Fundamental Of Hom. Science

7 Cardinal Principles

1) LAW OF SIMILIA:

Homoeopathy is based on the Law of Similars. Indeed, the word itself is from the Greek-Homoion meaning Similar', and Pathos Meaning Disease’. The Law of Similar means that a drug substance which creates symptoms and conditions in a healthy person will cure sick person manifesting similar symptoms. This can be summed up in the dictum Similia Similibus Curentur.

Thus Homoeopathy may be defined as the Therapeutic Method of “Symptom-Similarity.”

The first promulgation of this principle was made by Hahnemann in 1796 in as essay published in Hufeland's Journal,

Entitled. “ On a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Properties of Drugs.

The followers of the Law of Similars believe that disease is intimately associated with the life of the individual and is a result of internal concealed causes; that pathological tissue changes are the end results of the disease, and if cures is to be effected the whole individual man must be treated.

No two persons are exactly alike, each individual being made up of particular characteristics by which he is distinguished viz; the form of the body, colour of the hair and eyes, height, gait, abilities and so on. Similarly no two persons react in the same way to a particular stimulus. Those who believe in the Law of Similars, therefore, use a system of medicine by which their remedies are prescribed strictly according to the individual requirements of each sick person.

“Similia Similibus Curentur”:

“Lets like be treated by like”

This is the fundamental law of the system of Homoeopathy. We can find root of this law in ancient Hindu medical text, it also being believed by Aristotle Hippocrates and others. But it totally submerged as the modern medical science advances, till the genius of Hahnemann rescued it and placed it on ground of experimental footing.

2) LAW OF SIMPLEX:

While the first law (The Law of Similar) must always apply,

Hahnemann stated: The day of true knowledge of medicines and of the true healing art will dawn when physicians shall trust the Cure of complete cases of disease to a single Medicinal Substances, and when. . . they will employ for the extinction and cure of a case of disease, whose symptoms they have Investigated, one single medicinal substance, whose positive effects they have ascertained, which can show among these a group of symptoms very similar to those presented by the case of disease...'

And again: In no case of healing is it necessary (and for that reason alone it is impermissible) to use more than one simple medicinal substance on the patient at a time. It is difficult to understand why there should be the slightest doubt about whether it is more natural and more rational in a case of illness to use only one simple medicinal substance of known quality at a time or a mixture of several different ones. In Homoeopathy, the only true, simple and rational science of healing, it is absolutely impermissible to give the patient two different medicinal substances at the same time.

This is the uniqueness of Homoeopathy unlike other system of medicine Homoeopathy believes in single medicine at a time.

It is not that combination of two substances provides the third combine characteristic to parent substance. Most of the time it produces the third entirely new one which has no connection with the parent substance. The result product has its own individual features.

3) LAW OF MINIMUM:

The necessity for the third law of Homoeopathic medicine was brought about by Hahnemann's observations that when prescribing the similar remedy in the then recognized dosage, the disease was initially aggravated. From this he deduced that the dose prescribed was too large and proceeded, therefore, to dilute the remedy on strictly mathematical lines. He found that this method he not only avoided the aggravations of the disease, but the efficiency of the medicine was increased.

The spiritual power of medicine achieves its object not by quantity but by quality.'

The suitability of a medicine for any given case of disease does not depend on its accurate homoeopathic selection alone, but likewise on the proper size, or rather smallness of the dose.'

A medicine which when given by itself in a sufficient large dose to a healthy individual produces a definite effect, that is, a number of its own peculiar symptoms, preserving its own tendencies, will be able to produce them even in the smallest dose . . . for curative purposes incredibly small doses are sufficient. . . if instead of smaller and smaller doses, increasingly large ones were given, then (after the origin disease, has disappeared) there arise merely medicinal symptoms, a kind of artificial and unnecessary disease. . . How much the sensitiveness of the body towards medicinal stimuli increases the illness can only be appreciated by the accurate observer. Especially when the disease has become very serious, this surpasses all belief. . . On the other hand, it is just as true as it is remarkable that even the most robust people, who are suffering from a chronic disease, notwithstanding their abundant physical strength, as soon as they are given the medicine positively helpful in their chronic disease, experienced just as great an impression from the smallest possible dose, as if they were suckling babes.'

From these quotations you will realize that the mathematical reduction of the amount of medicine introduces an entirely new approach in dealing with sickness and disease.

4) PRINCIPLE OF DRUG PROVING:

The tendency of Medicine has always been to experiment on the sick. Hahnemann experimented only on the healthy, in order to have an exact Materia Medica ready and proved for administration in sickness. He soon gathered round him as enthusiastic band of disciples (some fifty of them were medical men) and he and they "proved" (i.e. tested) drug after drug, with all possible precautions to eliminate error; and these original proving, carefully and faithfully recorded, form the nucleus of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica. They are embodied in his wonderful work - his Materia Medica Pura - which is as alive and up-to-date to-day as the day when it was published - and in his subsequent work, Chronic Diseases. These two, with his Organon on the Art of Healing, are the best known among his numerous works, and embody the essentials of his teaching.

The purely scientific bent of Hahnemann's mind and the reason why his medical works have survived those of his contemporaries, to be as illuminating and useful to-day as on the day when they were penned, is seen by the following : -

"A true Materia Medica", he says, will consist of the genuine, pure, and undeceptive effects of simple drugs", and again "Every such Materia Medica should exclude every supposition - every mere assertion and fiction - and its entire contents should be the language of nature, uttered in response to careful and faithful enquiry."

Many remedies, since Hahnemann's day, have been added to our armory against disease; but all subsequent work has been done on his lines. It has never been found necessary to eliminate or to alter. Recorded in the simple language of nature, free from theory, safe from the transient language of succeeding generations, they stand for all time compete and true; while science, in discovering new truths, has never been able to touch Hahnemann's premises - except to confirm - since they are based on Law.

For the more purposes of Homoeopathy, experiments in drug-action on animals are useless, as Hahnemann pointed out, and that for two reasons. The proverb "One man's meat is another man's poison, "applies with ten-fold force when it comes to animals.

"Aliments and poisons are convertible, according to the specific nature of different animals, so that aliments become poisons, and poisons alimentary,"

5) PRINCIPLE OF DRUG DYNAMISATION:

Drugs in common use, and many substances supposed to be inert in their crude states, became endowed with new and hitherto unsuspected activities and powers.

So Hahnemann, setting out simply to reduce the quantity of his doses, discovered Potentisation, an entirely new principle in posology, a wonderful development in the world of therapeutics, without which the law of cure would have been forgotten. This is the principle which gives life and power to the system of medicine which Hahnemann developed and this is the third great step in the evolution of the law of cure.

As Morgan says:

To Hahnemann alone is due imperishable honour and renown for discovering, first, the existence of a universal law of cure: and second, that the specific properties of drugs could be developed, transmitted and utilized by Potentisation.

With the discovery of Potentisation, or dynamization, began the first practical tests of the newly-discovered law of cure.

6) PRINCIPLE OF VITAL FORCE:

The principle of vital force is the soul of Homoeopathy. The system of homoeopathy becomes fruitless without through understanding of vital force.

In homoeopathy we are more particularly concerned with dynamic energy. This dynamic energy Hahnemann called the dynamis, the spirit-like, vital force, animating the material body. In the human body we have present all three forms of energy, the physical in the tissues, the dynamic in the brain and nervous system, and the spiritual in the mind. This dynamis of the human organism interpenetrates each and every physical tissue of the body; it does not sit apart and superintend the actions of the tissues and organs. It is the thing, the power, the force, upon which we depend for reaction. This brings us down to the practically of taking advantage of this dynamic energy in our homoeopathic prescribing. All energy, in its essence, consists of action and reaction, and this action and reaction are equal and opposite.

It is clear that Hahnemann wishes to teach that it is a disorder of the activities of the internal man, a lack of harmony or lack of balance, which gives forth the signs and symptoms by which we recognize disease. These sensations constitute the language of disorder, i.e., the means by which we recognize disorder and disease. This immaterial vital principle, this simple substance, everywhere pervades the organism, and in disease this disorder everywhere pervades the organism, it pervades every cell and every portion of the human economy. We will see in course of time that the change in forum of a cell is the result first of disorder, that the derangement of the immaterial vital principles is the very beginning of the disorder, and that with this beginning there are changes in sensation by which man may know this beginning, which occurs long before there is any visible change in the material substance of the body.

7) PRINCIPLE OF CHRONIC MIASM.:

We have dealt with the basic principles of Homoeopathy as laid down by Hahnemann. With knowledge of these principles much good work can be done. Yet Hahnemann went a great deal further in the latter part of his life, supplementing his earlier work by making Hahnemann, in his practice, observed that the homoeopathic remedies he was then using were successfully in curing the ailments of many patients, yet after a period of time some returned with similar symptoms stronger than before. The disease was in fact progressing.

He states it was a continually repeated fact that the non-venereal chronic diseases, after being time and again removed homoeopathically by the remedies fully proved up to the present time, always returned in a more or less varied form and with new symptoms, or reappeared annually with an increase of complaints.

This fact gave him the first clue that the homoeopathic physician...has not only to combat the disease presented before his eyes...but that he has always to encounter only some separate fragment of a more deep-seated original disease.'

a deep study of Chronic Diseases

This conclusion was reached by Hahnemann after nearly twelve years of intensive study and research. For him there were three sources of chronic infection Miasms as he called them 1) Psora and the two venereal diseases 2) Syphilis and 3) Gonorrhoea which he called Sycosis