Law Of Similarity - Like Cures Like
According to homeopathic understanding, that which a substance is capable of causing, it is also capable of curing.
The name homeopathy, coined by its originator Samuel Hahnemann, is derived from the Greek words for ‘similar suffering’ referring to the ‘like cures like’ principle of healing. ‘Like cures like’ can be looked at in several ways. One way is to assume that the body knows what it is doing and that symptoms are its way of taking action to overcome illness. This healing response is automatic in living organisms; we call it the ‘vital response’. The similar medicine acts as a stimulus to the natural vital response, giving it the encouragement it needs to complete its healing work. Since the initial action of the vital response plus the medicine is to increase the strength of the symptoms, this is our first indication of internal healing taking place, of diseases being cured from within – pushed outwards along established routes of past and present symptoms.
Before the medicines can be prescribed, their curative powers are discovered by testing them out on healthy human subjects and carefully noting emotional, mental and physical changes. This is called a ‘proving’. This information constitutes the basis for ‘like cures like’, for a medicine’s unique symptom picture must match an individual’s unique expression of illness, that is, the present and persisting symptoms of disease.
We can also understand the law of similars in terms of homeodynamis - the body’s way of maintaining health. When a person becomes ill there is an imbalance; for example if you had a fright one night and the next few evenings you had insomnia this could be considered normal as you adjust and return to health. If the insomnia continues, however, then homeodynamis has not taken place and you have become stuck, you are not in the flow of life. Health is characterised by a flow of vitality.
“By similar things a disease is produced and through the application of the like is cured”. Hippocrates (460-377 BC), ‘Father of Medicine’.
How does Homeopathic Medicine Works?
Some homeopathic medicines are at low enough dilutions to contain molecules of the original substance (usually a plant or mineral) from which they are made, but others are diluted beyond the point at which you expect any molecules of the original substance to be present; it is these ‘high dilutions’ which make homeopathy controversial in certain circles.
Homeopathic medicines are so small in dose that it is appropriate to refer to them as a part of the newly defined field of “nanopharmacology” (the prefix “nano” derives from Latin and means dwarf; today, the prefix is used to refer to “nanotechnology” or the “nanosciences” which explore the use of extremely small technologies or processes, at least one-billionth of a unit, designated as 10 -9). To understand the nature and the degree of homeopathy's nanopharmacology, it is important to know the following characteristics of how homeopathic medicines are made.
