Homoeopathy: How it works
By Kuldip Dhiman

A HIGHLY experienced Chicago doctor was watching over his dear wife who was terminally ill. As the doctor was sure his wife would barely survive a day or two, he decided to fulfil her last wish. When everything failed to cure her, she had asked him to bring in a homoeopath. Although the doctor was one of the bitterest critics of homoeopathy, he very reluctantly sent for one Dr Phelan who lived nearby. On his arrival, Dr Phelan began to ask various questions about the patient’s earlier diseases, family history of disease, dreams, emotional state and so on. The husband could barely control his laughter: Why is this fool asking such stupid questions? What has my wife’s past diseases, her dreams, her emotional state got to do with her present condition? The homoeopath gave the patient one dose, and then asked her husband to repeat the dose after two hours. The patient’s husband, who was at the time translating a medical treatise, reluctantly agreed.After two hours, when he went into his wife’s chamber to administer the second dose, he was astonished to see that she was blissfully asleep. The next day, the patient who had not eaten for days, asked for water, and later asked for something to eat. And within a few days she was a healthy person again.

Dr James Tyler Kent, the sceptic husband, was so dumbfounded by the miraculous cure of his wife that he resigned from the Eclectic Medical Association in 1879 and devoted the rest of his life to homoeopathy research. But the questions and doubts that arose in his mind before his acceptance of homoeopathy dog many professionals and laymen to this day: Does homoeopathy really work? Is it a science? How could such tiny sweet pills be effective? Before forming any opinion in favour or against it, we must first try to understand the philosophy, and the basic principles of homoeopathy.

Although diseases have been cured by many different methods, the three most known to us are:

The preventive method: In this method, the original causes of a disease are removed or destroyed.

The cure of opposites by opposites: The method employed here is Contraria contrariis curantur, i.e., healing opposites by opposites. In other words using an antidote to cure a malady. The most popular system based on this principle is the allopathic system, known in India as Angrezi Medicine. Allopathy means ‘different from the suffering’. In this system, the drugs work against the disease and its symptoms, and this is obvious from drugs such as anti-biotics, anti-depressants, anti-inflammatory, and so on.

Likes cured by likes: This is the principle on which homoeopathy is based. Similia similibus curantur, i.e., likes are cured by likes. Dr Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy, slightly modified curanture and spelled it curentur. It now means ‘Let likes be cured by likes.’ The word homoeopathy was coined also coined by him. It is derived from the Latin words Homois which means Similar and Pathos which means suffering. The whole word means ‘similar to the suffering.’

We may have to go back in time to appreciate how and why a German physician, Dr Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann (April 10, 1755 - July 2, 1843), broke away from conventional medicine and gave birth to an entirely new system of healing. Hippocrates (born about 460 BC), the father of medicine, was a Greek physician who believed that the body is, in most cases, capable of healing itself, and, therefore, the patient is to be treated and not the disease: "Our natures are the physicians of our diseases."

He believed that disease could be cured either by similars or contrairs. He was also the first one to propound the theory Similia similibus curantur. Celsus, a Roman physician used to say:’Give me a drug that will produce a fever, and I will cure every illness." This concept was known to many ancient cultures, and was also known to the ancient ayurvedic physicians as visham visham nashyate, i.e., poison kills poison. Another great physician, Phillippe Theophrasus Bombast von Hohenheim (1493-1541), better known as Paracelsus, too, had a presentiment of the principles on which homoeopathy is based. He proclaimed that what makes us ill, is also capable of curing us. He made a prophetic statement. "All things are poison, it is the dosage that makes a thing not poison."

Dr Hahnemann, a highly respected allopath of his time was totally dissatisfied with the way patients were being treated. He believed that the contrair contrariis curantur method, on which the allopathic system is based, does not cure disease, but merely suppresses the symptoms. The patients think they are cured but do not realise that the disease has actually been suppressed, and might erupt again in a more dangerous form.

With the help of his devoted disciples, Dr Hahnemann came up with a new system of medicine that cured patients by giving minute ‘potentised’ doses of medicines. What is ‘potentisation", and how did Dr Hahnemann hit upon the idea?

While he was translating Dr Cullen’s Treatise on Materia Medica, Dr Hahnemann came across a speculative statement that said the most effective cure for malaria was the extract of Cinchona bark, also known as the Peruvian bark, or China, and it cures because it is a stomachic.Dr Hahnemann was suddenly struck inspiration. He decided to swallow a dose of China, although he was not suffering from malaria. To his surprise, he discovered that after some time his body began to display symptoms similar to malaria fever. When he discontinued the medicine he was automatically restored to his normal health. Dr Hahnemann was intrigued: why did the medicine that was supposed to cure malaria create similar disease in his body? He made numerous experiments on himelf and his devoted disciples, and came to the conclusion: "Peruvian bark, which is used as a remedy for intermitttent fever (malaria), acts because it can produce symptoms similar to those of intermittent fever in healthy people".

But that was not the end of it all. Dr Hahnemann realised that if the extract of China is given in a crude form, it only has a palliative effect, i.e., it merely suppresses the disease. After years of research, and a dash of intuition, he invented the method of ‘potentisation’.

Potentisation: Without getting too technical, let us understand what ‘potentisation’ means, and how a homoeopathic medicine is prepared. First of all the extract of a plant, or chemical is taken. Then one part of the extract is dissolved in 99 parts of a preservative (water, sugar, or alcohol), and then potentised by succussion (some use the decimal scale 1+10 parts). This forms potency 1c. To make it doubly strong, the homoeopath takes one part from potency 1c (1 part medicine +99 parts of preservative) to make it potency 2c, and to make it more strong he takes one part from potency 2c and again adds it to 99 parts of preservative, and it goes on in this manner. Now, this sounds paradoxical and absurd. If we have to make any solution twice as strong, most of us would say that we ought to add one more part of the extract, then another and so on, whereas in homoeopathy they ‘dilute’ the medicine to make it stronger. Here is the big difference in the homoeopathic method, that has led to so much confusion and misunderstanding. Sceptics ask, will not a stage be arrived when nothing of the original extract is left in the preservative? To this homoeopaths say that ‘dilution’ and ‘potentisation’ are two entirely different concepts. In this book Alternative Medicine, Dr Andrew Stanway answers this puzzling paradox: "To understand the answer we need to look at the very latest concepts in nuclear physics. Avogadro’s law states that the number of molecules in one gram molecule of a substance is 6.023x10-23. This means that theoretically if we dilute something to 10-24 (that is 1 and 24 zeroes ... i.e. 12 c potency), there aren’t any of the original molecules left. Recent work has shown, however, that the water in which they were originally dissolved still might carry information (in the form of energy) about the original substance.

Put in another way, the original substance has ‘imprinted’ itself on to the water molecules. Our knowledge of crystal structure and behaviour also indicates how a homoeopathic remedy associates with lactose to form new energy-rich lattices under the influence of physical grinding Modern biochemists now happily discuss free energies being produced in biological reactions and a whole new area of science works on the assumption that energy rather than mass is at the heart of everything. By grinding or succussing an increasingly potent remedy with new diluent, more energy is built up in the molecules in rather the same way as people crammed into a railway compartment have more ‘burst-out’ energy when the train stops than a similar number of people sitting in a row of seats."

The vital force: The other important factor to be considered by Dr Hahnemann was that of the ‘vital force’ of our body. Most ancient cultures of the world believed that there is some spiritual force in our body. Early Greek thinkers like Aristotle believed in ‘entelechy’ and the ‘life principle.’ Later, physicians like Galen believed that world spirit or breath of life, pneuma, is inhaled from the air and circulated through the body to be converted in to vital spirit in the heart. Indian sage called it prana, and the Chinese named it Ch’i. Homoeopaths believe that balancing mechanism keeps us in health, provided the stresses on our constitution are not too great. Dr Hahnemann called it the ‘vital force’. In his book Homoeopathy for Mother and Baby, Dr Miranda Castro explains the concept of the vital force thus. "The human organism, indeed any living thing, has a unique relationship with its environment, which biologists refer to as ‘homoeostasis’. This means that a healthy living being is self-regulating, with an innate (protective) tendency to maintain its equilibrium and compensate for disruptive changes. Homoeopaths believe that the vital force produces symptoms to counteract stresses and makes adjustments, moment by moment throughout our lives, to keep us healthy and balanced. These symptoms, then, are simply the body’s way of telling us how it is coping with stress."

Such common symptoms as shivering when we feel cold, and the tongue getting dry when the body needs water, or stomach burning when we need food, prove the above point. Homoeopathic medication does not replace missing substances; it does not aim to compensate a component system directly, it is does not believe in antidotes. It acts as a catalyst. The remedy stimulates the body’s own vital force to heal itself.

Homoeopathy drugs are never tested on animals or people who are suffering from disease. The tests, or ‘provings’, as homoeopaths call them, are done on about a fifty or so healthy volunteers of both sexes and of as wide an age group as possible. They are called ‘provers’. These healthy volunteers are divided into two groups. One group is given the new medicine that has to be tested, and the second group is given a placebo (a plain substance that has no medicinal properties). The tests are usually done by a double-blind trial which means neither the provers nor the conductor of the provings know at the time who is taking what. But some researchers do not believe in this method, they believe that the conductor must know who is getting what, so that if a drug has an adverse effect on a volunteer, immediate measures can be taken.

In most medical systems, they recognise diseases and medicines that cure them. For example, you have medicines for arthritis, asthma, fever etc. If ten people are suffering from cough, usually, the same medicine is prescribed to all of them.This is not the case with homoeopathy. Homoeopaths don’t say that this medicine is for cough, this for fever, this for cold. They believe the proper way to prescribe is to write down all the symptoms of the patient, both physical and mental, and select the medicine that would produce such symptoms in a healthy person. When a patient cannot be asked about mental symptoms, as in the case of infants and animals, their behaviour is observed to get a clue to their mental state.

Dr J.B. D’Castro, the pioneer of homoeopathy in Punjab, explains how the homoeopathic medicines work "Suppose a patient reports five symptoms, we administer a medicine that produces ‘similar’ five symptoms in the body. What happens then is that artificial symptoms are produced in the areas of the body where the natural disease is active. Let me make it clear. Homoeopathy does not introduce artificial disease into your body but artificial symptoms similar to the disease afflicting you. This must be clearly understood, to avoid any misconceptions that might arise. So we have five natural symptoms and five artificial symptoms making in all ten symptoms; and as a result we notice aggravation of the disease. For a while the patients feel their condition is getting worse. Now, don’t be alarmed; homoeopathic aggravation is a clear indication that you are on the road to recovery. An experienced physician will gauge the seriousness of the natural disease and administer a medicine that is just a little stronger than the natural disease. In the end the artificial medicine interacts with the natural disease and finally nullifies it."

Dr Hahnemann postulated that it is impossible for two similar diseases to exist side by side in the body. So if we manage to create two similar disease conditions in the body, they will ultimately negate themselves, leaving us cured. Elaborating on how the medicines are prescribed, Dr Castro cites two examples:

"I remember the case of a family of an Air Force officer that was suffering from dangue fever. The father reported that he had body pains all over; the wife felt thirsty all the time; the daughter wanted to be left alone. All she wanted was a glass or two of water after two or three hours. This in homoeopathy is called individualisation; every disease acts on a person according to his individual body and character. A physician must be aware of this individual character. This difference is not recognised by any other system of medicine. Did I give the same medicine for three of them?No. The patient who was restless was given Rhus Tox, the second patient who felt thirsty all the time was given Arsenic Alb., and the girl was given Bryonia. So different medicines were given to three persons of the same family, although they were suffering from the same problem.

"Now I will give you an opposite example.If some patients come to me and tell me that they are suffering from constipation, they do not pass stools for a week, then they pass stool for a day and feel better, and for another week feel constipated, I ask them about their appetite. If they say they eat quite well, one of these patients may be suffering from asthma,the second may be suffering from diabetes, the third from arthritis, and the fourth from cancer. But to all of them I will prescribe the same medicine! Why? Because these peculiar symptoms that were produced by a particular remedy in a healthy person were found in four different patients although suffering from different diseases. In the first case I gave different medicines to three patients suffering from the same problems but with different symptoms; in the second case I gave the same medicine to five different patients sufferng from different problems but reporting similar symptoms."

The other principle of Dr Hahnemann was that of smaller doses, the dose must be as small, and in as low a potency as possible. This factor appears to be paradoxical but it is confirmed by the Arndt-Schulz Law: "Large dose of a poisonous substance may prove lethal. Smaller doses inhibit, but minimal doses of the same poison can actually stimulate vital cellular function."

According to Dr Alok Agnihotri, Principal, Institute of Post - Graduate Homoeo-pathic Medical Education and Research, Mohali, the proof of the pudding is in the eating: "Hundreds of patients who were abandoned by other systems have been cured by homoeopathy. But that is not scientific proof, you might say. All right, you could monitor the changes after administering homoeopathic medicines to a patient in the lab. You might make tests before the medicine is given, during the treatment, and after cure. For example, after giving a homoeopathic medicine to a person suffering from the joint pains, there might be biochemical changes in his blood. Uric acid might increase, cholestrol level might increase. If homoeopathy is a faith-cure, you won’t notice any chemical changes in the body."

In their scientific paper Homoeopathy and conventional medicine in the management of pregnancy and childbirth published in 1994 in Switzerland, two research scholars fromZurich, B. Hochstrasser and P. Mattamann observe: "Studies on homoeopathic interventions in obstetrics report positive influence of homoeopathic remedies on uterine contractility and the evolution of childbirth. The only study comparing homoeopathic and conventional therapy in women with increased risk for contraction abnormalities found few differences between the treatments, except fewer cases of haemorrhage and decreased abnormal contractions in patients treated with homoeopathic remedies. Methodological difficulties in comparing homoeopathic and conventional medical intervention require specific research designs, taking into account the different theoretical and practical approaches of the two disciplines."

All this sounds very impressive but there might be some readers who might have failed to respond to homoeopathy. One reason could be that they might have not told the physician the entire truth about their disease. The second, they might not have followed the physician’s advice properly, the third reason could be the inexperience of the physician himself; and the fourth factor to be considered is that no system can boast of a 100 per cent success rate. As Dr Agnihotri concedes: "We are physicians, not magicians.Our endeavour is to fight against disease, but we cannot fight against nature."

The idea here is not to prove that one system is superior to another, but to not overlook a system just because it is difficult to prove how it works. All that a patient should be interested in is cure. As Dr Hahnemann himself put it. "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." If this ideal cure is achieved by homoeopathy, allopathy, ayurveda, acupuncture, or even by a witchdoctor — who cares?