Homeopathy :: essays research papers

Samuel Hahnemann, a brilliant German medical doctor and chemist, developed the science of homeopathy at the end of the 18th century. He was responding, in part, to his concern that more people were dying from medical treatments than from their diseases. Hahnemann believed that the purpose of medical therapy should be to restore health quickly, gently and permanently in the least harmful manner without toxic side-affects or the suppression of symptoms which would only return. His work and principles have been carried on and developed by many dedicated homeopaths right to the present day. Homeopathy now rests on the firm foundation of Hahnemann's work and some 200 years of well-documented, successful healing experience. Hahnemann's guiding principles still apply today in the practice of classical homeopathy, but his criteria are otherwise rarely met despite all the improvements and advances in so-called modern medicine.The True Classical Homeopathic Approach to CureFundamental to classical homeopathy is the view that we are each a synergistic whole, every part of our wholistic being effecting every other part. It is the combination of all symptoms and how they are experienced by the individual which should be addressed in attempting to cure that person and their disorders. When someone has a health problem, it is the whole person that has the problem. The problem does not exist in isolation from the person. They can't simply put the problem in a box and forget it. Therefore, when attempting to cure that person it is the whole person that should be considered, not simply what is thought to be a disordered part of the person. This is the wholistic approach of classical homeopathy. This is in contrast to the conventional approach to disease which often oversimplifies it as one isolated symptom or group of symptoms, as a problem affecting only one part or aspect of the body and person. The "sloppy approach" to homeopathy is guilty of the same practice. Classical Homeopathy, by contrast, prescribes remedies on a constitutional basis, treating the entire individual, their symptoms and modalities. To arrive at the correctly chosen remedy for a chronic disorder, the detailed case of all aspects of the individual must be taken. The true classical homeopath delves into the broad collection of symptoms and peculiarities of the individual, their entire mental, emotional and physical make-up. This requires an in-depth sense of the patient, a keen sensitivity to them which is able to grasp their gestalt, that totality of the person and the matching remedies which transcends the mere sum of their parts.