Law of Similars and Homeopathy

It does no harm to revisit how and why homeopathy was born over 200 years ago given it gets so much bad press in the UK main stream media largely based on ignorance and an embedded agenda.

An extremely good piece on the website Homeopathy Plus explains the history of homeopathy - https://homeopathyplus.com/tutorial-2-law-of-similars-discovered/

Homeopathy emerged at a time when medical practices were unregulated and perilous and yet deemed by the profession to be cutting edge and state of the art.

According to Homeopathy Plus 'Patients faced treatments involving toxic substances such as lead, mercury, and arsenic, or procedures like bloodletting, purging, and blistering. Many individuals died from the treatments rather than the diseases they were intended to cure'.

Growing increasingly disillusioned with these contemporary medical practices, German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755 – 1843) stopped practicing medicine in 1790 out of concern for his patients' well-being.

While focussing on his chemical studies he began translating foreign medical texts into German and one such text was about the drug decoction made from the bark of the Chinchona tree (source of Quinine), known for its curative properties in the treatment of malaria.

He was struck by the claims being made about the bark and decided to test it on himself and found that after just taking one dose he experienced similar symptoms to malaria.

He spent many years after that conducting more experiments with various substances, observing that they induced symptoms in healthy people akin to those they could treat in the unwell.

According to Homeopathy Plus, in 1796 Hahnemann 'published a ground-breaking essay detailing the Law of Similars, demonstrating its effects in numerous substances. The concept of 'similia similibus curantur' or 'like cures like', that underpins everything a homeopath does, was finally validated.

It is worth highlighting here that this is a natural law first identified at least 3,000 years ago. Hippocrates spoke about it. It is mentioned in the Egyptian Papyri and the Hebrew bible, but it was Hahnemann who developed the idea into the system of medicine that is homeopathy. Hahnemann used the Greek words 'Homeo' meaning similar and 'Pathos' meaning suffering, to create the new science of homeopathy.

This content is provided for information purposes only and is not a substitute for getting professional help.