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CONTENTS
Article: 2008-000C The Homœopathic Process of Cure. Chris Jacob
Article: 2008-000B A Brief Introduction to Two of the Temperaments.
How They Relate to Sickness. Karen Gorman
Article: 2008-000A Why doesn’t homœopathy use conventional disease names?
Janice McGrady in U.S.A.
Article: 2006-000B An Introduction to Hering's Law of Cure Karen Gorman
Article: 2006-000A Advice to Patients Suzan Dean
Article: 2005-000B The Most Precious Gift of Health Chris Jacob
Article: 2005-000A How Samuel Hahnemann discovered the cause of sickness
Chris Jacob
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| | Article: 2008-000C
The Homœopathic Process of Cure.
Chris Jacob
The Homœopathic model for health is unique and groundbreaking. However it is generally unheard of or passed around only in quiet conversation.
Hahnemann explained in paragraph 5 of his instruction book for homœopaths how every aspect of life is involved when we are sick. This means there is the possibility of improving all areas of our life when sickness is cured. This is no small claim and needs to be considered carefully. All areas of life that are unhealthy can be improved by correct homœopathic treatment. These include work, relationships, life direction, and health in general.
Part of the approach in Homœopathy is to recognise and treat inherited tendencies of all kinds. The family history over generations always affects the patient’s health and life. In homœopathy we consider all areas of life not just physical or intellectual. We also inherit emotional, occupational and life patterns that often follow many previous generations. The ability to overcome inherited influences is necessary to bring a sick person to full health.
Another part of the approach in homœopathy is to free the person. The sick patient is not free. Freedom, as we know it, means to have a choice that is unrestricted. Any sickness limits our ability to live freely. But this limitation is not just physical it is also about choices and decisions we make in our lives. Quite often we unconsciously are trapped and limited in our choices and direction. Despite our best efforts life doesn’t flow or repeated problems present themselves. The homœopathic approach is to heal the person so they can move on freely to the future. If past events have left bitterness, distress, grief or trauma we can be less able to cope with life in the present. Samuel Hahnemann understood that there needed to be a system of medicine which released the patient and enabled them to be free from the past. It had to be able to take into account the past and the present and be able to free us from all harmful influences upon health.
Central to the homœopathic approach is the body/mind relationship. Homœopathy understands there is no separation between the body and the mind. There is a connection between all different areas in the human being. Physical illness comes with changes in our mood, changes in how we relate and how we think, they are inseparable.Every medicine has symptoms both of a physical bodily nature and of an intellectual and emotional nature. When the medicine is prescribed all these areas are affected and improved.
Today nearly all patients have had all kinds of intervention in their health before they even start along the homœopathic route. Quite often their health has been ruined by wrong treatments, surgery, and poor diet and health regimes. Another aspect of homœopathy is its ability to antidote treatments that have caused harm to the patient. This has to occur before natural diseases can be cured. The ability to antidote where health has taken a wrong step is central within homœopathic practice.
The homœopathic process of cure takes place in an environment where there is enough time to examine all aspects of health. Here there is thorough continued assessment in an atmosphere of confidentiality, mutual respect and working together. From the Homœopathic perspective we are all unique and have our own path to travel as our health improves. The homœopath helps that to be a path of continually improving health year on year in all areas of our life. | |
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| | Article: 2008-000B
A Brief Introduction to Two of the Temperaments.
How They Relate to Sickness.
Karen Gorman
As I write this spring is upon us, when the sap begins to rise as the days become warmer and the heat of the sun raises the water. We see movement beginning. Plants begin to appear from below the earth, buds swell and leaves appear. Animals come out of hibernation and generally, with the lighter nights and longer days, human beings also become more active. Many people will feel a new lease of life, after the dark nights of the autumn and winter. Those who have a natural tendency towards melancholia may have suffered during the autumn and winter, when so-called "depression" is often heightened. People suffering from "depression" already feel in a dark place, so this feeling can be heightened with the arrival of the dark nights. However, when the lighter nights arrive this dark inner feeling will begin to ameliorate. But as these people begin to enjoy the lighter nights, there will be others who will begin to suffer.
Each of us is naturally born into a certain constitution or temperament. In classical times medicine was equated with philosophy and three Greek philosophers, Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle contributed to the vision of health and disease. They saw health as equilibrium of the body and mind, as determined by the four humours, which are the basis of the philosophy of the temperaments. Galen, who was personal physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second century AD, centred his medical practice also on the polar opposites of melancholy & sanguine, and phlegmatic & choleric. Unlike most of ancient Greek science, the philosophy of the temperaments has never disappeared. The imbalance of humours, or dyscrasia, was thought to be the direct cause of all diseases. Health was associated with a balance of humours, or eucrasia. The qualities of the humours, in turn, influenced the nature of the diseases they caused. Yellow bile caused warm diseases and phlegm caused cold diseases. An ideal temperament involved a balanced mixture of the four qualities. Galen identified four temperaments in which one of the qualities, warm, cold, moist or dry, predominated and four more in which a combination of two, warm and moist, warm and dry, cold and dry or cold and moist, dominated. These last four, named for the humours with which they were associated—that is, sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic, eventually became better known than the others. While the term temperament came to refer just to psychological dispositions, Galen used it to refer to bodily dispositions, which determined a person's susceptibility to particular diseases as well as behavioural and emotional inclinations.
Every person must have these four qualities in their life and will express a different balance of them, according to circumstances. Health is having the ability to adapt to different circumstances. If you cannot adapt to circumstances such as the weather or certain people etc., you begin to suffer. The season of spring is known for its qualities of hot and wet, as is the sanguine temperament. In the spring the sun appears to become warmer and the rains come, so that plants can begin to grow. Spring is also the classic time for the beginning of the hay fever season. People like to enjoy the freedom of the lighter nights and the better weather and spend more time outdoors. However, some will find that they are more restricted, as outdoor weather will aggravate their hay fever.
People tend to be sick in different ways. One way of describing sickness is simply that it is a restriction of our freedom which we all manifest in our own individual ways depending on our own individual pathology and temperament. The unhealthy melancholic is more restricted in the autumn, while the unhealthy sanguine is restricted in the spring. For example, when the weather is cold, in health, we should be able to produce heat in order to keep the equilibrium and to put us at ease, and when it is hot we should have the power of cooling. This is called giving the equal and opposite answer and the more we have the ability to do this, the healthier we are. If we are unable to do this, then we are not at ease but "dis-eased" and we will then produce symptoms and we will suffer, as an imbalance has occurred.
This is what happens in the case of the melancholic. In the autumn they do not have the equal and opposite answer to the dark nights and so these qualities envelop them or take them over and they lose power over themselves. The sanguine cannot produce the quality of cold and dry in order to have the equal and opposite answer to the hot and wet of the spring. So, because of this discrepancy they will produce symptoms and many people will express this by manifesting the symptoms of hay fever, others will express it in other symptoms. As with all diseases, the primary manifestation is the emotional imbalance, which manifests itself in the external world as signs and symptoms, which guide the homœopath to the patient's curative remedy, based on the Law of Similars. This will begin the process of rectifying the inability of the person to give the equal and opposite answer to circumstances, both emotional and physical. | |
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| | Article: 2008-000A
Why doesn’t homœopathy use conventional disease names?
Janice McGrady in U.S.A.
Conventional medicine has developed a large classification system of disease names. Changes which people experience when sick are grouped together and identified with a disease name, often based on the part of their body which hurts or does not work well, such as “tonsillitis” or “pleurisy.” The system of names is a convenient shortcut allowing doctors to test and then group patients in batches with a common label. Nearly always the sufferers even feel better once they have a label for their sickness, as if they no longer need worry about what is wrong with them. For instance certain parents breathe a sigh of relief when told that their child suffers from “attention deficit disorder.” They feel now that it is identified, it will be O.K., as something can be done about it.
Very conveniently for an industrial approach to medicine, this system lets doctors group sick people into large batches by type. It is not unlike veterinary medicine. The thinking is that once you identify and name the disease, then all the sufferers get standardized treatment. If all the milk cows are diagnosed with mastitis, then they are all dosed with antibiotic drugs. In parallel, if different people with breathing difficulties are diagnosed as having “asthma,” then they can all be prescribed anti-asthmatic drugs. This saves a lot of time, especially as it is assumed that anything else the patient complains of which falls outside the standard disease category may be safely ignored – unless it is diagnosed as indicative of another named disease! Say asthma with colitis or depression! But if a sick person starts to tell their doctor about problems in their relationships, how they feel about things at home or things at work, their hopes and fears, and how they react to different influences like the seasons, weather, or temperature — all this is likely to be ignored as outside the scope of the named condition and therefore irrelevant. Why so? Because things like that don’t fit the conventional or allopathic model, and the model is the first part of a conveyor belt. This system of naming diseases and diagnosing them to fit the names allows a streamlining of tests and treatments using mass production techniques introduced in the Industrial Revolution. Laboratories analyze millions of test specimens and drug factories churn out multi-millions of tablets, purple for erectile dysfunction, white for headaches etc. Not only does it look impressive, but the quicker and easier it is to treat sick people in bulk, the higher the profits soar.
If the system were valid, it would be brilliant – simple, fast and effective. But let’s pause to consider the consequences if it turned out to be based on something false. What if the tests are trying to examine results but not the causes of disease? What if the disease name, instead of being a true diagnosis, is only a pseudo-diagnosis that makes the patient and their doctor mistakenly think that they know what is wrong? That matters, because if the disease name is not correct, then the wrong drugs are likely to be given in multiple doses. That incorrectly prescribed (allopathic) treatment will have effects on the sick person and change their symptoms. If it is a procedure or surgery instead of a drug, that too will distort the symptoms. New symptoms will arise from the treatment, which entail more tests which bring another diagnosis or disease name which leads to another treatment – and how do you stop this conveyor belt?
The allopathic disease name system is so widespread and well-established in the modern world that it might seem like heresy to call it misleading or even bogus. But homœopathy claims that there are no diseases, just sick people. Its proponents dare to ask: What really is a so-called disease anyway? Take so-called “asthma.” “Asthma is a common disorder of breathing characterized by widespread narrowing of smaller airways within the lung,” according to Black’s Medical Dictionary. Sick people with breathing difficulties were examined; the lowest common denominators of their sickness were collected together and called a disease name. However, this definition leaves out the person. Also omitted are family history, personal history, individuals’ feelings and thoughts, likes and dislikes, sensations, what if anything seems to precede or trigger their respiratory symptoms, and what is going on in their life generally. When we look more closely, we will see one child who wheezes and coughs a rasping cough whenever his baby sister is given a lot of attention, while another is scared of ghosts on T.V.: she shudders, gasps for breath, panics and turns red in the face upon coughing. On what basis should one person’s wheezing be included in a definition of “asthma,” while the other’s very real fear of ghosts be cut out? It is clear that the disease name (like “asthma”) denotes just a fragment of what the whole individual experiences.
In homœopathy there are no remedies for so-called diseases (asthma or shingles or hypertension); but there is a remedy for each human being who is sick. Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homœopathy (1755 - 1843), perceived that their symptoms are but an outwardly reflected picture of an inner disorder in the will and understanding. It is understood that nearly everything which the person makes known, their fears and hopes and dreams, their tendencies, patterns and peculiarities are all part of an overall imbalance affecting them as a whole. Nothing is separate. It is illogical to think that a physical part could be sick on its own without there being a prior disorder in the emotions and intellect. Symptoms in more than one part, say in their intellect and in their lungs are not signs of separate distinct diseases like a concentration disorder and a separate lung disease requiring its own separate treatment. Far from it! They are all pointers to the ONE disease the person is suffering with at that time. That ONE disease is calling for the ONE remedy most similar to it.
"The real study of sickness is the meditation of his symptoms.” - Dr. James Kent (American master homœopath,1849 - 1916.) Changes in a person’s tissues like degeneration of the liver or thinning of the bones are not useful to the homœopath as they are not symptoms in themselves but rather the results of disease from a long way back. An internal disorder is at work long before any tissues start to break down. Unlike allopathic (conventional) medicine, homœopathy likes to uncover the causes of sickness, not just name what is under its nose. Moreover in this quest for the causes, it positively relishes exceptions and peculiarities. Why? Because anything that is characteristic of the individual’s sickness is all the more valuable as a guiding symptom to the remedy needed. Take for example headache. Headache on its own is common; but the more we learn about what is characteristic of an individual’s headache, where exactly it comes, when it comes, what it feels like when it comes, what makes it feel worse or better, the clearer it will become which remedy can produce those exact symptoms in the healthy and therefore cure them in the sick person. Some remedies produce right-sided headaches and others left-sided ones; different remedies produce stitching forehead pains while walking and others drawing headaches which feel better for eating. This explains why there is no advertising for remedies in true homœopathy. It is false to say that a certain remedy will cure this or that condition, like hay fever, bruising or diarrhœa, as the conditions’ superficial names fail to describe what is really out of balance deep in the individual person.
Homœopathy does not put a name to an individual’s “dis-ease” until its practitioners perceive what needs to be cured in the whole person, i.e. the totality of symptoms. They have to establish this in order to find the remedy which matches this whole image the very best (the most similar remedy.) This may take some time as they analyze, synthesize and repertorize* each case according to fixed principles. They are careful to avoid jumping to conclusions or rushing into a false synthesis. Only after studying the materia medica* of the top similar remedies to the person, and coming to the ONE matching curative remedy can they now name what is wrong with the person, for instance Lycopodium (named from the club moss.) This will be the remedy which the patient receives, and once they have received it, they are unlikely to need that same remedy in that potency again. So they are not pigeon-holed with other patients who need Lycopodium, as they will each need it for slightly different reasons and present different aspects of it in their symptom pictures. After Lycopodium, one person may need Sulphur as the next remedy homœopathic to them, while another distinctly different person may need Phosphorus next. It depends on what needs to be cured. Clearly in homœopathy, the individual and the subtle are what are important, not the lowest common denominator and the gross. The remedy most similar to that individual’s suffering is prescribed, to turn disorder into order again. Once the symptoms no longer have a cause, they have no root, and leave the patient free to take the next step towards the restoration of their health.
* To repertorize is to use the Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica to find out which group of symptoms characteristic of an individual case can be produced by which remedies. Dr. James Kent compiled this reference book from provings or tests which detail how each individual remedy substance can affect the human being in mind and body. These thorough provings of the substances, set out in alphabetical order, are called “materia medica.”
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| | Article: 2006-000B
An Introduction to Hering's Law of Cure
Karen Gorman
Homœopathy is based on law. At every stage of treatment the true homœopath is able to use certain laws in order to understand and assess whether the disease, along with its symptoms, is going in the right direction i.e. the direction leading to cure. Based on this, Hahnemann understood the prognosis. He noted, as he followed his cases, that the oldest complaints were the last to cease. He recognized the direction of cure, which established the principles of cure. Dr. Hering followed the teachings and experiences of Hahnemann in order to establish his law.
Constantine Hering was born on January 1, 1800 in the town of Oschatz, Saxony (now in Germany). He grew up in a religious household and in 1817 he attended the Surgical Academy of Dresden and then went to study medicine at Leipzig University. At Leipzig he was the student-assistant of a Dr. Robbi who was an antagonist of homœopathy. Robbi had been approached by a local publisher to write a book about the homœopathic "heresy" but due to lack of time he referred the publisher to Hering, who enthusiastically pursued this task and studied all of Hahnemann's published works. He also undertook his own experiments. His mission was to disprove homœopathy, as we still see scientists and doctors trying to do today. During this period, Hering received a wound from doing dissections, that became inflamed and infected and on examination he was told by the medical profession that he would have to have his hand amputated. Instead he decided he would try homœopathy. As a result of this homœopathic treatment which saved his hand, he had a complete change of heart. He continued to research homœopathy and obtained more personal experience of it and as a result he transferred his allegiance. He graduated as an M.D. from the University of Leipzig in 1826. In his doctoral thesis, which was entitled "On the Medicine of the Future," Hering declared himself to be a homœopath! He was to become one of the most influential homœopaths of all times; his published works are still widely used today.
Homœopathy is holistic and so pays heed to the interconnection of the emotional, intellectual and physical symptoms. In the natural course of disease, the vital force expresses the internal derangement of the person by producing symptoms in the lowest, least important and outermost levels that it can, so as to protect levels that are more internal and precious. But when the person suppresses his symptoms and disturbs this protective arrangement, the vital force may have to express them in higher, more important and more inner levels e.g. from an unsightly skin eruption on the outside, to eruptions in the lungs which may impede breathing.
Like Hahnemann before him, Hering observed that cure occurs in a consistent manner. He described this pattern in the form of three basic laws which homœopaths use to assess whether or not cure is occurring.
1. A true cure takes place from within to without and from the more important organs to the less important. For example, if a patient is suffering from anxiety and producing respiratory problems, during the process of healing the anxiety and respiratory problems will be cured and an eruption may appear on the skin. This means that cure takes place from the deepest part of the person, which is the mental and emotional level to the physical parts; from the inner vital organs to the outer skin and extremities, all of which are closely interconnected. In other words, the expression of the disease flows from the centre of the person to the circumference. This is demonstrated when, after the initial aggravation caused by the remedy, the mental and general symptoms of a patient are the first to ameliorate, but along with this the related physical symptoms may begin to aggravate more. This is a sign that the physical symptoms will get better, even if they seem worse for the moment, due to the primary action of the remedy. Once the curative, secondary action of the life force is complete, the physical symptoms will also be ameliorated or removed, when they are no longer needed to safeguard the person. This may occur after several remedies.
2. A true cure takes place from above to below, i.e. from the upper levels to the lower parts of the body. For instance, a person with a rheumatic knee may find that the rheumatism in the knee will feel better after a homœopathic remedy but the pain may descend to the foot. If the rheumatic symptoms move from the knee to the heart, this would be opposite to cure and opposite to Hering's Law. The main vital organs are situated in the top half of our body i.e. brain, heart, lungs, and as we move down through the body the parts become less vital to life i.e. arms, fingers, feet, toes.
Both of these directions (inner to outer and from above down) are clearly life-saving directions.
3. The vital force makes symptoms disappear in the reverse order of their development. Homœopaths have consistently observed that their patients re-experience symptoms from past conditions. When a person has suffered from a few consecutive symptoms and now he comes for treatment complaining of the most recent ones, while the others have disappeared, with correct homœopathic treatment his former symptoms will reappear. In this way, the most recent symptoms will be the first to leave and the last symptoms to be cured will be those that came first. So we see the symptoms disappearing in the reverse order of their arrival. This process of cure will take the person back to the beginning of his sickness, to the root cause, so that this can be cured in time.
These three principles constitute the Law of Cure.
As the symptoms change in accordance with Hering's Law, it is common for individual symptoms to become worse than they had been before treatment. If healing is truly in progress, the patient feels stronger and generally better in himself, in spite of this aggravation. Before long, the symptoms of the aggravation will pass and the person will be left healthier on all levels. There are, however, exceptions to the rule that can disrupt the natural process of cure. If the natural course of the disease has been altered by suppression e.g. by drugs, the symptoms are likely to have found expression on more internal and higher levels of the person and so will have taken an unnatural course, which may need to be antidoted.
Kent sums it up for us when he says "The only cure known to man is from above down, from within out, and in the reverse order of coming. When it is otherwise, there is only improvement, not cure. When the symptoms return there is hope; that is the road to cure and there is no other."
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Article: 2006-000A
ADVICE TO PATIENTS
Suzan Dean
Patients are often surprised and sometimes perplexed by the advice given by their homœopath when they come to take their remedy. This advice is only given to ensure that the optimum conditions for taking a medicine are obtained in order that the treatment can be as effective as possible.
There are three main issues to consider:
First, there are specific antidotes to the particular remedy prescribed, and the homœopath will pay special attention to these. It could be coffee, camphor, vinegar, chamomile, etc. These obviously must be avoided, since they could stop the remedy working altogether.
Secondly, there are medicinal substances, that is to say, substances which alter the state of health of a person. This category may include coffee, tea, herbal teas known for medicinal properties, alcohol, spices, as well as ‘natural’ remedies, dietary supplements, and tonics. It also includes anything else that is used for medicinal purposes, so all other therapies should be avoided, since these too are intended to change physical and mental symptoms. The reason for this is to enable the true effect of the medicine given to be assessed without interference from other sources. As the homœopath charts the progress of the treatment from the patient’s reports, each symptom is carefully examined in turn in order to assess the effect of the remedy. If a symptom has been modified in any way, whether it is a back pain eased by massage, a toothache relieved by clove oil, or insomnia masked by chamomile tea, the total picture will be distorted. This category of advice will be tailored to each individual patient’s situation.
Thirdly, there is the question of advice concerning diet and life-style. It is generally suggested that the patient should avoid strong or excessive physical and mental sensations, impressions and stimulation. This may be a particularly strenuous game of squash, a visit to a perfume store, a rich meal, a horror film or a thriller, an all-night party, a bungee jump etc. The idea is to put as little strain as possible on the vitality at this time. It is not so much the activity or substance in itself, but rather the effect it has on the individual. It is therefore impossible to issue a definitive list, since it is different for each person. However, if the avoidance of any particular substance or activity presents a problem, further advice should be sought from the homœopath.
The main consideration in this latter category is moderation, a recurring theme in Hahnemann's extensive writing on matters of health and life-style. In earlier times doctors would prescribe this kind of simple nutritious diet and gentle quiet regime for those convalescing from illness, since the body’s extraordinary ability to heal itself in the right conditions was recognized. These general recommendations are given as guide-lines, to enable the patient to gain the most benefit from the treatment.
The homœopath’s over-riding concern is the best possible treatment for the patients, and it is an integral part of that responsibility to offer suitable advice. In each individual case, the advice will be explained and discussed. The patient’s responsibility is to undertake to follow the instructions given.
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Article: 2005-000B
THE MOST PRECIOUS GIFT OF HEALTH
Chris Jacob
Our most precious gift is health. However we don’t always appreciate how important it is until we lose it. When sick we are not able to do all those things we can usually do, we may be confined to bed or need to sleep or rest. Plans, occupations, relationships etc have to go on hold and our freedom to do what we want is restricted. Hahnemann gave instructions for protecting and conserving our health and preventing risks. Some of these risks may be eating the wrong things, drinking too much or not managing emotional stress such as grief or relationship difficulties. With these influences our health can begin to break down quickly or more often, so our first priority then must be to conserve and protect it before we even think of improving it further.
The Signs of Losing our Health
Symptoms begin as our health starts to be out of balance. At the beginning these symptoms may be quite subtle and gentle but as the sickness develops symptoms increase and change to reflect this. These symptoms show us there is something wrong and action needs to be taken. If we take heed of them we can often avoid further suffering by paying more attention to our health. If we don’t listen to these warnings further symptoms arrive as a reminder. We perhaps all know the scenario where we are feeling unwell but have work we feel we must do. That conflict between our health and what we feel we should do can mean we don’t always listen to our health and the warnings it is giving. Quite often that means we take a longer time in bed once our work is done.
Prevention is the first step
So what can we do to protect our health? There are some really common sense approaches that will help us stay well. A healthy diet and lifestyle will help; the less vital we are the healthier should be the food we eat and water we drink. Fresh clean air and fresh clean water are a necessity. Trying to live according to the natural rhythms of day and night and the seasons mean we are also listening to our own rhythms and needs. Having some sort of exercise every day such as walking in fresh air for half an hour is a good habit to develop and being active in the day but slowing down in the evening and quietening as we approach sleep is helpful.
Another side of preserving our health is avoiding those influences that are harmful. We can start by avoiding putting into our body things that make us sick. These could be over processed foods with little or no goodness, foods that are over spiced or sprayed with toxic pesticides. Medicines that keep us going but ignore the underlying causes of why we have become sick. Toxic drugs or stimulants that give us a buzz initially but deplete the vitality in the long term. Uplifting, restful and inspiring influences are helpful to maintain health. Long periods of time spent in front of TV’s or computer screens or on mobile phones can have a detrimental affect.
With all this in mind there is one final aspect which is exclusively homœopathic about protecting health and that is homœopathy itself. Used in the right way your homœopath can help you to detect early signs of sickness and act before disease develops further. A homœopathic medicine (stitch) in time saves you from nine stitches later on. Children and adults treated in time will prevent many of the illnesses and sicknesses that would occur otherwise. Homœopathy is first and foremost in protecting the health you have and then improving upon it. Our most precious gift is the health we have now.
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Article: 2005-000A
HOW SAMUEL HAHNEMANN DISCOVERED THE CAUSE OF SICKNESS
Chris Jacob
Why is it health matters appear so complicated? Every day there are new discoveries and ideas concerning our health. New hopes and new efficient methods replace old theories and medicines. But true homœopathy hasn't changed since Hahnemann first practised it some 200 years ago. Our medicines remain the same today as they were then and the principles upon which they are used haven't changed either. Homœopathy is just as effective in the twenty-first century as it was in Hahnemann's day.
Hahnemann searched through thousands of cases of sickness over a period of 11 years. He gradually began to see a pattern connecting the huge variety of illnesses of his patients. He discovered there was a common root to all sickness. This discovery is fundamental to our understanding of health. We have been educated to think there are many different unconnected kinds and forms of disease. But Hahnemann showed that all these diseases came from the same origin. Today, unfortunately, much of our health treatment is dedicated to specialists fighting "different diseases" that "appear" to exist separately. This is a myth and a misunderstanding.
Hahnemann understood that the common root of all illness was a chronic disease. He found medicines that could be specifically used to reverse the process of chronic disease. He understood that chronic disease is present in all of us and that it starts in early life and, if left untreated progresses through life until we die.
The following are some of the conclusions of Hahnemann's work:
1. We all have our own unique form of chronic disease.
2. Symptoms in childhood are the beginnings of chronic disease and warning signs of disease to come later in life.
3. Each symptom is a small part of the bigger part of our chronic disease.
4. Symptoms are connected to each other; they are all part of the same chronic disease.
5. Removing or treating one part only accelerates the chronic disease in other parts.
6. Treatment should be towards removing the total picture of chronic disease rather than separate parts.
A STEP BY STEP APPROACH TO CURE
The direction towards health and the direction towards disease are opposite. Health means being free to do the things you want and not to suffer physically or mentally. Chronic disease takes a person further and further away from this freedom and he becomes more restricted in his life, both physically and mentally. The homœopath works to reverse the progress of chronic disease and to free the patient from it.
When we travel in the wrong direction we have to go back over that route to get back on track. Similarly any progress in chronic disease has to be reversed. Each step of the development of chronic disease is an accumulation of debris. The only way to reverse this development is by a step by step approach. Each layer of chronic disease needs to be removed, starting with the most recent to the oldest. This requires time and treatment over a number of years. Bit by bit the homœopath peels back the layers as the patient enjoys increasing times of health and vitality. We could understand treatment to be like archaeology, slowly uncovering the layers that have built up over our health, finally revealing the healthy state.
Symptoms of chronic disease.
The warning signs of a developing chronic disease are quite subtle and varied. Many of them we would not usually mention to others nor even complain of. They might be not feeling completely well, a strong dream, a craving to eat oranges, financial or relationship difficulties, a particular behaviour or personality trait etc.
An adult has had years for their chronic disease to develop. A child, however, has had much less time to develop their chronic disease picture. This means that, usually, their health is more vital and responsive. However, inherited tendencies may mean a child is sick from quite young. James Tyler Kent in his book Lectures on Homœopathic Philosophy explains:
"…take the nervous child. It has wild dreams, twitching, restless sleep, nervous excitement, hysterical manifestations, but if we examine all the organs of the body we will find nothing the matter with them. This sickness, however, which is present, if allowed to go uncured, will in twenty or thirty years result in tissue change; the organs will be affected and then it will be said that the body is diseased; but the individual has been sick from the beginning."
Homœopathy is about returning the patient to their original state of good health. As a result of this, the symptoms that have occurred through our lives will also gradually be removed. Homœopathy is about understanding the root of sickness. This is often not heard in today's society. If we understand the real consequences of Hahnemann's discoveries the choices we make about our health will be very different.
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