Explaing what Homeopathic Medicine is made of, can be a challenge. Our expectations are based on what we find in the high street pharmacy. That is to say drugs that work biochemically, but that is not how homeopathic medicines work.
In this blog I will try and explain what homeopathic medicines are, how they are made, and how they act.
Whilst, old texts do use the term drug, homeopathic medicines are not what we understand as drugs today, and for this reason the synonym ‘remedy’ is often used.
In the picture below taken from the Helios Homeopathy website, some typical remedy forms are shown. In fact these are all just carriers for the homeopathic medicine.
The medicine itself is absorbed onto tablets made of mixed sugar & sugar of milk (sucrose / lactose) or pills made of sugar. You may also find medicated sucrose / lactose powders rather similar in style to the Beechams Powders (basically Aspirin)of old.
My source for some of what follows is a little pocket book titled Homeopathic Prescribing published by Saltire Books. The authors are the owners of Freemans Homeopathic Pharmacy
Homeopathic medicines are prepared according to various pharmacopoeias (i.e. standards) adopted by the regulatory authorities in different countries. In short there is a great deal of quality control.
The souce materials vary. About 70% are of plant origin. Most of the remaining 30% come from the mineral (e.g. Sulphur) and animal kingdoms (e.g. Sepia from the ink of the cuttlefish).
Sticking with the world of plants, it is important to understand that Homeopathy is not herbal medicine. The first steps in remedy preparation are similar, however. In that regard, the whole plant, or its root, or leaves (as appropriate) is macerated in a water / alcohol solution and duly processed to produce a herbal tincture. Typically this is a 1:3 concentration in water/alcohol. However it is 1:9 for the usual homeopathic mother tincture, symbolised ø.
This is where homeopathy deviates from herbal practice. Starting with the mother tincture ø, one drop of this is added to 99 drops of water/alcohol and vigorously shaken – the term is succussed – to create the first centissimal potency designated 1c. One drop of this added to another 99 drops of water alcohol and succussed makes 2c and so on.
The common lower potencies in use are 6c, 12c, 30c and 200c. These are often made traditionally by hand. There are also higher potencies, such as 1M (1000c) and above. These by necessity are machine made.
A few drops of the liquid of the desired potency are added to a bottle or vial containing the chosen remedy form – be it tablets, pills or granules – where it is absorbed.
You could just use the liquid, but the solid form is often more convenient to carry round.
Incidentally you can put the tablet or pill into a tumbler of water and with a quick stir go back to a liquid form (useful for babies).
Do not equate potency with strength, but instead something more akin to frequency (aka octaves on a piano). As a very broad guidline lower potencies have greater affinity with the physical and higher with the metal emotional.
Potencies of 30c and below are safe for home use. Home remedy kits mentioned in my previous blogs are typically 30c.
The process of potentisation of mineral remedies is similar but modified to accommodate the fact that many minerals are insoluble. Helios have a nice little video on potentisation.
There are other scales of dilution but the centissimal is the most common.
The eternal joke is that there is nothing in homeopathic medicine, there for it is placebo (from the latin meaning ‘to please’).
According to rules set down by the Italian scientist Avogadro (1776 to 1856) beyond the 12c potency there is no molecule of the original substance left. And indeed this is accepted.
Whether Dr Samuel Hahnemann (1755 to 1843), who set down the tenents of homeopathy, was aware of this is unknown. The two men were near contemporaries, but their time was not one of instant communications.
Hahnemann’s objective was simply to find the minimum dose of medicine required to cure a patient, and he clearly got results at potencies above 12c. Subsequent generations of homeopaths concur.
It would appear that Hahnemann unknowingly entered the non-matierial world. Possibly the domain of quantum physics. Be that as it may, for the most part homeopathic medicines are not chemical. Nor are they micro-dosing (a subject of interest in current medical circles).
For this reason Homeopathy is described as energy medicine or vibrational medicine etc. My preference is information medicine.
To get biblical for a minute, the opening words of John’s Gospel are ‘In the beginning was the Word…’. We live in an informed albeit mysterious cosmos. In a sense everything is information. And this is an information age after all.
Developing this hypothesis, the act of potentisation tranfers some essence of the original substance into a medicinal form. By analogy, the remedy then acts as a ‘download’; information or an instruction to the body.
We are familiar with the leaflet inside medicine packages that warn of the possible side effects associated with the medicine. The good news is that there are no side effects in homeopathy, and here is why.
When you take a biochemical medicine (say paracetamol), there are two effects. First the desired action of the drug (blocking chemical messengers in the brain that relate pain). And secondly, the rebound ‘side effect’ from the body that sees the drug as a foreign entity.
In contrast the homeopathic remedy can have no direct chemical effect (it is not a chemical). But it does stimulate a response. In a way then, the desired effect in homeopathy, is that which is secondary in conventional medicine.
Thus, the secondary effect becomes primary.
Needless to say, the practitioner selects the homeopathic medicine to give a desired response not an undesired.
What can occur in homeopathy is a slight intensification of symptoms. This should be transient and pass in a couple of days.
If you accept that your symptoms – however inconvenient – are the attempt of the body to cure, you can see why there might be this slight aggravation. It is a stimulus to cure.
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Disclaimer: I am a qualified professional homeopath and not a medical doctor. The NHS has many resources, and seeking the opinion of your GP is always of value.
Dibden Purlieu, Southampton