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Hahnemann extensively researched the toxicological literature of his day and experimented, on healthy volunteers comprised of a group of doctors and himself, substances from minerals, animals and plants. He aimed his system to be a complete scientific method based on demonstrable Laws and Principles, the most important of them being:
4 THE LAW OF SIMILARS
Similia similibus curentur is one of the cardinal principles of Homoeopathy, which means that a particular substance which produces a specific symptom in a healthy individual, cures the same symptom in a sick individual, although the causes that generate the similar symptoms are not the same. The body is made to reinforce its defense against a symptom caused by a medicine.
In order to avoid unwanted aggravation, Hahnemann successively reduced the dose, using infinitesimally small amounts without impairing the effectiveness. It is greatly puzzling as to how the micro doses can elicit reactions stronger than the larger doses, although similarities exist in very minute quantities of pollen proteins that induce very violent allergic reactions.
Both the Law of Similars and the concept of micro dosage are still controversial issues.
4 THE LAW OF DIRECTION OF CURE
Constantine Herring, a student of Hahnemann, basing on the experience of Hahnemann and his students, proposed that there is a progressive movement of the symptoms in a particular direction which indicates that the patient is being cured. The symptomatology moves from the most vital functional centres to the least vital centres, like the skin. Herring also emphasised that a slight initial aggravation of symptoms on medication is in fact a good sign indicating that the defense mechanism of the body is responding towards a cure.
Both the direction of the movement of the symptoms and the initial aggravation, have actually scared and put many a patient off the medication.
4 THE LAW OF SINGLE REMEDY
The physician is directed to find the one and the only remedy that has produced in its proving, the greatest similitude to the symptom complex existing in the patient.
This Law has been shown repeatedly to be the greatest weakness of the system as it requires a great amount of time, energy and single-minded dedication on the part of the physician to master the system and to achieve a reasonable success in treatment (Vithoulkas, 1983). And it also requires a patient with utmost patience to suffer the ups and downs of the experimentation and till the cure is effected.
This law of single remedy is largely being violated as homoeopathic practitioners now seem to be more inclined, like the allopathic physicians, to prescribe more than one remedy simultaneously.
4 THE LAW OF MINIMUM DOSE
The homoeopathic physician has to prescribe a very minute dose of the medicine, in order to prevent an enormous aggravation of the patient’s symptomatology (Vithoulkas, 1983).
The employment of progressively smaller doses through serial dilution (potentisation) is one of the basic principles of Homoeopathy. This is the most perplexing issue, as after some dilutions, there is no possibility of any molecules of the active principle being left in what is administered. Added is the controversial contention that the smaller the dose (higher potency), the more potent is the medicine.
4 INDIVIDUALISATION
Homoeopathy approaches the problem of illness by individualisation; every case, even of the same illness, is treated as peculiarly individual. This may often mean a different medicine for the same set of symptoms.