Homeopathy is a system of medical science which involves diagnosis and  treatment of a patient with highly diluted substances, given mainly in tablet form, with the aim of inducing the body’s natural system of healing. Based on extensive study and observation of specific symptoms, a Homeo doctor will match the most appropriate substance for each patient.

Homeopathy medicine is based on the principle that you can treat ‘like with like’, that is, a substance which causes symptoms when taken in large doses, can be used in small amounts to treat those same symptoms. However, one major difference with homeopathic medicines is that substances are used in ultra high dilutions, which make them non-toxic.

Homeopathic remedies or medicines are prepared by specialised pharmacy companies using a careful process of dilution and a specific form of vigorous shaking.

Science has not been able to explain the mechanism of action of ultra high dilutions in the body, but laboratory experiments have repeatedly demonstrated that homeopathically prepared substances cause controlled biological effects. There is also a growing body of research evidence that homeopathic medicines have clinical effects.

Homeopathy and its principle of treating “like with like” dates back to Hippocrates (460-377BC). But in its current form, homeopathy has been widely used worldwide for more than 200 years.

It was discovered by a German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann. He began experimenting on himself and a group of healthy volunteers, giving smaller and smaller medicinal doses, and found that as well as reducing toxicity, the medicines actually appeared to be more effective, the lower the dose. He also observed that symptoms caused by toxic ‘medicines’ such as mercury, were similar to those of the diseases they were being used to treat e.g. syphilis, which lead to the principle he described as ‘like cures like’. Hahnemann went on to document his work, and his texts formed the foundations of homeopathic medicine as it is practised today.