Hahnemann supported his ideas by own observations and rather fanciful quotations of experiences of older doctors, which he took as proof that the ancients had sometimes been able to catch a glimmer of his truth. I cannot resist mentioning that something like the Similia principle, namely treating wounds caused by firearms by infusion of boiling oil, was abolished by Ambroise Par in 1537, much to the relief of many soldiers. Hippocratic medication Hippocratic writings comprise about 60 treatises, written by many authors. There is nothing about the Similia principle in it. In the Hippocratic vision diseases are caused by too much or too little heat, cold, moisture, dryness.
Intestines are to be cleansed by hellebore.
For many centuries these 'natural medicines' were used in combination with barley soup, wine, honey and vinegar. Women with halitosis were recommended to brush their teeth with burnt rats and hares mixed with powdered marble. Burns were to be treated with chopped oak roots boiled in white wine, or with ointments that had fat and loam as chief ingredient. Many Hippocratic writings do not contain any specific medicines, and treatments usually compensate the surmised lack or surplus of heat or moisture. An analogous quote stems from the treatise about the Sacred Disease, Peri hier s nousou .