He was very interested how the cells of the body could cause diseases.
The scientific work of Dr. Virchow, who discovered that the body is constructed with millions of cells, impressed and inspired Dr. Schüssler strongly.
Dr. Schüssler came to the conclusion, that many illnesses would be caused by an imbalance of the mineral balance in the single cells.
If important mineral substances are absent in the cells, they do not function properly, what leads then to the illness, was Dr. Schüsslers idea.
Because many mineral salts, taken in concentrated form, cannot find their way to the single cells, Dr. Schüssler adapted the idea of the diluting of substances like in the homoeopathy.
In potented form, so strongly diluted, the mineral salts would be able to find their way by the digestive canal, by the blood circulation just to the single cells, where they could be assimilated by the cells.
There they could adjust the inbalance inside the cell and trigger the cell to get bigger mineral salt amounts from the blood circulation if required, until they are well supplied again with everything and can function according to her task.
Because the mineral salts work inside the cells, they are called "cell salts" or "tissue salts". As this is chemistry inside the biological body, they are sometimes called "biochemic cell salts" or "biochemical cell salts".
The treatment with the cell salts by Dr. Schüssler is interpreted differently by his followers. Some see the cell salts as a stimulation therapy and other as a substiution method.
Cell salts as a stimulation therapy
Seen as a stimulation therapy, one expects the effect of the cell salts in such a way that the assimilation of the small quantities of mineral salt encourages the cells to get enough of the minerals from other sources.The cells are being abled to get the required mineral salts in larger quantities from the food and to assimilate until they contain enough of the needed mineral salts.
This point of view is rather similiar to the homeopathic point of view.
For a stimulation therapy low quantities of the cell salts are enough, for example, two tablets three times a day.
Cell salts as a substitution therapy
Seen as a substitution therapy the homeopathically diluted mineral salts should compensate the mineral lack in the cells completely, without any additional mineral substances from the food or mineral tablets are needed.This principle is comparable with the taking of vitamin tablets, which should compensate also a possible vitamin deficiency.
Because the cell salts are strongly diluted by the potentation, you needs a very big number of the tablets to be able to compensate a lack.
Therefore the followers of this principle are used to take huge amounds of cell salts, which can be several hundred tablets per day.
This can be called high-level dosage.
Can Schuessler cell salts cover the mineral needs completely?
From the doctors view it is not possible, to satisfy the bodies need for minerals only with the potented Schuessler cell salts.This has several reasons.
Also in the relatively low potency 6X the mineral substances are extremely diluted.
On 1 gramme of mineral salt there comes 1 tonne of lactose.
Nobody can ingest one tonne of lactose, even when the cell salts are used in extremly high-level dosage.
Nevertheless, from some mineral substances one needs larger amounts, for example, cooking salt and calcium.
One can take these mineral salts not only by cell salts. Here the cell salts serve rather to unlock the cells, to be able to get the required mineral substance amount from the food.
With other mineral salts is not really clear how much one needs of it daily. Even if the required amounts of these salts were extremely low, one should not have the idea to cover the need with these mineral salts completely with cell salts.
Cell salts are not comparable with vitamin tablets. They offer no calculable amount in "mineral salt active substances" to cover the everyday mineral substance need, even if some authors tell otherwise.
Therefore one should cover everyday mineral substance need with the food.
The cell salts can help, that the required mineral substances can be assimilated by the cells of the body.
Number instead of name
Because the names of the cell salts are quite complicated, the cell salts are often simply called by her number, for example, No. 7 for magnesium phosphoricum.But when you live in the United States you should be aware, that people in Europe use different numbers than most people in America.
In Europe the cell salt Calcium sulphate has the number 12, in America it has number 3 and all subsequent cell salts have higher numbers than in Europe.
On this website we use the europeen system of numbers. American numbers are shown in brackets.
Cell salts and Evidence-based medicine
The modern natural sciences cannot explain the impact of the cell salts.The effectiveness of the cell salts could not be proved by scientific studies.
Because the cell salts are free of side effects, nevertheless, one can usually apply them without problems in addition to a scientific medical treatment.
Nevertheless, the treating doctor should be informed if you use cell salts.