The Law of Similars

ALMOST every book on homoeopathy contains descriptions of Samuel Hahnemann, his discovery of homoeopathy and its history. It is not my intention to repeat what I consider to be adequately covered. However, I feel brief mention should be made in order to underline the fundamental laws of homoeopathy.

Samuel Hahnemann was born in Meissen, Germany, on April 10, 1755. He was a doctor, chemist and scholar, fluent in eight languages, including Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

Hahnemann was thoroughly disillusioned with medicine as it was then practised. Excessive blood lettings, purgatives and poisons given to people already sick and debilitated by disease often led to the so-called cure being far worse than the illness.

He became occupied with translating. Whilst translating a medical textbook by a Professor Cullen of Edinburgh on the treatment of Malaria with Quinine (Cinchona bark), then known and used to cure Malaria, Hahnemann became aware of a resemblance of the effects of Quinine and the effects of Malaria. He noticed that the symptoms or side-effects of heavy dosing with Quinine were indistinguishable from those of Malaria. This set him thinking: if Quinine produced the same symptoms as those he wished to cure, could this be true of other substances?

Now able to predict the action of many drugs, Hahnemann devised a system of medicine based on the principle of matching the symptoms of the patient to those produced by a proven drug. This was the "Law of similars," of "Like curing like" (similia similibus curentur). This is the fundamental law of homoeopathy. Like cures like: whatever can cause can also cure, and vice versa.

Homoeopathy is a humane and compassionate system of medicine, for animals as well as people. It does not experiment on animals. Not only does it consider experimentation on animals as cruel, but also as useless for its purposes.

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