What is Homeopathy ?

Homeopathy is a type of medical treatment discovered by a German Doctor an MD physician Dr Samuel Hahnemann in the year 1790.
Samuel Hahnemann was a practitioner of Allopathic treatment method which is now called "Modern medicine".
During his allopathic practice he experienced that -
Treatments given to patients were inhuman and cruel, which used to cause lot of pain and suffering to the patients rather than curing them; Medicines were given in large doses and had many side effects;
Medicines used to suppress the disease and some new disease or problem used to come up;
Many medicines were combined and given whose effects were not known and these also produced many side effects;
Medicines used, were used empirically without any clinical experiments and if experiments were conducted then they were on animals.

So Hahnemann wanted medicines to be -
● very safe and gentle in action;
● have no side effects;
● acts fast / rapidly;
● give curative results;
● non habit forming;

Discovery of Homeopathy

Hahnemann was not happy with the type of allopathic practice in his time, he closed his practice and resorted to translation of medical books from different languages in to German.

During one of these translations he came across the ability of peruvian bark [quinine] to cure malaria. He was not convinced with the explanation given of why it cures malaria. So to know the reason, he started drinking about 4 oz of juice of peruvian bark and in 1 -2 days he started experiencing the symptoms similar to that of malaria like chill, fever and sweat developing in him. He stopped the juice and these symptoms stopped; so to re test this effect, after few days he again started taking the juice and again he developed these symptoms resembling malaria. From this it dawned on him that probably every substance has a sick causing property, i.e. every substance can cause symptoms of sickness in a person. So he further thought that if this substance is given to the sick person who comes with similar symptoms then it could cure those symptoms.

He started testing or proving various medicines on himself and others. The symptoms produced were recorded in detail. He started giving these tested / proved medicines on people who had similar symptoms and to his astonishment he saw them to be cured of their diseases. So he concluded that every substance has sick causing property and when given to the sick with similar symptoms then same substance cures.

What makes the homeopathic medicines safe ?

It is due to the way they are prepared.
Homeopathic medicines are prepared by method called Potentisation or Dynamisation. Potentization is a process by which the medicinal properties which are latent in natural substances in their crude state become activated and can be utilised for curative purposes. Potentization is done through successive processes of dilution and succussion for liquid or soluble substances, and trituration for insoluble or dry substances.

Advantages of potentization :
Crude medicinal substance is reduced and is replaced by the dynamic properties of the substance so unwanted side effects are prevented.
Medicinal substance is diluted and with every dilution it is vigorously shaken [succussion] to liberate its medicinal energy.
Because of this dilution the quantity of raw substance reduces to a great extent and so chances of side effects become negligible.
In other words the effect of crude medicinal substance is replaced by effect of dynamic medicinal energy.

Status of homeopathy in World

Homoeopathy is currently used in over 100 countries. It has legal recognition as an individual system of medicine in 42 countries and is recognized as a part of complementary and alternative medicine in 28 countries. [WHO 2001]

The WHO states that Homeopathy is the second most used medical system internationally, with over 1 Billon USD in expenditures for such therapy.

A federally funded survey in 2007 found that in the previous year (2006) nearly 5 million Americans used homeopathic remedies, Washington Post, 27 Oct 2009.

According to the National Center for Homeopathy, sales of homeopathic remedies in the US are over $300 million and are increasing by 12% per year. National drugstore chains carry homeopathic products and the number of professional practitioners in the US has increased from 200 in the 1970s to 3,000 today. (Stehlin, 1996).

The British Royal Family has been under homeopathic care since 1820.
India is the world leader in Homeopathy, with about 100,000 registered Homeopathic Doctors.

Over 100 million people in India depend solely on this form of medical care.

2012: ASSOCHAM [The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India] says that homeopathy Industry is likely to be Rs. 4,600 crores [about 1 billion USD] and by 2017,homeopathy market to Touch Rs 52,000 crore [about 12 billion USD]

What makes the homeopathic medicines safe ?

It is due to the way they are prepared.
Homeopathic medicines are prepared by method called Potentisation or Dynamisation. Potentization is a process by which the medicinal properties which are latent in natural substances in their crude state become activated and can be utilised for curative purposes. Potentization is done through successive processes of dilution and succussion for liquid or soluble substances, and trituration for insoluble or dry substances.

Advantages of potentization :
Crude medicinal substance is reduced and is replaced by the dynamic properties of the substance so unwanted side effects are prevented.
Medicinal substance is diluted and with every dilution it is vigorously shaken [succussion] to liberate its medicinal energy.
Because of this dilution the quantity of raw substance reduces to a great extent and so chances of side effects become negligible.
In other words the effect of crude medicinal substance is replaced by effect of dynamic medicinal energy.