What is the Law of Similars?

Homeopathy is a word which refers to using the Law of Similars to treat disease (see our other articles). But what is the Law of Similars? Initially, it was a phenomenon written about and used in practice over 2000 years ago by Hippocrates, the father of western medicine. He noticed that when applying a therapy that was similar to the symptoms of the disease, he was able to cure the illness.

Later, treatment by similars was rediscovered by Samuel Hahnemann, a world-renowned German physician and chemist. Through his research, experimentation, and medical experience he discovered that treatment by similars was a consistent, reproducible, phenomenon that can be relied on to treat patients effectively, because of this he called it the “Law of Similars.”

The Law of Similars states that a medicine that produces the most similar symptoms to the disease has the highest chance of healing the illness. This may sound strange to you because most of us are used to the opposite idea: treatment by contraries. We are familiar with this because treatment by contraries is how modern pharmaceuticals work.

Drugs have an action on the body that suppresses the body’s ability to create a symptom, thus acting contrary to the disease state. If you are familiar at all with conventional medicine, then you are familiar with the shortcomings of treatment by contraries. If you are tired of dealing with these shortcomings then perhaps it is time to try the better way: Homoeopathy, which is literally the opposite of the contrary treatments of conventional medicine.