Hahnemann was a vitalist and believed that the cause of a disease is the untuning of the vital force which manifests itself on the outside of the body by many various symptoms. He approached therapy following the Law of Similars.

“SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURENTUR”

The human immune system is most sensitive to the environment which reacts and responds in its own typical fashion either to amalgamate, assimilate and produce a phagocytic or an attacking response to any substance tending to enter into the system. So too with any material substance. Homoeopathy has unraveled another secret of this human response. In the sense that if there is a material substance which provokes a sort of response in the human body and produces a set of symptoms; the same substance when diluted a number of times and typically over hundreds and thousands of times much beyond the knowledge of Chemistry wherein the substance can no more be identified by the parameters of the day; can actually get rid of the same symptoms that the original poisonous substance actually causes! Well, that is the response the Homoeopathic prescription is based upon. This Similia similibus is the bedrock of the Science. No wonder the recent Nano technology studies at Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai actually could see that there is a certain imprint of the substance in the diluted substance beyond the Avogadro’s number. All these do not bother a Homeopath as it is only the clinical change in disease that is consistently improving after the application of these remedies that matters and not to forget that as long as they do not cause any adverse reactions in the human system, which has never been found at all.

“DYNAMIZATION OR POTENTIZATION”

Hahnemann performed dynamization or potentization of medicines by a precise numbers of shakings .i.e. succussions – in given time sequences, or by an exact number of mixing .i.e. trituration, of a pure, diluted medicinal substance that was free from all coarse materials. Such high dilution was then potentized [dynamized] by repeated shakings. For treatment Hahnemann used as a rule high potencies which he achieved by diluting thirty times and then by dynamizing with exact number of shakings.

Answering the question, how to release the hidden healing force from inside the drug, how to achieve its potentization or how to dynamize the medicine, Hahnemann recalled Rumford’s experiments.

Benjamin Rumford (1753 – 1814) is considered to be the inventor of mechanical heat theory. He knew the transformation of labour into heat by speculating that heat is nothing else but movements of the smallest particles. By swift movements’ .i.e. by friction of two metallic plates in a closed room, Rumford achieved an increase in temperature inside that room.

From this phenomenon Hahnemann deducted that metal contains untapped reserves of heat energy in latent, bound, undeveloped state: “…latent heat, even in metals that feel cold, is manifested when they are rubbed …” Hahnemann used this partial discovery of physics – that the rubbing together of two metallic objects brings out heat – to support his theory of dynamization.

Hahnemann came to these results:

Hahnemann carried his dilutions till 30 centesimal potency while the Avogadro’s number can recognize a material quantity only till 13c. But now the dilution is much beyond those and the clinicians have been prescribing 200c, 1000c, 10,000c and even 50,000c.

“DRUG PROVING”

To attempt to determine which homeopathic remedies would be best for various ailments, Hahnemann and others engaged in a series of provings. In what can be viewed as early clinical trials of natural substances, Hahnemann and others self- administered pharmacologically active doses of many different substances and then carefully recorded the symptoms that resulted in a materia medica. These provings were based on Hahnemann's early study of cinchona bark.

Hahnemann felt that the best proving was done on oneself. Since the proving is based on self observation Hahnemann cautions that the person doing the proving must be trustworthy, intelligent and have keen observational skills. Some provings were taken from the literature, particularly where poisonings from a known agent produced a specific pattern of symptoms or lesions.

Hahnemann stressed that homeopaths should add to the materia medica with their own provings:

‘At first, about forty years ago, I was the only person who made the provings of the pure powders of medicines the most important of his occupations. Since then I have been assisted in this by some young men, who instituted experiments on themselves, and whose observations I have critically revised. Following these some genuine work of this kind was done by a few others. But what shall we not be able to effect in the way of curing in the whole extent of the infinitely large domain of disease, when numbers of accurate and trustworthy observers shall have rendered their services in enriching this, the only true materia medica, by careful experiments on themselves! The healing art will then come near the mathematical sciences in certainty.’ (Organon, sixth edition)

“INDIVIDUALIZATION”

Homoeopathic medicine respects the fact that though the immune system has a stable record of recognizing and fighting illness; it is also a fact that every time a similar pathogen causes an illness it does not necessarily cause the same symptoms in every individual.

Isn’t it a fact two different patients suffering with a disease like typhoid would have a response in two different ways. That is the reason why during a drug proving these symptoms are all recorded and along with the pathological symptoms that a disease causes in the human system these typical and unusual symptoms are appropriately noted down and the nearest possible remedy is suggested. This is what sets this system of Medicine apart and different and affords relief to the diseases it is prescribed for.