subject: The Homeopathic Medicines [print this page] Hahnemann investigated nearly two hundred medicines before he, died. Now, 150 years later, there are nearly 3000 medicines available for use by homoeopaths. They have been made from an enormous variety of sources including plants, trees, minerals, metals, disease substances and modern chemical drugs. In the early days of homoeopathy most of the remedies were made from plants used in botanical medicine, plants such as aconite, belkdonna, chamomilla, cinchona and puIsatilla; other substances in use in contemporary medicine were also pressed into service: arsenic, mercury, magnesium and nitric acid, for example. Hahnemann was a chemist as well as a doctor and he was therefore able to devise methods of making metals into medicines: gold, silver and platinum are all used in homoeopathy.
He was also quick to see the potential in substances which had not been used before then in medicine. Sepia, the brown inky disguise put out by fish of the squid family, was tried as a remedy after Hahnemann noticed that a severely depressed painter friend had the habit of sucking his sepia-covered brushes. Through speculating as to whether his friend's depression had been caused by this practice, Hahnemann came upon what was to become one of the most important homoeopathic remedies for people suffering from a whole range of symptoms associated with depression, including apathy, frustration, irritability and exhaustion. Since Hahnemann's time, many other substances have been brought into use. Several exotic plants were introduced by the early American homoeopaths: Cimicifuga, Gelsemium, Ipecacuanha and Phytolacca, for instance. Remedies have also been made from charcoal, salt, bee stings, snake venom, oyster shell, nuts and modern drugs.
In feet, anything at all can be used as a homoeopathic remedy as long as we know what symptoms it can cause and therefore cure. All the remedies in common use in modern times have been tested in the same kind of experiments as were originally devised by Hahnemann. The evidence from these provings is supplemented by evidence from the literature about the poisoning effects of some of these substances, and by evidence from clinical practice. Many of the early homoeopaths took great personal risks to discover the symptoms of remedies. Constantine Hering, who explored the jungles of South America in search of likely remedies, paralysed his left arm for life while testing the venom of the Brazilian bushmaster snake, Lacbesis. Of course, this will not happen when taking remedies derived from these substances because they are taken in a very highly diluted form. It is impossible to be poisoned by a homoeopathic remedy.
