Biochemic System of Treatment

Dr. Wilhelm Heinrich Schussler

The German physician Wilhelm Heinrich Schussler (born on 21st August,1821, at Zwischenahn/Oldenburg), after 15 year of homeopathic practice, became particularly interested as a capable homoeopath in the most important inorganic salts of which the human body ist composed, and in their quantitative relations1873 is considered the birth year of biochemistry. In 1874 Schussler’s first work appeared. Its title ws “An Abridged Therapy on the Basis of Physiology and Cellular Pathology”. The thesis he propounded in this work was: The inorganic substances found in blood and tissues are sufficient to cure all diseases that can be cured”. This statement ist of course true today only in very limited sense. It would be more accurate to say “…they help to cure all disease that can be cured, and in particular they help to regulate constitutional disturbances.

Schussler based his Biochemic therapeutic on the cell-activity. He started from the fact that the salts which remain after combustion from an essential part of every cell, and that any change in their proper quantitative relations will disturb normal cell function and cause disease.

The biochemic remedies were not selected according to the similarity principle of homoeopathy. They are chemically pure salts, homogeneous to the cell-minerals in human body, physiologically and chemically in close relation them. By the aid of these minerals disturbed molecular motion in the cell can be rectified, as taken for a certain period, these salts will be compensate the losses incurred during a disease. Thus the cells will recover, and will be able to overcome the disease completely.

Schussler at first made use of 12 and later of only 11 mineral substances and from them built up a comprehensive therapeutic system. Here all 12 substances are discussed, since also Calcarea sulfuric, which Schussler later abandoned, has proved its value as a therapeutic agent.