The Remedy (part 3 of 3)

The way Hahnemann created higher potencies in his remedies (after many years of trial and error) was to take a natural substance, crush it, pulverize it and then dilute it with alcohol or distilled water. Then he would take one drop of that dilution and dilute it again. In between dilutions, he would shake the solution by banging it against a springy type surface (like a thick book). He called the process of shaking/banging the solution, “succussion” or “succussing”. It is the succussion that increases the strength of the remedy during processing. The succussion would bring out more pronounced symptoms from a crude substance that had been diluted and create a potentized (high strength) “medicine”, called a Homeopathic Remedy.

As Hahnemann diluted dozens of crude materials to make into remedies, he gave the potentized remedies to groups of “provers” and made note of the symptoms that each remedy created in these individuals. Symptoms were then catalogued for each potentized remedy and kept in a book called the Homeopathic Materia Medica. This book is essentially a list of all symptoms created in a healthy person by ingesting a particular potentized remedy. During his lifetime, Hahnemann created and personally tested (proved) dozens of remedies. Now Hahnemann had his similar diseases and with them could treat and cure illness. Not obvious? Let’s take an example…

Hahnemann is approached by an ill patient who says he has pains in his eyes when looking down, frequent numbness in his fingers and legs and a ringing in his ears that will not go away. First, there is a check of the catalog of remedies (Materia Medica) and a search for the remedy that causes these same symptoms; Hahnemann reaches for the dilution of some substance that has shown in his “provers” to produce the exact same symptoms (Natrum Muriaticum- Latin name for common table salt- potentized). This remedy has been strengthened by succussion (banging and shaking) to make it strong and potent. This remedy creates an artificial disease that is to be greater or “bigger” than the natural disease of the patient (yet it is a similar disease). He gives this remedy to the ill patient… providing or causing a similar “disease” of symptoms to extinguish the same symptoms in the patient. The patient is cured by the law that “like cures like”. No two similar diseases can coexist within an individual; the greater disease will squash the smaller disease that is similar. One “medicinal” disease (the artificial disease created by the remedy- Nat Mur (abbreviation)) extinguishes the real disease in the patient because it is greater due to potentizing.

The End!

Just kidding, there is a lot more, but you now have the basic idea of how Homeopathy works.