Some basic definitions of words used in homeopathy.
These definitions of basic expressions should help to avoid confusion.
Acute disease: A self limiting illness.
Aggravation: Initial increase in intensity of symptoms when the activity of the person's vital force is increased.
Allopathy: The treatment of disease by a substance that bears no relationship to the signs/symptoms of the disease. This term is sometimes mistakenly used to describe many modern conventional drug treatments. If this method has any beneficial effects, it operates by temporary distraction of the body's reaction to disease (e.g. counter-irritant).
Amelioration: Decrease in intensity of the person's symptoms, this follows any aggravation phase.
Antiopathy: (Antipathy/Palliation): The treatment of disease with a substance that opposes or counteracts the signs/symptoms. Many modern conventional drugs come under this heading. Temporary relief of symptoms or temporary alleviation of signs is achievable by this method.
Causation: Anything that causes activation of a person's inherent predisposition to disease
Centesimal scale: The strength of medicine is diluted 1 : 100
Chronic: In homeopathy this refers to a state of debility in which the vital force has been damaged in such a way that it cannot regain health.
Concomitant symptoms: A symptom that occurs at the same time as another symptom. There is seldom any relationship between the two except in time.
Constitution: Individuals can be classified according to the characteristic reaction pattern of the vital force.
Crude dose: a medicine that has not been potentised.
Cure: This word is usually reserved for the state of the patient, after treatment, in which no signs/symptoms can be detected and which requires no ongoing medication to maintain that state. Temporary alleviation of signs/symptoms by drug medication (see antiopathy above) does not imply cure.
Decimal scale: The strength of the medicine is diluted 1 : 10.
Disease: The state of the patient in which there is imbalance or disharmony. The reaction of the patient to this state, usually in an attempt to restore internal harmony, produces the signs/symptoms that the patient can exhibit/feel and which are sometimes confused with the definition of disease.
Dosage: The number of times the remedy is given.
Exciting cause: A detrimental factor to which each individual is particularly sensitive, so their predisposition or weakness is exposed.
Herb: Plant of medicinal value. Used to effect an improvement in health. They are used dried or as tincture. They are not potentised and their use does not usually involve the basic homeopathic laws of - Law of Similars. Law of Cure. The single remedy. The single dose.
Holistic: Each of the person's symptoms are treated as a whole, the person is treated not individual symptoms.
Homeopathy (Homoeopathy): The treatment of disease with a substance that is able to provoke similar signs/symptoms in a healthy body. The medicines may be extremely 'dilute'. Homeopathic medicines do not interfere with the body's function, nor have a direct pharmacological effect. The body's reaction to the medicine is what brings about the curative process.
Idiosyncrasy: An individual's particular sensitivities.
Isopathy: The treatment of disease with the supposed disease agent (i.e. the same as the disease). The medicines may be extremely 'dilute' but the usual dilution/succussion method of preparation, used for homeopathic medicines, is not an essential part of this definition (see 'potentisation' below).
Keynote: A particular characteristic symptom that identifies a remedy.
Maintaining cause: A destructive factor adverse to life which lowers the vital force of the individual, therefore making them more susceptible to disease.
Materia Medica: A written representation of a remedy's action. A list of symptoms the remedy may produce and cure. Symptom pictures of homeopathic remedies
Miasm: A chronic affliction of a person's vital force from which it cannot recover.
Minimum dose: The required amount needed to stimulate the person's vital force to react (expel Symptoms).
Modality: Anything that causes changes to a person's symptoms.
Morbific agent: anything that disturbs the activity of a person's vital force.
Naturopathy: Using the natural reaction of the body to cure it's own disease.
Nosode: A medicine derived from disease material (e.g. discharges, tissues, secretions, excretions). Such medicines have undergone the potentisation process commonly used in homeopathy. Objective symptoms: Symptoms that can be observed by the homeopath whilst being unprejudiced (open).
Palliation: Symptoms are ameliorated.
Potency: The number of times a homeopathic remedy has been diluted and succussed.
Potentisation: Applies to the dilution and succussion process, that is usually employed for homeopathic medicines.
Predisposition: The inherited weakness in the vital force of an individual that arises from miasms.
Prover: A person who takes a homeopathic remedy with the intention of proving it.
Proving: When a homeopathic medicine is taken by a healthy person with the intention of discovering what symptoms that medicine is capable of producing. Pseudochronic disease: Originates from a maintaining cause, which disappears when the cause is removed.
Repertory: A dictionary of symptoms produced by homeopathic remedies.
Resonance: Vibrating in unison with (how a homeopathic remedy effects a change in a person).
Sarcode: A medicine derived from healthy tissue. Such medicines have undergone the potentisation process commonly used in homeopathy. They are not nosodes.
Similimum: The remedy that produces a symptom picture that is most similar to the patient.
Subjective symptom: A symptom only experienced by the patient (cannot be observed by others).
Succussion: Applies to the vigorous agitation of homeopathic medicines, at each stage of dilution/potentisation. It is this process, apparently, that effects the energy changes in the solution.
Suppression: when symptoms disappear but not according to the law of cure.
Susceptibility: The degree of sensitivity to the homeopathic remedy or to the exciting cause.
Symptom: An awareness to discomfort or dis-ease which is abnormal for the patient.
Symptom picture: Is applied to the patient or to the homeopathic remedy. It is the characteristic group of symptoms produced by either of these.
Vital force: The process or intelligence that corrects and maintains the organism (person) within a set pattern.
Vitalism: A system of medicine that recognises that the organism (person) is more than a collection of chemicals. It recognises the principle of life.
Vitality: The amount of energy present to sustain life.