What is Materia Peccans in Homeopathy?

The word ‘Materia peccans’ is derived from the Latin language. Other synonyms of material peccans are “harmful matter”, “morbific matter” or “offending substance”, etc.

“Materia peccans” means “Material cause of the disease”.

Allopaths strongly believe that the cause of the disease is nothing but the Materia peccans. For example: an excessive amount of blood in the body was believed to be the cause of the diseases. This cause was strongly believed by a school called the Physiological System.

Allopaths believe that the cause of the disease is hidden somewhere inside the body in substantial material forms. They think of disease as something separate from the body. They believe in removing that (materia peccans) and employing it in the form of harmful medical therapeutics. They do this because they believe that the removal of materia peccans is the removal of disease.

Allopaths do not believe in the vital force and its derangement in the disease state. This thinking deranges the old school and makes their therapeutics more harmful. Based on this theory, they developed harmful techniques like purging, evacuation, venesections in haemorrhage, bloodletting in inflammations, etc. (All these practices were done in past, but the majority of these have been banned from modern science). They call these techniques as rational methods to cure diseases.

Hahnemann criticized, “The old school of medicine believed it might cure diseases in a direct manner by the removal of the imaginary material cause of the disease”.

Homeopathy strongly condemns this belief. The body is a material being that is animated by an immaterial force called vital force. In disease, this immaterial vital force is deranged by a similar immaterial force called miasm and nothing else. There is no role of any materia peccans in the production of diseases or the derangement of vital force.

Also Read:

• Difference between Drug, Medicine & Remedy
• What are the Curative Powers of Drugs in Homeopathy?

The cause of the disease is always dynamic. The material substances like pus and mucus are the end products of the disease. The modern bacteriological theory also propagates that the mere presence of bacteria cannot be considered a disease. However, the host factors and the role of the environment play a major role in the production of the disease.

For the reproduction of the bacteria and the development of the disease, the optimum conditions in the host are very much essential. If a person’s vital force is strong enough to resist any invasion it remains healthy throughout. So, materia peccans is only the belief of the old school and it cannot be called the cause of the disease.