The Phenomenological Science of Therapeutics

When we look at the homeopathic phenomenon in action, we have to admit that scientifically it is very challenging because it is in itself a manifestation of the activity of another kind of physics.

More than thirty years of practice have confirmed to me the relentless capability of the homeopathic treatment to initiate, from the part of the organism, a corrective homeostatic response, as long as the pattern of the remedy prescribed coincides most closely, by semiological similarity, with the pattern of the individual disease displayed.

I do not intend to explain here the homeopathic method, but rather to emphasise the main mechanism by which it works. Homeopathy requires the collaboration of the body’s homeostatic reaction to achieve its goal. In reality it is this homeostatic reaction that is responsible for the resolution of the disease; the homeopathic remedy is only the inducer of the reaction.

As a medical doctor I have to admit that what really keeps amazing me to this day is the extraordinary capacity of repair that the organism exhibits soon after the homeostatic reaction has been activated by the correct homeopathic stimuli.

Homeostasis is the fundamental bio-regulatory device with which we come into this world equipped to survive. The life of the organism is determined by the maintenance of the invariance of the internal medium, the medium of our cells and tissues. This medium has a very narrow range of variability of internal states and, above all, requires stability (i.e. body temperature, blood constants, pH, concentration of salts, of oxygen, and so on).

With homeostasis our body has a dispositional arrangement available in its own structure that can modify the inner workings of the organism in order to keep the internal milieu stable, meaning that any variation in the environment of the organism does not cause too much change in the internal activity of that organism. From Gk. Homoeo (similar) Stasis (state), the name given to that dispositional arrangement indicates that the purpose of these coordinated physiological reactions is to maintain stability, sameness, invariance of the internal states.

Homeostasis implies regulation and therefore operates by constantly having full knowledge of the state of the organism in its most intricate detail. That knowledge is in the form of a coherent collection of neural patterns which map, moment by moment, the organic state, and which occur at multiple levels in the brain. The homeostatic response keeps alive the organic structure of cells and tissues, and by extension organs and systems, and it does so by constantly executing anabolic reconstruction to counterbalance the deconstructive catabolic activity that puts the metabolic equilibrium almost on the verge of collapse. The structures that sustain the homeostatic plan are interconnected by neural and chemical pathways.

The most important mechanism of homeostatic control is the autonomic nervous system (ANS), or neuro-vegetative system. Autonomic activity controls the functional milieu for cells and tissues throughout the body, making adjustments according to the body’s local or global demands and in support of body behaviour. It is permanently switched on. Through integration involving emotional behaviour, the ANS prepares us for anticipated body and organ requirements.

Nevertheless, in a single-cell creature that has no brain or nervous system, but by the fact that it is alive, homeostasis is present in its urge for life. Every time that the chemical profile inside the cell membrane changes, the cell senses it, knows what to do to bring it back to normal levels, and does so with incredible skill. It is the attribute of life to know how to maintain itself. What happens in a much more sophisticated multicellular organism like ours in that sense is the same. Homeostasis will reflect that same urge to stay alive; what differentiates us from other living creatures is the degree to which the organism can come to “know” about that urge. In its core homeostasis implies an inherent knowledge of the design of the organism that it is taking care of.

Homeopathy uses homeostasis to induce a curative reaction. What this means is that the source of recovery is the body’s own capacity to return to normality. In that sense homeopathy is an excellent therapeutic tool to be taken seriously, in particular in functional diseases which current standard medical treatment can only confront symptomatically. When you are dealing with a repetitive acute disease or an insidious chronic disease, symptomatic palliation in the long run brings more problems than benefits. Most functional diseases are susceptible to being modified by homeostatic inducement from a correct homeopathic potency, and as long as the homeostatic mechanisms are not impaired, even lesions can be changed.

The homeopathic remedy is a kind of sophisticated software, specific information from a particular substance, that matches the dynamics of the disease that the body is involved with. The program, by similitude, temporarily substitutes the original program of the disease. The new program triggers a homeostatic reaction from the body directed to oppose the new artificial disease picture. It is the homeostatic reaction induced in that way that restores the body’s stability, and this leads to the disappearance of the disease.

The life urge that defines all homeostatic activity, under the influence of the correct homeopathic treatment, shows itself to be able, when not dealing with an incurable condition, to achieve complete repair, “ad integrum”, restoring health in most instances in a “rapid, gentle, and permanent way”.

Homeopathy is fundamentally a therapeutic method, the application of which requires a phenomenological approach to the pathological event.