Homeopathy

 How Does Homeopathy Relate To Dentistry?

One of the natural methods of healing available to the dental practitioner is that of homeopathy. Homeopathy is a system that utilizes each person’s basic healing property to achieve health.

Homeopathy was discovered by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann, almost two hundred years ago. Using principles dating back to ancient Greece and Rome, he formulated a science that is being practiced in many countries around the world.

The basic principle of homeopathy is termed the Law of Similars, meaning “like cures like’. The law states that a homeopathic remedy can cure an illness if it produces similar symptoms in a healthy person as those of the illness. For example, if a person comes down with a stomach ache with fever and chills, a homeopathic practitioner would prescribe a remedy that would cause the same symptoms in a healthy person. This remedy would activate the body’s defense system and eliminate the problem. The remedies used in homeopathy are dilutions of natural substances derived from vegetable or mineral sources, not drugs or chemicals.

A second law of homeopathy, the Law of Proving, explains how these remedies have been discovered. Using the modern scientific method of a double blind study, where the doctors and subjects do not know what is being tested, a substance is given to numerous healthy people and their resulting symptoms noted. The symptoms which are consistent throughout are recorded in the Materia-Medica, the reference book for homeopathy. This information is then available to the practitioner wishing to cure the same symptoms in an ill person.

Unlike traditional medicine where a potent drug is used in strong doses to cause chemical changes in the body, homeopathic remedies are effective in small doses. In fact, Hahnemann found that the remedies became more effective as the were diluted more. Thus, a 6x remedy, one that has been diluted six times is more effective that a 2x remedy, one diluted only two times. In this age of drug therapy it may be difficult to understand why the more diluted the remedy, the potent it is. Yet, when one recognizes the power released when atomic particles collide, or that only 50-100 millionth of a gram of thyroid controls our metabolism, it is easier to see the effect of small dosages.

Although, an explanation of the mechanism of homeopathy has not yet evolved, speculation ties it to the electromagnetic fields inherent to all substances. But even though no exact explanation is offered, before a homeopathic remedy can be added to the Materia-Medica, it must pass the stringent tests outlined above. In reality, homeopathic remedies are tested more thoroughly than most drugs. See Remedies.