– Treating Like with Like

Homeopaths prescribe according to the Law of Similars -(Similia Similibus Curentur). This is the idea that a substance that in large doses produces symptoms of a specific disease, will, in extremely small doses, cure it.

Does the Law of Similars make sense?

At first glance, cure by opposites seems the immediately attractive option. If you have constipation, a laxative will oppose the symptom and alleviate it. In the short term, the application of opposites can seem effective.

This use of opposites, however, fails to take into account the manner in which our bodies deal with health and disease. The body is constantly trying to maintain a steady, healthy state. In order to do this it must produce reactions, or ‘symptoms’ – for example a fever to kill a bacterial infection, or mucus to rid itself of a virus. If an ‘opposite’ medicine is given at this point, the body’s evolutionarily honed reaction to disease may be disabled.

If, for example, aspirin is given to reduce a fever, this will effectively bring the temperature down, making the patient feel better. Now, however, the pathogen is no longer being killed by the high temperature. The patient will feel better in the short term, but will be likely to take much longer to get back to normal.

 

The Law of Similars suggests that it is better to support the body in its endeavours to free itself of disease. The homeopathic method always uses the Law of Similars in the belief that a substance that can produce a fever (in a large dose) will, in a small dose, help support the body, so that it can more easily do the job it needs to do. A fever will enable the body to return to health faster, and much more efficiently.

In summary, prescribing medicines according to the Law of Similars – (as conventional medicine itself does in some cases) – often helps to support the body’s own defence reactions. This will tend towards a cure of the underlying disease itself. A medicine of ‘opposition’, aimed at reducing the symptoms, may occasionally be useful – giving aspirin, for example, if the body is dangerously over-heating – but in the main, will tend to disable the elegance of the body’s responses.