Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine developed by German physician and chemist, Dr Christian Fredric Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). It is based on the principle "Law of Similar". It states that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people. Dr Hahnemann believed that by inducing a disease through use of drugs, the artificial symptoms empowered the vital force to neutralise and expel the original disease and that this artificial disturbance would naturally subside when the dosing ceased.

Homeopathy does not pre-select any medicine for a particular disease; it treats the person as individual based on genetic and personal health history, body type and current physical, emotional and mental symp-

toms. It creates ability to fight against infection and weakness of disease and it is designed to encourage the body’s natural healing forces.

Homeopathy seeks to stimulate the body's ability to heal itself by giving very small doses of highly diluted substances. The principle of dilutions (or "law of minimum dose") states that the lower the dose of the medication, the greater its effectiveness. In homeopathy,

substances are diluted in a stepwise fashion and shaken vigorously between each dilution.

Homeopathic treatment is based on person's health, to strengthen acting motivating the body's ability to fight against infection as well as resist die disease. Many symptoms appear in ill health. Including mental and emotional symptoms, this can sometimes play a vital role in understanding

the susceptibility. So the medicine varies from person to person. For the first consultation, the homeopath may take an hour or more, to seek patient’s personal behaviour, which is separated him from others.

However, simple acute complaints may only lake 15-30 minutes. Treatment then involves the prescription of the most suitable medicine, matching most of the symptoms and individual characteristics of the patient to the medicine. Every medicine has separate characteristics, when the two become similar, the disease will be away and after hitting the disease the power of medicine will be vanished. l\vo people with the same condition may have very different prescriptions because of their own unique personality.

The writer is a practitioner of homeopathy E-mail begf.homeo@yahoo.com.