Materia Medica
Homeopathic Materia Medica
The German physician Samuel Hahnemann began practicing homeopathy when he began to translate the botanical Materia Medica of a Scottish physician in 1790. In that work, 20 pages are devoted to the Peruvian cinchona bark, which is used to prepare the medicine quinine.
While this substance produces fever-like symptoms in a healthy human, they cured fever in sick humans. Thus, he conceived the “law of similars” that like cures like.
Hahnemann developed the first Homeopathic Materia Medica by a system of homeopathic provings. With this, a substance was ingested by the “prover” and the symptoms that the “prover” developed were recorded in great detail.
These Materia Medica books are encyclopedia of materials which are used to prepare homeopathic medicines. They list the materials along with details of the provings that established the unique conditions for that case.
They constitute a homeopathic prescribing reference guide and are often used along with the Homeopathic repertory.
References:
Extracts from Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura.
William & Oscar Boericke: Homeopathic Materia Medica.
