Homoeopathic Pharmacodynamics :
- K. P. Muzumdar.
Homoeopathy is a system of therapeutics and operates on nature's law of similars. The remedy selected on the basis of its capacity or power to produce in healthy in a disease state. The selection of a remedy for a disease condition, therefore, depends upon the symptoms it can produce in a healthy state.
We understand the ability of the drug to produce disease-like condition in a healthy state through three ways:-
1. Provings: (Human pharmacology); 2 toxicological study (poisoning); 3 laboratory investigations and experiments.
Provings is an old term still used in homoeopathic literature. It denotes the tests, or experiments conducted on healthy males and females called provers. The records of the effect produced on provers are provers are noted by them in a book or a diary called Day Book. This is a very Sacramental document and all the further experiments are based on the truthfulness of this document. When Hahnemann introduced this method of drug testing he was laughed at, The shortcomings of animal experiments are well known and the present day scientist are using that same too under the name of Human Pharmacology.
Provings is the positive effect of the drug on the healthy human, which constitutes the actual drug action- the pathogenesy in homoeopathy. They become legal and may not always be supplemented by laboratory experiments or toxicology. Clinical findings reinforce the weak links. The provings of many drugs are meager and incomplete and need to be extended. In some the provings have been extended to the limits of their functional action. A hint in the proving has led to the much extended clinical use. Much useful and valuable therapeutic knowledge has been acquired in this manner and well verified: clinical symptoms accompanied by modalities are used as drug indications.
Toxicological effects are the gross effects of drugs showing changes in an anatomical or structural tissue, which are comparable with the pathological morbific changes seen in diseases. One must eliminate here the local changes caused by the physical or chemical action of destruction of tissue, both in the living and the dead. These changes are not useful for therapeutics purposes, they may help only to show the sphere of action of the remedy.
Laboratory Investigations and Experiments
Carefully arranged experiments can determine quantitative and qualitative changes in the organ tissue function and metabolism due to the effect of the drug under study which may be in a large, medium or small quantity. This helps to co-relate the data with the actual disease state. This by itself is not much useful in determining the therapeutic action of the drug.
The information thus collected through Provings, Toxicological Data, constitute our homoeopathic materia medica The sum total effect of the drug is pharmacodynamics.
The drug has three-fold action on the human organism.
Chemical action: It exhibits the affinity of the drug to the body tissue. This is independent of the body vitality. Strong nitric acid for example, will produce a considerable burning and sloughing of the skin.
Mechanical action: This is exhibited by the effort of the body to throw away the offending substance. Any foreign body entering the organism there is a tendency to throw it away through the mechanical action.
Dynamic action: This dynamic action, -body response to any external stimuli,-depends upon the relation of the property of the drug to the susceptibility of the healthy living organism. They are known as non-pathognomic symptoms. Fear of death in Aconite, 4 p.m. aggravation in Lycopodium, are the non- pathognomic or dynamic expressions of the drug.
Hahnemann recognizes these expressions by primary and secondary action. While the chemical and mechanical actions belong to the category of primary action, the dynamic action corresponds to the secondary action. This is the action or response of the body to the Primary action. It is the Secondary action which is Curative in nature.
Arndt Shultz Law:
Vaccines are used to Stimulate the body mechanism even where the active disease is not present. Superabundance of antibody is produced in this manner- it is a state of immunity against a particular disease. This fact is an indirect assertion of Arndt's Law. Prof. Shultz of Greifswald university was one who emphasized this Wheeler expressed the law in the following terms: small stimuli encourage life activity- medium to strong stimuli tend to impede it; and very strong stimuli tend to stop or destroy it.
Mode of action of Homoeopathic Remedies:
Inspite of phenomenal progress made by science in general, it is still very difficult to demonstrate the actual mode of action of homoeopathic remedies. We can demonstrate the efficacy of the homoeopathic remedy only clinically.
Our body has its own defense mechanism, the reticulo-endothelial system and psychoneuro endocrinal system. Susceptibility is a fundamental attribute of life, upon which depends all the functions, all vital processes, physiological and pathological. We understand susceptibility as a general quality or capability of the living organism to receiving impressions- the power to react to stimuli.
Immunity is an antidotal substance or an antibody present in the living organism, which resists the stimuli of advance nature. There is a specific antibody reaction to specific stimuli generated by the defence mechanism of the body.
When an advance stimulus of disease is encountered, the body defence mechanism swings into action, and on recognizing this stimulus produces the desired defence block- through antibodies. If the stimulus is of a minor nature- the effect of the stimulus through these defence block (antibodies) restores the system to its normalcy, but if this stimulus is far greater than its capability, it gives way to the intruding stimulus and produces its impact on the living organism, which is experienced through signs and symptoms. However, the susceptibility or the fight-back power is not quick, it gradually musters strength to overcome the effects of adverse stimuli and restores the organism to its near to total normalcy. This is what we see in indisposition or functional disorders, where the stimulus has not created any structural damage to the system. But if this fails, the defence mechanism needs external assistance through remedies. Like a bacteriologist who selects a substance closely allied to the original poison or poison-producing agent, the homoeopath selects a substance closely allied to the original poison, a drug, the close alliance of which is shown by the extreme similarity of its effects to the original (disease) poison, the selection being on the basis of the law of similars. Drugs similarly selected act most favourably- certainly and effectively. They seem to act by stimulating the antidotal powers (susceptibility) of the body.
This is only a hypothetical presentation and the actual action of the remedies still obscure the minds of the scientists.
Homoeopathy is a system of therapeutics and operates on nature's law of similars. The remedy selected on the basis of its capacity or power to produce in healthy in a disease state. The selection of a remedy for a disease condition, therefore, depends upon the symptoms it can produce in a healthy state.
We understand the ability of the drug to produce disease-like condition in a healthy state through three ways:-
1. Provings: (Human pharmacology); 2 toxicological study (poisoning); 3 laboratory investigations and experiments.
Provings is an old term still used in homoeopathic literature. It denotes the tests, or experiments conducted on healthy males and females called provers. The records of the effect produced on provers are provers are noted by them in a book or a diary called Day Book. This is a very Sacramental document and all the further experiments are based on the truthfulness of this document. When Hahnemann introduced this method of drug testing he was laughed at, The shortcomings of animal experiments are well known and the present day scientist are using that same too under the name of Human Pharmacology.
Provings is the positive effect of the drug on the healthy human, which constitutes the actual drug action- the pathogenesy in homoeopathy. They become legal and may not always be supplemented by laboratory experiments or toxicology. Clinical findings reinforce the weak links. The provings of many drugs are meager and incomplete and need to be extended. In some the provings have been extended to the limits of their functional action. A hint in the proving has led to the much extended clinical use. Much useful and valuable therapeutic knowledge has been acquired in this manner and well verified: clinical symptoms accompanied by modalities are used as drug indications.
Toxicological effects are the gross effects of drugs showing changes in an anatomical or structural tissue, which are comparable with the pathological morbific changes seen in diseases. One must eliminate here the local changes caused by the physical or chemical action of destruction of tissue, both in the living and the dead. These changes are not useful for therapeutics purposes, they may help only to show the sphere of action of the remedy.
Laboratory Investigations and Experiments
Carefully arranged experiments can determine quantitative and qualitative changes in the organ tissue function and metabolism due to the effect of the drug under study which may be in a large, medium or small quantity. This helps to co-relate the data with the actual disease state. This by itself is not much useful in determining the therapeutic action of the drug.
The information thus collected through Provings, Toxicological Data, constitute our homoeopathic materia medica The sum total effect of the drug is pharmacodynamics.
The drug has three-fold action on the human organism.
Chemical action: It exhibits the affinity of the drug to the body tissue. This is independent of the body vitality. Strong nitric acid for example, will produce a considerable burning and sloughing of the skin.
Mechanical action: This is exhibited by the effort of the body to throw away the offending substance. Any foreign body entering the organism there is a tendency to throw it away through the mechanical action.
Dynamic action: This dynamic action, -body response to any external stimuli,-depends upon the relation of the property of the drug to the susceptibility of the healthy living organism. They are known as non-pathognomic symptoms. Fear of death in Aconite, 4 p.m. aggravation in Lycopodium, are the non- pathognomic or dynamic expressions of the drug.
Hahnemann recognizes these expressions by primary and secondary action. While the chemical and mechanical actions belong to the category of primary action, the dynamic action corresponds to the secondary action. This is the action or response of the body to the Primary action. It is the Secondary action which is Curative in nature.
Arndt Shultz Law:
Vaccines are used to Stimulate the body mechanism even where the active disease is not present. Superabundance of antibody is produced in this manner- it is a state of immunity against a particular disease. This fact is an indirect assertion of Arndt's Law. Prof. Shultz of Greifswald university was one who emphasized this Wheeler expressed the law in the following terms: small stimuli encourage life activity- medium to strong stimuli tend to impede it; and very strong stimuli tend to stop or destroy it.
Mode of action of Homoeopathic Remedies:
Inspite of phenomenal progress made by science in general, it is still very difficult to demonstrate the actual mode of action of homoeopathic remedies. We can demonstrate the efficacy of the homoeopathic remedy only clinically.
Our body has its own defense mechanism, the reticulo-endothelial system and psychoneuro endocrinal system. Susceptibility is a fundamental attribute of life, upon which depends all the functions, all vital processes, physiological and pathological. We understand susceptibility as a general quality or capability of the living organism to receiving impressions- the power to react to stimuli.
Immunity is an antidotal substance or an antibody present in the living organism, which resists the stimuli of advance nature. There is a specific antibody reaction to specific stimuli generated by the defence mechanism of the body.
When an advance stimulus of disease is encountered, the body defence mechanism swings into action, and on recognizing this stimulus produces the desired defence block- through antibodies. If the stimulus is of a minor nature- the effect of the stimulus through these defence block (antibodies) restores the system to its normalcy, but if this stimulus is far greater than its capability, it gives way to the intruding stimulus and produces its impact on the living organism, which is experienced through signs and symptoms. However, the susceptibility or the fight-back power is not quick, it gradually musters strength to overcome the effects of adverse stimuli and restores the organism to its near to total normalcy. This is what we see in indisposition or functional disorders, where the stimulus has not created any structural damage to the system. But if this fails, the defence mechanism needs external assistance through remedies. Like a bacteriologist who selects a substance closely allied to the original poison or poison-producing agent, the homoeopath selects a substance closely allied to the original poison, a drug, the close alliance of which is shown by the extreme similarity of its effects to the original (disease) poison, the selection being on the basis of the law of similars. Drugs similarly selected act most favourably- certainly and effectively. They seem to act by stimulating the antidotal powers (susceptibility) of the body.
This is only a hypothetical presentation and the actual action of the remedies still obscure the minds of the scientists.
Comments
Post a Comment
PLEASE WRITE YOUR SYMPTOMS HERE TO GET SUGGESTION.