Articles On Homeopathic Medicine>

Samuel Hahnemann knew of the law of similars but did not have a way of applying it into the actions of medicine. This was until he considered what Stahl had said about finding the medicinal uses of nature by testing them on a healthy person. This principle was not previously used because the allopathic schools of the time preferred speculating upose to observation. Hahnemann decided to try this theory using a common medicine, cinchona bark. This plant was used in allopathic practices for the treatment of malarial fevers. The reason why it was successful is a mystery and the schools theorized that it was bitter and that is what caused it to be curative (which does not really tell us much for the application of medicine, except that they flooked out by trial and error). Hahnemann's aim was to find out why it worked for malarial fevers and to see if it could be used to cure anything else. This was the first experiment done of it's kind, and Samuel Hahnemann who conducted it and used himself as the healthy participant named these "Provings." The testing of medicines in order to find their medicinal properties by administering them in a healthy person. He observed from his first provings that when he took cinchona in it's crude form it gave him symptoms similar to malarial fever. Hahnemann had finally been able to give support/ proof for the ancient law of similars. These provings would be very important to Hahnemann's theory of the law. He stated that the law of similars can cure because a similar medicine administered into a patient with a similar disease would introduce an artificially induced disease into the patient. The two diseases could not co-exist and only the more recent and powerful would survive (artificial) and will wear off slowly given the proper dose frequency of dose (and later potency). This theory provided the fundamental setup for the proper applications of medicines (similar) in order to result in a cure (a total removal of the disease itself). Provings can be considered a reference to the actions of medicines. It is also important to say that Hahnemann expanded the basis of his provings. The proving only showed a couple symptoms in each participant because the dose was so small (yet in it's crude form) that it was not powerful enough to show all the disease symtoms without killing the person. Alongside this, he knew not everyone was the same, different people are susceptable to different diseases, and some people experience the disease symtoms in different ways. Knowing this when he setup future provings he had as many as 100 people participate in a single proving in order to expand on the possible syptoms. His observations were recorded in the materia medica which states all the symptoms a medicine can bring about in a healthy person, and thus will cure it. During the provings, a key to maintaining the health of the participant was the dose and frequency of dose. If given properly several symptoms would emerge, but not all of them in one person. Generally, a very small dose was given over several days and the patient would briefly aquire the disease and return to health within a couple of hours.