Homoeopathic remedies are among the safest medicines you can take — gentle, effective and completely natural. But to get the best from them you need to know how to use them: not merely what remedy is good for a particular condition, but when it should be taken and how often, who should take it and at what stage another remedy would become more effective. Different.

This practical and amazingly comprehensive hook, written by a practising homoeopath, explains all about the what, when and who of homoeopathy It includes:

• Advice on taking the remedies, with instructions for treating adults, children and pets.

• An explanation of the different constitutional types of people, with key questions to help you identify your own type and so select the best remedy for you. • An A-Z of 200 conditions with suggested remedies and dosages, cross-referenced for easy use.

• An alphabetical listing of 120 remedies, including detailed profiles of the major ones, and advice on usage. they need to know in order to help themselves

• Information on how homoeopathy works, how it was developed and how the remedies are prepared.

• Full resources to help you find homoeopaths, pharmacies, professional organisations and courses in the UK, USA and Australia.

Designed to tell readers all with homoeopathy, the book sets out to answer peoples questions on their own terms and to provide full information as accessibly as possible. It is likely to become the source of advice you turn to first.

Which homoeopathic remedy is good for this condition? What is this homoeopathic remedy good for?

These are the most important and frequently asked questions about homoeopathy. The aim of this book is to answer them as fully as possible. for as many remedies and conditions as is practical.

Collecting all the information about a health problem, getting a clear understanding of what is going on and looking for the right remedy are skilful tasks which professional homoeopaths have spent years learning to do, Clearly, this is beyond the ability of untrained individuals, At the same time, the underlying principles are quite simple and there is much that people can do for themselves. Homoeopathy has wonderful healing powers, some of which can only be appreciated by long study and observation of its effects. Yet even experienced homoeopaths are sometimes obliged to work with little more than hunches and the most tentative explanations. This text aims to be clear and frank about the limits of both self-prescribing and professional help with’ homoeopathy for the conditions covered, It is hoped that this will help you to get the best results out of both.

How Homoeopathic Remedies are Prepared
Homoeopathic pharmacy is very simple. The starting point is the juice of the plant which is squeezed out and then mixed with just enough alcohol to preserve it, This is called the mother tincture.

Potentisation
Then the special process of repeated dilution and agitation, called potentisation, begins, The homoeopathic pharmacist takes one drop of mother tincture and adds it to 99 drops of pure alcohol, Then he strikes (‘succusses’) the vial in which the mixture is contained on a hard surface a few times. The result is potency one.

Next he puts one drop of potency one into another 99 drops of alcohol and succusses again. The result is potency two. And so it goes on. At about potency 12 there is no trace of the original substance left at all, but this is hardly the beginning of the process. Homoeopaths often use remedies in potency 30, 200, one thousand, ten thousand and even one hundred thousand.

Then pills, tablets or granules are coated with the solution, or it is dissolved in dilute alcohol, which can be placed in the mouth. Again the process is very simple. Often the pharmacist just puts a few drops of the potency into a glass vial filled with tablets.

The ‘strength’ of potencies
In the higher potencies new dimensions of healing power are revealed that were quite invisible before preparation. But it is important to remember that the remedies are only ‘stronger’ in a special sense. They can only affect someone who has symptoms similar to those that are produced by the remedy. Only then is there the sensitivity in the person to that particular remedy (see p. 5). If someone does not have this sensitivity, the remedy will have just a very subtle effect on them which they probably will not even notice.

Insoluble substances
In the case of remedies made from insoluble substances such as minerals, the first few potencies are made by ‘trituration’. One part of the substance is placed in a mortar and 99 parts of milk sugar are added, and the two are ground together thoroughly, to make potency one. Then one part of this mixture is added to another 99 parts of milk sugar and this is ground together, and so on. After the first few stages the same ratio of the powder mixture is dissolved in water and alcohol, and the process proceeds from there.

Different scales
When the dilutions, as described above, are one in a hundred this is known as the centesimal scale which is the most widely used system. In some cases, however, the dilution is made one in ten each time, which is the decimal scale. Then the potencies are known as ÔX or OD and l2X, and so on. Strictly speaking, the centesimal potencies ought to be called 6C and so on, but often the C is omitted and potencies are assumed to be centesimal unless it is specified otherwise.

There is one other system, called the LM scale. LM stands for fifty thousand and the substance is diluted in a ratio of one to fifty thousand at each stage, with many succussions each time. This system is almost always given out in drops or even spoonful doses. It is not so common, but a homoeopath might suggest taking a remedy made this way as it has some advantages. The effect is gentler and more cumulative, rather than the sudden impact that can be the result with centesimal potencies.

How Does Homoeopathy Work?

Life-energy and matter
Try a simple thought-exercise. Think of a dead body, then of a living person. Compare the two. That which is present in one and absent from the other is what homoeopathy and all systems of’ medicine are concerned with. Oddly enough, we rarely think about it carefully and there is even some disagreement about what it should be called. Perhaps the best name for it is simply Life’.

As you can see, Life is a kind of energy, while the body on its own is inert matter. An essential thing about energy is that in itself it is invisible, we are only made aware of it by observing the effects that it has on matter. On the other hand, the essential thing about matter is that in itself it does nothing, it only moves or changes when energy causes it to do so.

The homoeopathic view of health and illness
From these certainties it is known that whenever our health changes it is the Life energy that has changed, although the effects on the material body are all that can be observed.

It is worth stressing this because it is the central point on which all the theory and practice of homoeopathy is based. The only way of telling what has happened to someone when they have become ill is to observe the changes in their body (including the subtle body called mind), simply because this is all that can be observed. But it is known for certain that the cause and beginning of the problem are not in the material body, simply because matter on its own cannot change or do anything. The cause and the real nature of the illness are a change in the Life energy, and it is this change that has to be identified and removed in order to restore the patient to health. The whole business of medicine is how to use medicinal substances in order to achieve this.

There are of course some conditions caused by violent damage to or deformity of the body, when physical intervention is essential. This is the domain of surgery and emergency procedures. Homoeopathy is a system of medicine concerned with the treatment of medical conditions, in the strict sense of that word. The need for surgery and its frequently wonderful results have no bearing on the validity or otherwise of homoeopathy in its own sphere. Medicine clearly has a support role in relation to surgery, and the benefits of homoeopathic medicines during and after surgery are well known.

The work of Samuel Hahnemann
Samuel Hahnemann, the eighteenth-century German doctor who founded homoeopathy, dedicated his life to seeking the best way of using medicinal substances to remove the disturbance in the Life energy which he understood to he the root of illness. He was one of those rare scientists who excel both in experimenting and in reflecting on the results to gain insights into the underlying laws at work in what they observe.

Hahnemann perceived that there is a problem with the usual method of using medicines that have the opposite effect to the symptoms of disease, such as giving preparations that cause diarrhoea to treat constipation, or those that cause coldness to treat fevers. He saw that because of the principle of equal and opposite action and reaction, at first the action of the medicine is to reduce the symptoms, but that then the reaction follows and the symptoms come back, often visibly worse than before. This is why bigger and bigger doses of medicine often have to be given.

He experimented with medicines that had an effect similar to the symptoms of the disease, and the results were very pleasing. He conducted many experiments himself and also studied the medical literature available at the time, producing a great body of empirical evidence to support his idea that the best way to remove disease is to give a medicine with symptoms similar to those of the disease.

However, he still faced the problem of how to get the benefits from a medicine without suffering the harmful effects as well. He experimented with diluting the preparations and found that it was easier to control the effects. He persisted in this line and to his own surprise made a remarkable discovery. if he diluted the medicines repeatedly, to be called 6C and so on often the C is omitted and potencies are assumed to be centesimal unless it is specified otherwise.

There is one other system called the L M Scale. L M stands for fifty thousand and the substance is diluted in a ratio of one to fifty thousand at each stage with many succussions each time. This system is almost always given out in drips or even spoonful does. It is not common, but a homoeopathy might suggest taking a remedy made this way as it has some advantages. The effect is gentler and more cumulative rather than the sudden impact that can be the result with centesimal potencies.