Similia similibus curentur
Homeopathy, or Homeopathic Medicine, is the practice of medicine that embraces a holistic, natural approach to the treatment of the sick. Homeopathy is holistic because it treats the person as a whole, rather than focusing on a diseased part or a labeled sickness.
The word Homeopathy, which comes from the Greek, through Latin into English, literally means “like disease”. This means that the medicine given is like the disease that the person is expressing, in his totality, not a specific disease category or medical diagnosis.
The first principle: Let Likes Cure Likes
The guiding principle of Homeopathy is stated as “let likes cure likes,” similia similibus curentur. While the concept of "like curing like" dates back to the Greek Father of Medicine, Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), it was German physician Dr. C. F. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) who first codified this principle into a system of medicine. Starting with experiments (called “provings”) on himself, Dr. Hahnemann administered medicinal substances to healthy volunteers (called “provers”). Symptoms that developed in the provers while taking a specific substance gave the homeopathic “picture” of, and indications for, that remedy. Over the years, by means of provings, toxicological data, and clinical experience, the homeopathic drug pictures of over 2000 substances have been derived.
In the practice of Homeopathic Medicine, a detailed, comprehensive interview of the patient, called the homeopathic case-taking, is undertaken to reveal the physical, psychological and emotional characteristics and complaints of that individual. The homeopathic practitioner then finds the homeopathic remedy whose materia medica (drug picture) is the most similar to that of the patient’s characteristic totality. That homeopathic prescription (the similimum) is given to the patient to stimulate his/her being to heal: likes cures likes.
