Homeopathy has its roots in Hippocrates and Paracelsus recognizing that, Like can cure Like. Samuel Hahnemann (nee 1755) was a German Chemist and M.D. who left the M.D. profession in the latter 1700’s, refusing further to participate in the frequent damaging of people by blood-letting; the use of Mercury in crude form; the use of other toxins in crude form; and in treating disease rather than the person who is suffering disease. Instead, he continued his valuable work translating chemistry texts into multiple languages, adding enlightening critiques in the margins. Authors appreciated the strengthening of their medical writings before they went into print.

After extensive experimenting with minimal doses of medicines in the late 1700's to see cure without the side effects common in the modern medicine of his time (as in our present times), he organized and expanded upon the ancient idea of Like Cures Like to create a systematic medicine, Homeopathy, now put to use by 1 in 12 -14 people in the world, depending on sources used as reference. The World Health Organization says over 500 million people depend on Homeopathy.

Here you will find extensive information about Homeopathy because in these times where everyone sees homeopathic remedies on store shelves OTC, at the same time very few actually understand Classical Homeopathy or anything about appropriate dosage or frequency of use. I seek to help those interested in learning more, regardless whether they are my patients. I also wish to give M.D.'s, N.D.'s, OMD's, Surgeons, Psychiatrists, Ayurvedic Doctors, Lay Midwives, Doulas, Lactation Consultants, CNM's Dentists, Orthodontists, Osteopaths, Nutritionists, Registered Dieticians, Acupuncturists, Shiatsu practitioners, CranioSacral Therapists, Chiropractors, Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists, Reiki practitioners, and other healthcare providers a place to come privately when you have a few minutes to sit with a cup of tea and get information about this full medical system, what the World Health Organization has called the second largest medical system in the world.

What's Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), called the 'Father of Medicine', have to do with Homeopathy? Here is what he had to say:

“By similar things a disease is produced and through the application of the like is cured.”

Similia Similibus Curentur

Samuel Hahnemann, Doctor and Chemist, developed Hippocrates' and Paracelsus' understandings of 'Like Cures Like' into this full system of medicine.

So what is Homeopathy? Ask on the streets and you’ll hear various suggestions such as that Homeopathy is herbs, or Homeopathy is an Organic diet, or that it is just about anything that people consider generally healthy care.

It’s nice that so many people have a positive association with Homeopathy but the truth is that, not too many in the U.S. actually understand Homeopathy. Homeopathy is an old and tried and true medicine, and in fact is Western Medicine, but is far from what most people refer to as Western Medicine.

Most people referring to Western Medicine are referring to Conventional Medicine, which is rife with the very dangers Hahnemann refused to perpetuate. He took old concepts, experimented, and methodically created a new medicine to help people, without harm.

To this day, over 225 years later, not one true homeopathic medicine of the thousands in our Pharmacopoeia has been recalled by the FDA. There have, however, recently been non-homeopathic products showing up on store shelves labeled as homeopathic. This problem is on the radar of the FDA and is being addressed.

It’s not unlike people using the word ‘Organic’ to try to cash in on something which has a particular meaning but without taking the time, expertise, and money to meet particular legal requirements. You can’t easily stop some people’s greed, so it’s important to have a little background in order to make your own informed choices.

BASIC TENETS OF HOMEOPATHY:

• Like Cures Like: A substance which in a healthy subject temporarily creates a disease state can be used in a person who actually is in that disease state and will help stimulate the body’s Vital Force - like Chi, or Prana - to cast off the disease state and move toward homeostasis

• Minimum Dose: In Conventional Medicine it is common to have large quantities of crude substances given and many unintended, dangerous effects commonly ensue. Homeopathy uses dramatically diluted amounts of crude material, and succussion is used to add a dynamic power to the medicine

• Only one Homeopathic remedy taken at a time: While upon occasion we use a compound medicine (example: Natrum Sulphuricum), these substances carefully are brought together and made into the compound medicine in order to bring together the properties of each of the two substances for very specific purposes. This is completely different than mixed products which show up on store shelves, products throwing together 6, 8, or even 10 homeopathic remedies in hopes that one of them might happen to be the one to which you might respond when, say, you have a cold. This is not Classical Homeopathy and is like throwing spaghetti at a wall, hoping a single strand will stick. Ten people with Whooping Cough are likely to require 10 differing remedies because the Classical Homeopath is not treating disease, but the person, and that person’s unique susceptibilities and expression of the disease. We have around 170 remedies associated with Pertussis, for instance. The Classical Homeopath is using symptoms to guide her to the remedy which describes the patient’s state. It will be like a miracle to see one teething baby respond to Chamomilla, but another will not. We have 22 pages in small print in just one homeopathic repertory devoted to teeth problems, many of them describing different qualities of pain. So it is no surprise that cham. does not work for every baby. It is the Homeopath’s job to find the particular remedy most closely matched to the patient's state, and to make a potency and frequency plan particular to the patient's needs

• Homeopathy is Dynamic Medicine: Succussion - vigorous thumping of the vial of medicine - adds to the medicine’s ability to affect the patient. The higher the potency in Homeopathy, the farther from the crude material. Most often we are prescribing beyond Avrogado’s number, but sometimes we choose to prescribe at a lower potency and some of the crude material would be able to be seen under a microscope. Your Classical Homeopath will consider many factors when deciding a potency to match your state and needs, and will take those factors into account when planning frequency of use. Some patients will be given dry doses of pills while some will be given watery doses in a bottle and will be instructed to succuss before each use of perhaps one drop per day. Still others will make a watery dose in a glass or jar and stir to "plus" (slightly raise the potency) before taking each of a few times. Posology is some of the great art of Homeopathy, and the Homeopath's choices are based on your circumstances

• Unique Medicine: Classical Homeopathy prescribing is to your unique needs. In Conventional Medicine your doctor diagnoses you with a disease and then looks on a chart and says you take this medicine and if it doesn’t work, you take the next one on the list. Posology generally is handled in the same way. A doctor may see 15 people in a day with a same diagnosis and will give each of them the same drug regimen; people are not treated as unique biological beings, but as people with the same disease. The disease is being treated. Conventional Medicine does not see each person’s needs as truly unique. As a result, the side effects and frequent lack of disease resolution is not surprising. Again, the Homeopath is not treating disease, even in Acute prescribing, but is treating your needs. Even in a disease outbreak or epidemic where after seeing many people it will become apparent that there are some statistical heavy-hitter remedies. While most people with the disease will be likely to need one out of a few select remedies, these Genus Epidemicus remedies can be different in different regions of a state, country, or the world for people diagnosed with the same disease. The study of Genus Epidemicus remedies is fascinating, reflecting the environmental and cultural influences in people in different areas. The prescribing still requires an individual look at each suffering person

• Holistic Medicine: Homeopathy is treating the whole of you, not parting you out to treat your skin, or your heart. Ailments are recognized as your organism’s expression of disease and when you, your organism, is treated as a whole being, you have the best chance to access your inherent knowledge of cure from the inside, out. The Homeopath is not curing you, or a disease; she is acting as a facilitator to understand your symptoms and stimulate your own Vital Force, giving it a nudge via the remedy to gather its forces to jump into the healing action it is built to put into play

Most Conventional Medicine doctors practice both Allopathy and Antipathy.

Allopathy is a medicine based on a theory that bears no particular relationship with the suffering (from the Greek pathos, meaning suffering). Think of all the swings we see in modern, Conventional Medicine. Take HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), for instance. First we saw most middle-aged women being prescribed synthetic hormones and after many died from these prescriptions, there was a pendulum swing away from HRT.

We have many such examples of experimenting on masses every decade without many of those who are given the dangerous medications understanding the full risk because not much testing is done; the tests are done through usage on innocent patients, and over a decade stats are collected.

Pharmaceuticals, synthetic and genetically-modified, often prepared with heavy metals as adjuvants and preservants, and bearing the consequences of synergistic potentiation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals come on the market with little understanding of their longterm effects. When stock shares go down after deaths are reported, those drugs are pulled from the market and new mass experiments go on for the next new drugs in line to be prescribed.

This is, in fact, exactly as the pesticide industry operates; as more is exposed about a particular product, a different formulation with a different name is put on the shelves in its place.

Unless you have an awful lot of time on your hands which you will devote to this unending treadmill of information-gathering about chemicals being put out on the market as pharmaceuticals, or as pesticides, it's best to beware and take a precautionary approach

Antipathy is the medical practice of using a medicine to kill off a pathogen, for instance using Antibiotics which kill off the good as well as harmful bacteria, creating a host of serious, and sometimes fatal, problems.

In Allopathy and Antipathy higher potencies contain more crude material, often a source of ill effects. In Homeopathy, the higher our potencies, the farther away from any crude material. We have about 225 years of clinical use and understanding, much different than Allopathy and Antipathy where medicines routinely are released with little understanding of what they will produce in a person.