Homeopathy emerged as an effective healing force in the latter part of the 18th century. A German physician, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), discovered that Cinchona Bark (which gives us Quinine) was a very effective medicine to treat malaria, simply because it was able to produce symptoms very similar to malaria when given to a healthy body.

Dr.Hahnemann was without the benefit of laboratories, in those days, for conducting experiments, so he used himself, family, friends and volunteers to test his theories.

What emerged from his painstaking and very scientific work was the theory that `like can cure like`. In other words, a substance that causes symptoms in a healthy body cures similar symtoms in a diseased patient.

to be continued

Wim

__________________
Homeopath for people and animals.
(Sorry, Wim no longer works here.)

Continuation :

After making this ground-breaking discovery, Hahnemann went on to experiment with extreme dilutions, in order to render his medicines totally safe.

This work gave him his second surprise, revealing that, as he methodically diluted and violently agitated his medicines, he produced both increasing safety and increasing curative power. He called the latter `potency`.

A great many medicines were `proven` in this way by Hahnemann and his successors, and they were applied to animals, notably by Boenninghausen, in the early 19th century.

To illustrate the power of homeopathy to cure even serious disease, it is worth noting that homeopaths were able to cure those eighteenth-century scourges of typhus and cholera, well before science discovered bacteria or formulated germ theory !

Wim

__________________
Homeopath for people and animals.
(Sorry, Wim no longer works here.)