Samuel Hahnemann, (1755-1843) was originally a Dr. who, discouraged by the use of metabolic poisons and blood letting that was so common, abandoned medicine and earned money from translating manuscripts; it was during this time that he came across information that was to take him in a completely different direction and in to the realms of healing through the use of “Similars”, a 180 degree turn around from the ideas of Allopathic prescriptions by the Medical profession. He wrote the “Organon of Medicine” first published in 1810, and which he updated 6 times during his own life, in which he discussed the reasoning behind his ideas on the use of Similars to treat disease, and its benefits over general Medicine Taken from “The Organon of Medicine” 6th edition 1842 Aphorism 1 states “the physician’s highest calling, his only calling is to make sick people healthy- to heal as it is termed” Aphorism 2 states “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” in Aphorism 19 he goes on to state that since diseases are only deviations from the healthy condition, and since they express themselves through symptoms, and since cure is only a change from that diseased condition back to the state of health, one can easily see that medicines can cure disease, only if they possess the power to alter the way a person feels and functions, it is only because of this power that they are medicines” The above paragraphs show his logical and common sense attitude to the healing arts, and which should not deviate from the principles of any medicinal treatment However his new Ideas were not treated well by the Established medical system and in 1828 when he wrote his book on his philosophy of the “Chronic disease” he began the forward thus:- ‘If I did not know for what purpose I was put here on earth – to become better myself as far as possible and to make better everything around me that is within my power to improve- I should have to consider myself as lacking very much in worldly prudence to make known for the common good, even before my death, an art which I alone possess, and which it is within my power to make as profitable as possible by simply keeping it secret’ ‘But in communicating to the world this great discovery I am sorry that I must doubt whether my contemporaries will comprehend the logical sequence of these teachings of mine, and will follow them carefully and gain thereby the infinite benefits for suffering humanity which must inevitably spring from a faithful and accurate observance of the same, or whether frightened away by the unheard of nature of many of these disclosures, they will not rather leave them untried and uninitiated and therefore useless. History has proved that these doubts are in fact coming true and Homeopathy is still looked at with scorn by members of the medical profession and scientists who are often entrenched in misguided beliefs about so called scientific fact being the only true proof for the acceptance of phenomena. Even now, science has no proof for the practical efficiency of homeopathy and yet, as the following shows it has very good practical effectiveness when compared to General Medical treatment . 1) In 1813 there was an epidemic of Typhus caused by lice and it was creating havoc through Europe as Napolean’s Army retreated from Russia . The bedraggled army arrived in Leipzig where Samuel Hahnemann himself treated 180 cases of typhus and only losing 2 , yet conventional treatment had a mortality of over 30% 2) in 1830 the Cholera epidemic was reported coming from the East and when it finally arrived in Europe in 1831 the mortality rate under conventional treatment was between 40% and 80% depending on the source reports which put the mortality rate at between 2 and 4 of every 5 people who contracted the disease: In London a Doctor Quin reported that the mortality in the 10 Homeopathic Hospitals between 1831 – 1832 was 9%; a homeopathic doctor in Bavaria reported mortality as 7%; whilst the Imperial Russian Council reported that mortality under homeopathy was just 10%. In Austria although the reported deaths using homeopathic treatment were 33% the mortality rate for Conventional medicine was 66% and this discrepancy allowed for the repeal of the law preventing the use of homeopathy. 3) Cholera again struck in London in 1854 , and this was the first time that a source was able to be traced, to a water pump, and the epidemic ceased when the pump was closed . The House of Commons asked for report on the methods of treatment used during the epidemic, originally the information on Homeopathy was suppressed, but it later came to light that the mortality rate for homeopathic treatment was just 9% compared with 59.2% under conventional treatment. 4) More recently, there was an influenza pandemic at the end of WW1 in 1918. In America treatment of 24,000 cases of flu treated conventionally had a mortality rate of 28.2% whilst 26,000 cases of flu treated homeopathically had a mortality rate of 1.05% There is also a report by a Doctor Roberts, working as a physician on a troop ship that he had 81 cases on the way over to Europe all treated with homeopathic remedies and all survived and were landed , whilst another ship not using Homeopathic medicines lost 31 to the flu on the journey. This information has been obtained from the Web site for the National Centre for Homeopathy, and as we all know there are lies, damned lies, and Statistics, according the Benjamin Disraeli. However, the fact that some otherwise open minded inquisitive people should be so vocal in their opposition of Homeopathy, that it brings to mind the Quote in Hamlet that “The Lady Doth protest too much methinks”. Perhaps the rubrics taken from the Homeopathic repertories, “Desire to remain in Bed”, “Religious affections”, “disposition to Contradict”, and “shuns light” could be considered as possible indications for the remedies these people may need in times of sickness.

The modern origins of Homeopathy:- Samuel Hahnemann, who was the originator of the Homeopathic method, wrote a number of books on the use, methodology, and philosophy, of using homeopathic medicine in the treatment of disease, and it is apparent from these writings, that he thought the medical profession at that time would have little or no interest in investigating the benefits of using homeopathic medicines, but prefer to continue their use of heavy metals and other metabolic poisons in the treatment of the disease scourges of the time, and which really failed to “cure’ the problems, but only left the patients in various states of distress, often as debilitating as the original complaint. In Aphorism 22 of the Organon of Medicine from 1842 he states that the “Allopathic method plays with the life of the patient irresponsibly and murderously with its massive doses of dangerously violent drugs of unknown action chosen upon mere conjecture…” As we see today 170 yrs later the allopathic treatment of serious disease still relies on such drugs, with much the same affect i.e. “exhausting the patient” In aphorism 57 he goes on to say that an orthodox physician “gives strong doses of opium for pains of all sorts because it quickly benumbs all sensations”…. However … “when the strength of the opium has been spent, immediately the gripes return nor do they slacken their severity unless they are enchanted away again by the same drug” in aphorism 60 he again brings up the problem “orthodox physicians imagine they can get out of the difficulty (return of the pains) by prescribing a stronger dose of the medicine with each new aggravation…. From the necessity to keep increasing the dose of this palliative, either some other, even worse complaint, (side effects, themselves needing another different medicine), or quite often a condition of complete incurability, or danger to life, in some cases, even death, is produced, it NEVER produces a CURE in any disease that is at all old or chronic”. he follows this in Aphorism 61 by saying “If physicians had been capable of reflecting on the sad results of applying contrary remedies, they would long since have discovered the great truth that the real and lasting art of healing must reside in the exact opposite of this anti-pathic way of treating disease symptoms. They would have realized that if such medicinal action in opposition to disease symptoms (antipathic medicine) brings only short-lasting relief always followed by aggravation, then the reverse, the homeopathic use of remedies based on symptom similarity must necessarily bring about a lasting perfect cure, provided that the smallest possible doses and not large ones are given. Neither these poor results nor the fact that physicians obtained a lasting cure of an old or chronic disease only when perchance one of the important medicines in their prescriptions happened to act homeopathically, nor the fact that all rapid and perfect cures ever brought about in nature were produced by a similar disease supervening on the old one (i.e. a homeopathic process) ever taught them through so many centuries this one and only right way of curing the sick. It is this use of the “secondary action of medicines” that has been developed as the foundation of the homeopathic process.