| HOMEOPATHY IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE |
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| The
Adventure of Homeopathic Medicines |
Hahnemann, in the "Organon of
the Rational Art of Healing", established the principles
for production of homeopathic medicines. These bases, updated
as techniques progress, remain the foundations on which rest
the processes of pharmaceutical production still used today.
The regulations would follow the same path.
Today, the pharmacopoeias
of the various countries ensure these standards for the production
of homeopathic medicines.
The stages
Three major stages, linked to the development of pharmacy,
mark the adventure of homeopathic medications
From the late 18th century to the 1840s, in the early days
of homeopathy, the homeopathic physician himself would produce
his medicines, because few dispensary pharmacists knew the
specific methods for the preparation of these medicines.
Starting in the 1850s, for legal, scientific and social reasons,
pharmacies specializing in homeopathy began to appear. The
roles of the practitioners were clearly defined: the physician
prescribed the medicine and the pharmacist prepared the medicine.
From then on, homeopathic pharmacists would set the rules
for production and the rules for preparation of the medicine
in works such as "Le codex des médicaments homéopathiques"
[The Codex of Homeopathic Medicines] by pharmacist Georges
Weber in 1854, "La pharmacopée homéopathique
française" [The French Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia]
of H. Ecalle, R. Delpech and A. Peurier in 1898... At the
same time, they conceived of new devices intended to automate
the production process.
· In the dynamics of industrialization in the early
20th century, physicians, concerned with guaranteeing the
standardization of medicines and their reliability, would
stimulate the creation of specialized structures for preparing
these medicines. Specialized pharmacies were then transformed
into laboratories. Better equipped, more productive, and supplying
a standardized product, the laboratories were not only capable
of providing the pharmacies with generic medicines, but also
of creating and distributing proprietary medicines in their
own name. Thus, the LHF, LHM, Boiron, Delpech, Dolisos, and
Lehning laboratories were created in France. The Schwabe laboratory
also appeared in Germany, as did the Nelson laboratory in
Great-Britain, the Unda laboratories in Belgium USM in Holland,
Boericke and Tafel, and USM in the United States, etc.
An impregnating device in the early 20th century, at LHM...
…Boiron 1999, impregnation equipment
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