In Homeopathy, illness is classified as acute or chronic. In an acute illness, such as cold, a person becomes ill rapidly and after sometime it subsides with or without treatment. But in chronic cases, a person suffers from continuous or recurrent illness, for example arthritis. The general trend of health is downwards. 

Homeopath prescribes medicines on the basis of the symptoms and the constitutional type of the patient. A Homeopath decide the patients constitutional type by assessing a person's character and temperament, their fears, food preferences and general factors such as weather, temperature, seasons and time of the day which may worsen or improve physical condition. Knowing the strength and weaknesses of an individual (i.e. his vital force) enables the Homeopath to prescribe the best remedy. 

Homeopathic remedies help to speed up recovery, by stimulating the vital force, and strengthening it. The remedies energize the vital force to rid the body of disease, helping it to return to its healthy state.

Remedies

Homeopathy medicines are made from plant, animal and mineral extracts and diluted in varying degrees in order to avoid unpleasant side effects. The remedies range from toxic substances such as snake venom and mercury to common foods such as oats and onions. These are available as lactose tablets, pillules, powder and granules. 

The actual process of making remedies is very precise. For remedies derived from soluble substances, such as animal or plant extracts the raw material is dissolved in an alcohol /water  mixture that contains approximately 90 percent pure alcohol and 10 percent distilled water (this ratio may vary depending on the substance). This mixture is left to stand for 2-4 weeks, shaken occasionally and then strained through a press. The resulting liquid is known as the mother tincture or tincture. Insoluble substances, such as gold, calcium carbonate and graphites, must first be made soluble by a process known as 'trituration', in which they are ground continually until they become soluble. They are then diluted and used in the same way as naturally soluble substances. The remedies are so diluted that they no longer contain a single molecule of the original substance used to make them and yet they remain extremely effective.

Remedy Potencies

To produce different remedy potencies, the mother tincture is diluted in an alcohol/water mixture according to one of two scales, the decimal (*) and centesimal (c). Between every stage of dilution the diluted tincture is shaken vigorously. In the decimal scale the dilution factor is 1:10 and in the centesimal it is 1:100. To produce a 1c potency of the Alluim  remedy, for example, one drop of the mother tincture is added to 99 drops of an alcohol /water mixture and shaken.  To produce a 2c potency, one drop of the 1c mixture is added to 99 drops of an alcohol/water mixture and succussed. The number of a homeopathic remedy shows how may times it has been diluted and succussed, for example- 6c has been diluted and shaken 6 times. Beyond a 12 c potency, a homeopathic remedy, is highly unlikely to retain a molecule of the original substance.