Homeopathic medicines, which are therapeutically active micro-doses of mineral, botanical and biological substances, are used to treat various acute health conditions, including allergies, coughs, colds, flu, muscle pain, and stress, etc.
What is Homeopathic Dilution?
Homeopathy is based on three principles.
- ‘Like cures like’. Something that in large doses creates the symptoms of a disease, will, in small doses, treat it. This is similar to the theory behind vaccines.
- Extreme dilution enhances the medicine’s healing properties and eliminates undesirable side-effects.
- The whole person must be taken into consideration when choosing a remedy.
Homeopathic medicines are obtained from a precise and controlled process of successive homeopathic dilutions.
They are commonly made by crushing a plant, animal, or mineral substance then putting it into a solvent such as grain alcohol.
The extract is then further diluted in a mixture of alcohol and water. (Solid products can be diluted using lactose.)
The process is repeated many times to achieve a therapeutic dilution. After each dilution the mixture is vigorously agitated in a machine or by hand to deliver a calibrated amount of shaking.
This is called succussion. Homeopaths believe that the process of succussion is critical to assuring the therapeutic effect of the drug.