Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) did not invent but discovered the Law of Similars, which he named "HOMEOPATHY". He enshrined all the principles of practice of homeopathic medicine in a book named "Organon of Medicine." It is the law book of homeopathy. He, then, introduced Homeopathic Materia Medica, Theory of Chronic Disease, i.e., psora, sycosis and syphilis. This was the result of his hard labor, untiring zeal, close observation and scientific experiments of nearly five decades. Hence, homeopathy is not experimental but based on intelligent and sound experiments.

He introduced the concept of complete individual with his body and mind working in perfect harmony and in sickness the man is sick as a whole and not merely his tissues and organs. He said, "Every individual is different totally from the other individual in both health and sickness though they may be suffering from the same disease as named in medical jargon." Thus, he introduced the concept of INDIVIDUALITY. He further said, "That in all manner of corporeal diseases the Mental Symptoms are most important in any given totality of an individual; next are his corporeal symptoms, and in the last are the ultimates or the results of disease". However, in mental sickness, insanity, imbecility, etc., the corporeal symptoms become important general symptoms, and the mentals become the common symptoms." He said, "That every sickness in man is essentially a psychosomatic. The man first becomes sick in his mind and then in his corporeal body." Thus, long before Dr. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Hahnemann understood the significance of human mind and said, "Any symptom that the body physically or pathologically exhibits is the by-product of aggrieved mind."

Dr. J.T. Kent (1849-1916), a staunch follower of the master elaborated the Organon largely, has gone to the extent and said, "Human body is a government and the mind the central government. There is a quick communication between the human mind and the body through the nerve fiber." Therefore, every homeopath is essentially a psychotherapist.

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS IN GENERAL: - Somewhere in the later part of the nineteenth century, Drs. Janet and Sigmund Freud declared that some physical disorders could have their origin in strictly psychological causes. It is this class of disorders to which the term "psychosomatic" is applied. Thus, a psychosomatic disorder is the result of chronic or severe disruption of the delicate homeostatic balance of the body arising from emotional stress. Such a condition may involve any of the organ system and usually requires both medical and psychotherapeutic approach. An EMOTION is a response of the total organism or person in which the normal pattern of physiological balance is altered to prepare the organism for extensive or less specific emergency action. It may involve subjective or objective experiences.

All people experience emotion in normal living. Such emotion is transitory, rising to a peak of intensity appropriate to the situation and subsiding as the individual faces and copes with the situation or the disturbing phenomena disappear. The ability to experience a full range of normal emotion is a mark of good adjustment and serves to enrich the life of the individual. It is when emotion becomes chronic or too intense that homeostatic balance is seriously disrupted, and continued imbalance results in some psychosomatic disorder.

Hahnemann went beyond the realm of abnormal psychology and said, "The presence of Psora at the background makes a man vulnerable to emotional disorders when experiencing stressful events affecting the features of his personality where as people free from this chronic disease, i.e., psora may recover without any aid in a course of time after the stressful events pass off. Therefore, Hahnemann said in the Organon, "That in correct prescribing, the symptom totality, of the patient must be matched against the symptom totality of the medicine, giving importance to his mental symptoms and physical general symptoms the medicine thus selected must cover the dominant miasm if any. This totality should not be multitude of irrelevant details but a basic pattern, significant to the total functional unit. Two or three symptoms may already represent a totality. The emphasis on the importance of the mental and general symptoms is repeated, as they are outstandingly the representatives of the wholeness of a disturbed organism; they subordinate logically, almost automatically, the "particulars," namely symptoms and changes applicable only to certain parts and organs.

In the dominating system of medicine, there are no recognized principles of practice of medicine. They recognize only the ultimates and the results of disease. Moreover, the general physicians and specialists are not equipped with knowledge of psychology. They are unable to differentiate between a physical and a disease of psychogenic origin.

As a matter of fact that any disease that the flesh is heir to is the result of persistent emotional upsets. For, the psyche, formative for the organism, spreads any discord to the physical body, upsetting its delicate balance and function. Long persisted-in psychological imbalances particularly leave a deep mark on the body. Following are some examples:

Non-cardiac chest pain: - Approximately 50% of referrals to a cardiac clinic do not have heart disease. This is mainly due to emotional conflict and tension. This develops in the persons who have major basic anxiety and subsequent fear of death.

Essential Hypertension: - Chronically elevated blood pressure for which no organic basis can be found is called essential hypertension.  Psychodynamic factors associated with essential hypertension suggest a picture of external friendliness and self-control beneath which there are strong feelings of aggression and anxiety.

Musculoskeletal Reactions: - The muscular and skeletal systems may react to emotional stress with rheumatoid arthritis, backache, and muscle cramp. There is a strong relationship between the tensions and their release through the muscular activity. When such tensions are prolonged or intense, and remain unrelieved, the resultant strain produces aches and pains. 

Rheumatoid Arthritis: - The physical symptoms of this condition are pain, swelling of joints, and the limitation of movement. The most authoritative study describes the arthritic personality as self-sacrificing, over conscious, self-sufficient, demanding, domineering, and having little capacity for emotional involvement. The central psychodynamic reaction in arthritic patients so far as psychosomatic disorder may be involved is a chronic, inhibited, and rebellious and with resistance to any outside control. The chronic inhibition produces prolonged muscular tension, which ultimately brings on the arthritic symptom.

The above examples are only very few. There is long list of diseases rather every manner of physical disease is psychosomatic and beyond the scope of this paper.

I may add that the CANCER also comes under the above purview. According to an article published in "The Hahnemannian Gleanings" September 1969, XXXVI, 9 based on translation of lectures at Dr. Leo Vannier's School of Homoeopathy in France, that precancerous state in which there is no lump or growth but only the tendency to cancer. Cancer so far has been considered a local malady but the tumour is in reality the product or result of cancer and not cancer itself. It is the end result of a morbid process. The tumour is a reaction of defense by the body or in the words of Dr. Prafull Vijayakar is the result of Sycotic defense (miasmatic defense). In its evolution, cancer comprises three stages:

1.  Precancerous State

2. Tumour

3. Metastasis

The two principal causes of alteration in Nervous System are: -

1. Extrinsic: GRIEF, SORROW, and EMOTION.

2. Intrinsic: Progressive toxic impregnation by toxins retained in blood and not eliminated. From either cause result is the same-central power (vital force or homeostasis) is weakened and leads to a different phenomena and last but not the least debilitating the endocrinal functions....

           Homeopathy is the only system of medicine, which has the answer to such disorders. In fact, homeopaths all over the world from the times of the master until to day have been curing the said disorders effectively.

The homeopathic psychiatrist, Dr. Philip M Bailey says, 'the need of homeopaths for an accurate and realistic description of the personalities of the constitutional remedies. The old materia medicas that we rely upon so heavily describe only the crudest and most extreme elements of the mental picture of each remedy, missing the subtleties that we actually find in the minds of our patients. In my experience that the mentals are still the least understood and the most underdeveloped aspect of homeopathic prescribing. Yet the personality of the patient is at least as important as the physical characteristics in individualizing the case and finding the similimum. So often remedies are prescribed on the basis of a few physical symptoms, along with gross simplifications of the patient' personality, and fail to act. This gives the unfortunate impression that homeopathy is a vague and unreliable practice......I believe that this is due to the tendency for the original remedy picture to be copied over the years from teacher to teacher and M.M. to M.M.'

Dr. Fernando Risquez, homeopathic psychiatrist, says, "Deep psychology which owes its extraordinary beginings to the prolific genius of Dr. Sigmund Freud and was expanded by Alder and Jung, seems to respond more easily to the law of similarity. Therefore, a psychiatrist trained after the two world wars has more freedom of action if he includes the homeopathic materia-medica and its beneficial therapeutic aid in his psychotherapeutic activities. 

Referances:

1.      Homeopathic Psychiatrists, Drs. J.P.S. Bakshi,

2.       Cornelia Richarson-Boedler,

3.       Edward C. Whitmond,

4.        Philip M. Bailey,

5.       Fewrnando Risquez, 

6.       Theory of Psychology and Abnormal Psychology.

7.      Perceiving the symptoms of 'MIND' by Dr. Farokh J. Master

8.      Works of  Prafull Vijayakar and the members of his school

9.      Psychosomatic Syndromes: Report of a Symposium held in the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

      I am a humble student of homeopathy for the last 46 years and feel that one life is not sufficient to know homeopathy. I may be censured and corrected where i am found wanting; I shall welcome.