impacts on the environment and on the health of workers and consumers.