A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how we find out what a remedy does, what it will heal and I said then that I would write about how a remedy is actually made and perhaps dispel some of those myths like "there's nothing in it" and other such nonsense.
Well it was back in the days of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843) was going about his business of being a doctor. He was a very hardworking man but was having great difficulty feeding and clothing his family on his meagre doctor's salary. He was also becoming more and more disillusioned by the barbaric practices of the medical profession of the day... blood-letting, purging and poisoning were commonplace "treatments". So instead he concentrated on studying, researching and translating medical books (he spoke many languages fluently...a very clever man was Sam.)
It was while he was translating a book by Dr William Cullen, a Scottish doctor and writer, that he came across an essay about Peruvian bark (from which quinine is extracted...the only known treatment at that time for malaria). Cullen said it would cure the symptoms of periodic fever, sweating and palpitations because it was bitter. But Hahnemann didn't quite believe that this could be the reason so he tested tiny doses of it on himself and found that he experienced a whole host of symptoms not unlike malaria itself.
So that was really the first actual Proving of a substance which was then to be made into a remedy.
For the next six years he did many more Provings on himself, his family, his friends, indeed anyone who would stand still long enough to let him. Sometimes these Provings would end up in an accidental poisoning and that wasn't so good, but it didn't deter him. After all it hadn't killed anyone, unlike the other medical practices of the day. But Hahnemann was dissatisfied with the results of using the diluted medicines....when they were dilute enough to cause no side-effects they no longer actually cured anything. What was going wrong? Why won't they working like he *knew* they should?
Rumour has it he picked up a bottle of a dilute medicine and in frustration banged it hard on the leather-bound Bible on his desk.
BINGO!!
Stirring the medicine between dilutions wasn't enough to allow the energy of the substance to be released...it needed to be shaken very hard. He called it "succussion" and the result was a potentised remedy; a remedy which didn't cause any side-effects but one which cured the problem. He then discovered that the more he diluted and succussed it the more potent it became.
This was the safe form of medicine which he had been searching for. The medical profession was about to be turned on its head.
Unfortunately for Samuel he was ridiculed and hounded out of Germany. He was, after all, a real threat to the livelihoods of not only the doctors but also the vast numbers of apothecaries which had sprung up in recent years. They couldn't make any money out of what Samuel was doing. They were used to making up large amounts of substances consisting of many different substances and not the tiny amounts of the single substances that he was now prescribing. No...he had to go. (Does this story sound familiar to any of you who have followed the persecution of Homeopaths in recent years??)
Fortunately for the world Samuel was able to move to Paris and carry on his work and his research and his healing, albeit in a quieter than hoped for way.
Anyway, that is how he made his remedies. He diluted and succussed them until they cured the problems which he knew they should...the problems which had shown up in the Provings.
When I was learning about homeopathy I was really interested in all of that. You know it told me just how the remedies I was prescribing for myself, my family, my friends, my friends' families etc actually came into being. So I already knew more about what I was giving to people...the actual substances and how and why they cured what they did.....than the average GP when he/she prescribed a medicine. That felt really good to me.
But being me I also wanted to know how they were actually made....I mean the nitty-gritty of the remedy being diluted and shaken....I mean how did they get Sulphur into a bottle of liquid when I knew that it was a mineral?
So.... I had to learn about that too......
Ok, so let's take Sulphur for instance. It's a mineral...a yellowy brown crystal.... sometimes found as a powdery coating. It doesn't dissolve though, so how can it be diluted?
Well a piece of sulphur is put into a mortar and ground up. They call it triturated..... it means ground up very finely, and when I say finely I mean really finely....they triturate it, usually by hand for an hour. And then take one part sulphur and add that to ninety nine parts of milk-sugar (also a powder). Then they triturate this for an hour. At this stage the potency is known as a 1c. The c means "centesimal"...one part in a hundred. Then take one part of this mixture and add it to ninety-nine parts of milk-sugar. This is then a 2c. Repeat again to get a 3c. Once it is in 3c potency we can then take one part of that mixture and add it ninety-nine parts of pure alcohol and then succuss it 100 times (remember Hahnemann with his leather-bound Bible?) This is now the way it continues, in liquid form.
We can have remedies in every potency from a 1c up to 100M. The "M" means thousand. So a remedy which is 100M has gone through this process one hundred thousand times. That's a lot of diluting and succussing but it's also a very potent medicine! Many of the lower potencies are still made by hand in this same way as Hahnemann made them all those years ago, but the higher potencies tend to be made using a machine which does the succussing for you.
Most Homeopaths in practice these days wouldn't dream of making up their own remedies like this. Most of us tend to buy them from the homeopathic pharmacies who stock thousands of remedies in just about any potency we might require....and if they don't have it in already they are usually willing to make it for us.
So.... I hope that this has been useful and/or interesting at least.
There IS something in it after all!
And remember where to find me if you do want to give homeopathy a try.....
I do consultations by phone, Skype and of course, face-to-face :0)
Blessings
Sarah
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