About

What is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy is a form of natural healing using remedies to assist the patient to regain health. The remedies are made of many substances prepared in such a way that they stimulate the body’s natural forces towards recovery. It focuses on treating the whole patient, rather than the disease.

It is based on the principle of ‘like cures like.’ A substance that produces disease-like symptoms when taken by a healthy person can cure a sick person/animal with similar symptoms when given as a homeopathic medicine.

As homeopathic medicines are prescribed in minute amounts, there is no chance of side effects that can occur with conventional medicines. Remedies are made from plants, animal products, minerals and other materials. Homeopathic remedies are not tested on animals.  However, their healing properties are all scientifically determined using double blind testing on healthy humans.

The more diluted the Homeopathic remedies are, the stronger and more gentle the effect. The homeopathic healing process has been validated by clinical trials, results from patients, and those who originally tested the medicines.

Homeopathy can be beneficial in the treatment of a wide range of conditions and diseases and can treat children, animals and even the unconscious.

Short-term illnesses	coughs, flu, colds, food poisoning, physical injuries, headaches, cystitis, cold sores
Longer-term illnesses	asthma, eczema, hayfever, migraines, PMT, allergies, heartburn, eczema, IBS
Emotional or mental problems	anxiety, panic attacks, depression, insomnia, grief, irritability, hyperactivity
Women’s health	PMT, fibroids, menopause, endometriosis
Pregnancy and birth	illnesses during pregnancy, pain relief during labour and aftercare
Complaints of the young	from babies and the first few years of life to teenagers

How does Homeopathy work?

Homeopathy is based on the principle of “like cures like” first postulated by Hippocrates, the Father of medicine. You may have observed that peeling an onion can make you cry and remedies made from the onion (Allium Cepa) are used in homeopathy to treat conditions where there are excessive tears and sore eyes, like hay fever and colds.

It may be that symptoms are the body’s way of trying to heal itself and by giving a bit more energy to those symptoms the body is trying to use, the body is able to heal itself successfully.

Homeopathy works best by matching the whole state of the body as it tries to heal itself. This includes not only the physical symptoms but the nature of the person or animal associated with their illness. Patients with the same disease will not necessarily need the same remedy as it is individualised for each person or animal.

How are remedies made?

One drop of the original substance is diluted in 99 drops of alcohol. The mixture is shaken and succussed (banged on a firm object), to give a 1C (1 centesimal potency). From this 1C bottle, one drop is taken and put into another bottle of 99 drops of alcohol, shaken and succussed to give a 2C (2 centesimal potency).  Remedies are given in potencies such as 6C, 30C, 200C, 1M.

How are remedies taken?

Remedies are given to the patient as either small white sugar pillules or as liquid. Sometimes just one dose will be required and sometimes the remedy needs to be repeated.  The effect of the remedy occurs in the mouth or nose via the mucous membranes, so the pillules are allowed to dissolve under the tongue. Sometimes other things like food or toothpaste in the mouth can interfere with taking the remedy so they should be taken in a clean mouth.

“The physician’s highest calling, his only calling, is to make sick people healthy – to heal – as it is termed. The highest ideal of therapy is to restore health rapidly, gently, permanently; to remove and destroy the whole disease in the shortest, surest, least harmful way, according to clearly comprehensible principles.”
- Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine, 1810

Evidence for Homeopathy

The Lancet Study
The Lancet published the most significant and comprehensive review of homeopathic research, which appeared in its September 20, 1997 issue.

This article was a meta-analysis of 89 double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials. The authors conclude that the clinical effects of homeopathic medicines are not simply the results of placebo.

The researchers uncovered 186 studies, 119 of which were double-blind and/or randomized placebo-control trials, and 89 of which met pre-defined criteria for inclusion into a pooled meta-analysis.

The researchers found that by pooling the 89 trials together that homeopathic medicines had a 2.45 times greater effect than placebo.
–Dana Ullman, M.P.H.

We know Homeopathy works, and we are on the verge of truly understanding why it works.

Breakthrough discoveries in quantum physics show:
Water retains memory when substances are diluted and shaken. Instead of molecules separating, some actually combine. (Lo, SY, 1996, 1998)