The practice of medicine in the 17th century was more barbaric than human. There were no reasons why people were bled for every disorder whether the victim was full blooded or not. To top it, branding, leeching and cupping were the usual practice. The number and quantities of herbs that went into any compound is beyond human comprehension. In all there were supposed to be more than 200 ingredients whose properties were definitely unknown. The dosage was more a fancy of the physician rather than the rule. Such was the scene when Hahnemann, the founder of the Homeopathic school of medicine was born, in Meissen, a small town in Germany on the 10th of April 1755.
His father had a great influence on him and exhorted him to verify everything instead of just believing. Hahnemann graduated in medicine and set up his practice. But soon he was disillusioned with the way medicine was practiced and lamented that medicine did more harm than good. He felt that the patient got worse after he began to take the medicine. Dejected he stopped practicing and to earn a decent livelihood, started to translate several books. In the course of translation, he chanced upon Cullen’s Materia Medica.
He read that cinchona bark (quinine) cures ague (malaria) since it was bitter. This explanation did not satisfy him and he decided to try it out for himself. He prepared a fresh decoction of the Peruvian bark and took it every day for a few days. He noticed that after a few days that he developed chills, fever and sweating, the typical symptoms of malaria. When he stopped drinking the decoction, the symptoms disappeared. He repeated the experiment on himself and his family members many times with the same results. He came to the conclusion that what causes, cures. Being a voracious reader he found several such incidents recorded in the medical journals of the past, but the explanations were far from satisfactory.
He took it upon himself, to experiment on his friends and family members with several other substances and recorded his observations. He noticed after some time that the effects were similar to the diseases that were occurring naturally, confirming his earlier conclusion. Much before Hahnemann, Hippocrates the father of medicine mentioned the possibility of Similia Similimbus Curentur – Likes cures likes as one of the therapeutic methods. But it was not confirmed until Hahnemann came along. Ayurveda, the ancient Hindu medical system also says something to that effect.
Though the idea existed much before Hahnemann, it was tenuous as far as the dosages were concerned. More was always considered better. Hahnemann experimented with decreasing quantities i.e. grain doses, ½ grain doses and in the case of herbs - drop doses (of the freshly expressed juices). He noticed that the lower he reduced the dose of the medicine, they were able to still produce disease – like symptoms when given to healthy human beings.
Hahnemann should be given credit on 2 counts - he was the first to test single medicines and note their effects and attempting to record the effects of the medicines when given in a particular quantities i.e. determining the dosages.
Basing his conclusions on his experiments, he postulated the homeopathic principles of single, simple and similar medicines. He was the first to coin the word allopathy (different suffering) to differentiate it from Homeopathy (similar suffering). In those times antipathy was in vogue too. That is, medicines were given which produced an opposite state to the one that the patient was suffering with. Patient with constipation was given a drug, which caused diarrhea, for sleeplessness a somnolent was prescribed without going into the cause of the problem. This practice is in vogue even to this day.
To illustrate how modern medicine works – if coffee is too sweet, then decoction is added to affect a qualitative change. Homeopathy works on the principal that if you place a few crystals of sugar or any other sweet substance on the tongue and the same coffee drunk, then the taste of "sweetness" will be reduced or altered. Homeopathy in effect works on the recipient to bring about a qualitative change.
Substances in subminimal doses are given to healthy human beings and their effects are recorded. When the drug "matches" the symptomatology of the patient, it is given to effect a positive change.
For instance it is a common phenomenon that while cutting onions, the eyes tend to water with burning tears and the nose runs- a symptom of the common cold. Alium cepa (the common onion) is given in subminimal doses for cold. There are several substances that produce cold-like symptoms with their individual characteristic nasal and eye discharges. Tobacco when first smoked or chewed causes nausea, dizziness, vomiting, cold perspiration, unconsciousness and occasionally death- symptoms of tobacco poisoning. Anyone with a disease exhibiting the characteristic symptoms of tabacum will be cured by tabacum. The quantity of tobacco used is always minimal.
Hahnemann first postulated the concept of chronic diseases. He recognized that there is a tendency for every human being to develop diseases that are inherited. This was much before the word Genetics was coined. He called these tendencies miasms. He affirmed that the host inherits the tendency to develop a disorder. To illustrate – we are constantly being bombarded with allergens, microbes, carcinogens etc. Not all of us succumb to the onslaught. Some do, because of the inherited tendencies. Hahnemann believed that the environment is secondary to the tendencies in the host which are primary causes in the development of the disorder (s). Other factors that Hahnemann attributed to the development of diseases are the attitude of the person. People become sensitive to certain diseases because of their mindsets and lifestyles. In effect, Hahnemann was the father of psychosomatic medicine.
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