by Bette Jo Arnett, classical homeopath

Often people unfamiliar with homeopathy will ask me, Is it scientific?

Yes it is… and has been since its discovery in the late 1700’s by Samuel Hahnemann. Today, double blind, placebo controlled studies are conducted throughout the world AND, right here in Minnesota!

The process called proving is how information is obtained as to the healing powers of a substance. Whatever symptoms are produced in the proving, is what the substance will help or cure in an individual, in other words, like cures like, the Law of Similars.

Samuel Hahnemann developed this process and says in his Organon of Medicine, paragraph 21,

…therefore we have only to rely on the morbid phenomena which the medicines produce in the healthy body as the sole possible revelation of their in dwelling curative power.

A German physician, Hahnemann was concerned about the toxicity of herbs. He only had the toxicology reports of poisonings to rely on to find the action of a substance. Therefore, he first experimented on himself to see how much he could dilute a substance and have it still be effective. He then started working with provers, approximately 10 people, who took remedies he prepared, diluted and succussed, and then watched the symptoms the remedy created in each person. The results were collected and collated to observe the similarities among the provers and then were recorded in a book called a repertory. Each remedy he wrote about individually, as to the action and power of the remedy on the mental, emotional and physical planes. Those writings were recorded in a book called a materia medica.

This process is still used today but with the incorporation of more controls. Today, the provers number 15 -30 people and the remedies are prepared by an independent lab after a master prover, the conductor of the study, selects it. The remedy is then returned to the master prover, along with placebo and is administered to the provers in the study by an assigned clinician. Neither the clinicians conducting the study, nor the provers, know what the remedy is and whether or not they are taking the remedy or the placebo.

The clinician communicates with the prover after taking the remedy. They clarify what the symptoms mean and how they present themselves. “I have a headache after taking the remedy” needs to be explained in detail….where on the head?, what is the pain like?…a band around the head?, sharp?, piercing?, dull?, etc. All the symptoms are dissected to get an accurate picture of the substance being proven.

After collecting the symptoms of all of the provers, they are put into the repertory according to their relevance and how often they appeared among the provers. In the repertory the symptoms in bold letters were the most common in the proving, then in italics and then in plain font. The homeopath will know when working with a client how prominent a symptom was when the proving was conducted, helping them in deciding which remedy is the best match for the symptoms of the client s/he is helping.

The homeopath uses the information from the repertory and the materia medica to help them in selecting the right remedy for the client…the one that matches their symptoms most closely. If after taking a remedy you have new symptoms you have never had before, the homeopath may say you are proving the remedy and that the choice they made is not the best match for you.

Therefore, the word proving or prover can mean a process to find out the action of a substance, a person who is participating in the process of proving a substance or an action that is happening to a person taking a homeopathic remedy when the symptoms are not matching the symptoms in the person, but rather matching the symptoms of the remedy.

Over 3000 substances have been through the proving process. Animal provings are particularly interesting because the essence/behavior of the animal is present in the symptom picture too. A proving conducted in Minnesota in 2004 was Chelydra Serpentina, snapping turtle. Some of the symptoms present in the proving of this remedy were emotional feelings of being abandoned, ignored, left behind, left out, forsaken, a sense of isolation or being shunned. Together with the known fact; when a snapping turtle bites, they do not let go, I prescribed this remedy for a dog who would hide underneath a table and then come out to bite his owner and not let go. He had been rescued from a puppy mill and had been abused. After being on the snapping turtle remedy he has been able to control his biting and is no longer hiding under a protective shell/table.

Provings are conducted at the Northwestern Academy of Homeopathy located in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. A well person can participate in a proving. Usually the proving is done once a year. You may contact Kris Nelson, the school administrator, to get more information, if you would like to participate in this process.

So emphatically YES! Homeopathy is scientific… being proven in a process developed by Samuel Hahnemann over 200 years ago and refined to be an objective, double blind, placebo controlled process today, all over the world.

References:

Jeremy Sherr, The Dynamics and Methodology of Homeopathic Provings, 1994

Samuel Hahnemann, The Organon of Medicine

Kris Nelson, administrator NAH, kris@homeovista.org

Proving of Chelydra Serpentina, www.interhomeopathy.org