Short History of Nux Vomica and Homeopathy

Nux Vomica is a remedy that was “proven” by the founder of Homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. Hahnemann was a German physician (1750-1850) who discovered that a substance can cause a disease, even a substance in a very minute form. He initially tested substances that were in nature that were known to have a toxicity. Nux Vomica was among the substances that he tested first. Nux Vomica was used as a substance in its material form to treat asthma and labor pains, or coughs and colds, dog bites, skin disease – even leprosy was treated with the ground bark of the Nux Vomica tree. Hahnemann tested the very diluted remedies on people that he knew; friends, colleagues, and family. He wanted to see what happened when all of the toxicity was taken out of the substance via serial dilution. What he found was that healthy people began to develop symptoms of the substance, like an artificial illness. But when they stopped taking his diluted remedy the symptoms when away. As he began building this body of information he noted that if he gave the remedy to someone who was actually ill with the same kind of symptoms as the testings he did on healthy people he would often get curative results. This is the idea of “like cures like” or similars; giving an artificial disease to a natural disease. In Western pharmacological medicine the opposite is given. If you have a bacteria, take an anti-bacteria, or antibiotic. Similars is a radical departure from the western modal, yet the idea of similars goes back to the Bible and the first recorded time. Moses made a drink from the golden idol that people were worshipping. Give people a very small amount of the problem. Vaccinations are a similar idea. Give a bit of the problem and the body will encode and remember for later.