146
Subtle Agroecologies
blistering, intestinal purging, induced vomiting and profuse sweating, and the administering of
toxic drugs such as mercury. These techniques were frequently more harmful than the diseases they
were intended to cure (Dean, 2001). Disappointed with this practice of medicine, Hahnemann, also
a linguist, decided to give up his profession and instead he kept time only to translate medical texts
to earn a living (Aversa et al., 2016).
Hahnemann’s crucial observation was made whilst translating, from English to German, ‘A
Treatise of Materia Medica’ by William Cullen (1710–1790). Cullen stated that the bark of Cinchona
(a fowering plant from South America), that was an accepted medicinal plant to cure for malaria,
was effective because it was bitter and worked like a tonic. Disagreeing with Cullen, Hahnemann
started taking himself doses of the bark powder from Cinchona and carefully observing its effects
upon his own healthy body or organism. Based on his experience, he hypothesised that Cinchona
bark cures malaria because, in healthy people, it can provoke similar symptoms to those caused
by malaria (e.g. intermittent fever) (Fisher, 2012). Hahnemann subsequently began giving repeated
doses of many common substances to healthy volunteers and recorded the symptoms they induced.
This technique is known as ‘proving’ or undertaking a human pathogenic trial, and the descriptions
of symptoms, which include physical, emotional and mental, are recorded in compendiums called
Homeopathic Materia Medica (Dougeon, 1989).
After his important discovery, Hahnemann began clinical practice again, but now testing the
veracity of his new principles of homeopathy, and 6 years later, he came up with the basic premise:
similia similibus curentur or the like-cures-like principle. In the words of Hahnemann,
We should imitate nature, which sometimes cures a chronic disease by super-adding another, and
employ in the (especially chronic) disease we wish to cure, that medicine which is able to produce
another very similar artifcial disease, and the former will be cured; similia similibus.
Dougeon (1989: 265)
This principle itself was not new; it had already been point it out by others such as Hippocrates
and Paracelsus. Hippocrates (460–367 B.C.) observed empirically that through the similar, the
disease develops, and through the use of the similar, the disease is healed (Viganò et al., 2015).
Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1542), better known as Paracelsus, proposed the
theory of natural signatures or ‘signa naturae’, according to which the therapeutic properties of
plants or minerals can be deduced from some similarity between their forms or colours and the
various parts of the human body (Viganò et al., 2015). Hahnemann may have taken some ideas
from Paracelsus, but he did not follow its method. Instead, he emphasised that remedies must
reveal their curative properties through proving in healthy human bodies and that a similar set of
symptoms in an ill body would then be extinguished. In doing so, Hahnemann was the frst to build
a medical approach based on a principle that could be confrmed by experience. He was also the
frst to undertake this systematically, making it a central tenet of his method which is implicit in
the name ‘Homeopathy’ – from Greek homoios, meaning similar, and pathos, meaning suffering
(Walach et al., 2005).
Another important principle of homeopathy concerns the totality of symptoms, a kind of holism,
which considers the sick organism as a whole rather than a focus only on the diseased part itself.
Hahnemann advocated that remedies should be selected based on the ‘total’ set of symptoms, from
which those more representative of the ill-individual state could be found (Hahnemann, 1810). This
meant that two patients with the same clinical diagnoses, for example upper respiratory tract infection, could be treated with different remedies based on their individual characteristic symptoms.
Hahnemann also insisted that only one remedy should be used for a given patient at any time considering the totality of symptoms (Hahnemann, 1842).
Throughout his life, Hahnemann continued improving his theory and adding new concepts. One
such was the concept of potentisation or dynamisation, which consists of a series of successive dilutions combined with ‘succussions’ (vigorous shaking) of the homeopathic preparation (Brasil, 2011).
At frst, Hahnemann only diluted the remedies in order to minimise the side effect of any toxic
Subtle Agroecologies
blistering, intestinal purging, induced vomiting and profuse sweating, and the administering of
toxic drugs such as mercury. These techniques were frequently more harmful than the diseases they
were intended to cure (Dean, 2001). Disappointed with this practice of medicine, Hahnemann, also
a linguist, decided to give up his profession and instead he kept time only to translate medical texts
to earn a living (Aversa et al., 2016).
Hahnemann’s crucial observation was made whilst translating, from English to German, ‘A
Treatise of Materia Medica’ by William Cullen (1710–1790). Cullen stated that the bark of Cinchona
(a fowering plant from South America), that was an accepted medicinal plant to cure for malaria,
was effective because it was bitter and worked like a tonic. Disagreeing with Cullen, Hahnemann
started taking himself doses of the bark powder from Cinchona and carefully observing its effects
upon his own healthy body or organism. Based on his experience, he hypothesised that Cinchona
bark cures malaria because, in healthy people, it can provoke similar symptoms to those caused
by malaria (e.g. intermittent fever) (Fisher, 2012). Hahnemann subsequently began giving repeated
doses of many common substances to healthy volunteers and recorded the symptoms they induced.
This technique is known as ‘proving’ or undertaking a human pathogenic trial, and the descriptions
of symptoms, which include physical, emotional and mental, are recorded in compendiums called
Homeopathic Materia Medica (Dougeon, 1989).
After his important discovery, Hahnemann began clinical practice again, but now testing the
veracity of his new principles of homeopathy, and 6 years later, he came up with the basic premise:
similia similibus curentur or the like-cures-like principle. In the words of Hahnemann,
We should imitate nature, which sometimes cures a chronic disease by super-adding another, and
employ in the (especially chronic) disease we wish to cure, that medicine which is able to produce
another very similar artifcial disease, and the former will be cured; similia similibus.
Dougeon (1989: 265)
This principle itself was not new; it had already been point it out by others such as Hippocrates
and Paracelsus. Hippocrates (460–367 B.C.) observed empirically that through the similar, the
disease develops, and through the use of the similar, the disease is healed (Viganò et al., 2015).
Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1542), better known as Paracelsus, proposed the
theory of natural signatures or ‘signa naturae’, according to which the therapeutic properties of
plants or minerals can be deduced from some similarity between their forms or colours and the
various parts of the human body (Viganò et al., 2015). Hahnemann may have taken some ideas
from Paracelsus, but he did not follow its method. Instead, he emphasised that remedies must
reveal their curative properties through proving in healthy human bodies and that a similar set of
symptoms in an ill body would then be extinguished. In doing so, Hahnemann was the frst to build
a medical approach based on a principle that could be confrmed by experience. He was also the
frst to undertake this systematically, making it a central tenet of his method which is implicit in
the name ‘Homeopathy’ – from Greek homoios, meaning similar, and pathos, meaning suffering
(Walach et al., 2005).
Another important principle of homeopathy concerns the totality of symptoms, a kind of holism,
which considers the sick organism as a whole rather than a focus only on the diseased part itself.
Hahnemann advocated that remedies should be selected based on the ‘total’ set of symptoms, from
which those more representative of the ill-individual state could be found (Hahnemann, 1810). This
meant that two patients with the same clinical diagnoses, for example upper respiratory tract infection, could be treated with different remedies based on their individual characteristic symptoms.
Hahnemann also insisted that only one remedy should be used for a given patient at any time considering the totality of symptoms (Hahnemann, 1842).
Throughout his life, Hahnemann continued improving his theory and adding new concepts. One
such was the concept of potentisation or dynamisation, which consists of a series of successive dilutions combined with ‘succussions’ (vigorous shaking) of the homeopathic preparation (Brasil, 2011).
At frst, Hahnemann only diluted the remedies in order to minimise the side effect of any toxic