Hippocrates (460 BC – 370 BC), the father of medicine, had insisted that
the physician has to study the patient, not just illness. In treating
patients, he should do everything to assist the nature, the great
healer, to affect cure. He advocated similimum. Rig Veda, the source
book from which ayurveda originated, states that ‘a cure for poison lies
in the poison itself’. It was by an accident that the German physician Dr. Christian Fredericke Samuel Hahnemann
came across a similar statement by Dr. Cullen that the Cinchona barks’
decoction (which helps to relieve the symptoms of malaria) causes
intermittent fever in healthy persons. To understand the effects of
Cinchona bark in intermittent fevers, Hahnemann experimented on his own
self. Intake of Cinchona resulted in occurrence of condition simulating
intermittent fevers. This effect that Cinchona bark produced on him gave
birth to the idea of homoeopathy. Hahnemann continued to experiment on
himself and on others, close to him, noting that every substance he took
produced definite distinct symptoms. He further noted that no two
substances produced, exactly the same set of symptoms. Each substance
provoked its own unique pattern of symptoms, both on physical and mental
plane. At first, Hahnemann tested substances commonly used as medicines
in his time (such as Antimony and Rhubarb) and also, poisons like
Arsenic and Belladonna. To avoid harmful effects from normal doses of
the substances he diluted each medicine until he reached the greatest
dilution that would still produce a response. These experiments were
called provings and led him to observe and describe the basic principles
of homoeopathic medicine. One can observe the similarity of basic
concepts of homoeopathy for curing diseases with Hippocrates’s statement
and the Rig Veda. Dr. Hahnemann today is considered as father of
experimental pharmacology and father of homoeopathy.