The word Homoeopathy is derived from the greek word homoios meaning like and pathos meaning suffering.
Homoeopathy is a system of medical treatment introduced by Dr.
Samuel Hahnemann in 1796 based on the Main Principle of Similia – Similia Similibus
Curentur (meaning let similars be treated by similars). According to this
principle A medicine is able to treat a condition which it produces when
admistered in apparently healthy subjects during proving.
Before Hahnemann Hippocrates also mentioned about the concept of
treating similar by similar in
400 BC. Some other physicians who mentioned about the concept of
similars before Hahnemann were Paracelsus, Boulduc, Detharding, Bertholon, Thoury, Von Stoerck and Stahl. Dr Hahnemann
was the first to experiment with the concept and introduced it as a system of
treatment.
The fundamental Laws of homoeopathy include:
Law of
similia
Dr. Hahnemann mentioned this law in §26 in his book ‘Organon of
medicine’ where he mentions it as Homoeopathic Law of nature.
A weaker
dynamic affection is permanently extinguished by a stronger one, if the latter
(whilst differring in kind) is very similar to the former in its
manifestations.
Law of
Simplex
According to this concept A single and simple medicinal substance should be administered in
a given case at a time.
Dr Hahnemann mentions about this law in §273 in his book ‘Organon of medicine’(Sixth
Edition) as:
In no case
under treatment it is necessary and therefore not permissible to administer to
a patient more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time. It is
inconceivable how the slightest doubt could exist as to whether it was more
consistent with nature and more rational to prescribe a single, simple medicine
at one time in a disease or a mixture of several differently acting drugs. It
is absolutely not allowed in homoeopathy, the one true, simple and natural art
of healing, to give the patient at one time two different medicinal substances.
Law of
minimum
According to this law the medicine administered to the patient
must be in the minimum dose required by the patient.
In § 277 Dr. Hahnemann mentions
For the
same reason , and because a medicine, provided the dose of it was sufficiently
small, is all the more salutary and almost marvelously efficacious the more
accurately homoeopathic its selection has been, a medicine whose selection has
been accurately homoeopathic must be all the more salutary the more its dose is
reduced to the degree of minuteness appropriate for a gentle remedial effect.