Glossary

Allopathy
Treatment approach still applied in today’s “main stream” medicine. In contrast to the homoeopathic simile principle allopathy uses medicines that relieve the symptoms of a disease (the medicines would not produce that disease in a healthy person).

Anthroposophy
Global spiritual view of the world developed by Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925). Anthroposophy (from Greek for ‘human being’ and ‘wisdom’) aims to develop faculties of perceptive imagination, inspiration and intuition through cultivating a form of thinking independent of sensory experience.

Arsenic
Chemical element and metalloid that is used as a medicine although it is poisonous.

Case taking/history taking (Anamnesis)
Recording a carefully individualized case history, using the patient´s own words as far as possible.

Cholera
Severe infection mostly of the small intestine caused by Vibrio cholerae bacteria and mainly transmitted by the consumption of contaminated drinking water or food.

Dilution
The act of reducing the concentration of a solution or a non-fluid mixture, or the resultant solution or non-fluid mixture, proper.

Four-Humour-Theory
Hippocrates introduced the theory of the four humours and defined illness as an imbalance of these bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile), caused among other things by adverse air, water or earth conditions. Medical therapy from antiquity through the Middle Ages to 19th century has been founded on this doctrine.

Globules
Spherical in shape and made of pure beet and/or cane sugar. These are approximate the size of a poppy seed.

Homoeopathy
From Greek: homoios = similar, pathos = suffering. An experience-based alternative way of medical treatment.

Law of Similars
To treat a disease with the substance that produces similar symptoms in the healthy person (simile principle).

Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis
Worldwide association of homoeopathic physicians founded in 1925. Its members meet on congresses. http://liga.iwmh.net/

Materia Medica
“materials of medicine” in Latin. A reference that lists the curative indications and therapeutic actions of homeopathic medicines. This information is derived from provings and clinical experience.

Mercury
Chemical element, the only metal that is liquid under standard conditions.

Organon
Hahnemann’s main text book for the practice of homoeopathy.

Placebo
(Lat. ‘I shall please’). A pure placebo is a sham medicine that does not contain any active medical substance and can therefore not have the pharmacological effect of such a substance.

Potentization
Imparting (along serial dilutions) the pharmacological message of the original substance by means of trituration or succussion.

Repertory
An index of the homeopathic materia medica by symptom. A list of remedies is indicated for each symptom.

Right to dispense
The right of non-pharmacists to manufacture and dispense medicines.

Simile principle
see ‘Law of Similars’

Succussion
The process of forcefully striking a homeopathic remedy against a firm surface. Hahnemann recommended using a leather-bound book for this purpose.