| Homeopathy (also spelled homeopathy or homoeopathy) from the Greek words όμοιος, hómoios (similar) and πάθος, páthos (suffering), is a system of alternative medicine that treats "like with like", using remedies that it is claimed would, in healthy individuals, produce similar symptoms to those it would treat in an ill patient. Homeopathy is a well-described, scientifically based system of approaching health and curing disease. "Well-described" because from these observations a number of precise basic fundamental rules became evident, first among them the "similarity principle”; "Scientific" because the insights are based on reproducible experiments.
Homeopathy, alternative system of medicine developed in the early 19th century, based on the concept that disease can be
cured when a patient is treated with minute quantities of a substance that produces symptoms of the disease in a healthy person. The founder of homeopathy was Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Based on his observations, he formulated the Principle Of Similarity, which states that a given substance can cure in a diseased person the symptoms that it produces or causes in a healthy person. Homeopathy focuses on healing the underlying cause of disease, not simply eliminating the symptoms caused by the disease. Remedies used by homeopathic physicians come from natural sources and are prepared in such a way that they are devoid of all chemical toxicity. In conventional medicine, drugs are generally given for their effects on the organism, while in homeopathy, the unique remedy is given to provoke a reaction of the organism. Since only the living organism can heal itself, the homeopathic remedy is merely an influence used to provoke a reaction to bring about
recovery. The greater the degree of similarity between the symptoms that are provoked by the remedy on a healthy person and the symptoms displayed by the person who is sick, the greater will be the recovery reaction.
Although homeopathy is growing in popularity, and is reportedly "increasingly being endorsed by doctors", it is controversial for two reasons. Firstly, medical studies of its efficacy have rarely been clearly positive, leading critics such as E. Ernst to claim that it does not satisfy the scientific standards of evidence-based medicine, Secondly, because homeopathy seems to defy the laws of chemistry by claiming efficacy for high dilutions of substances, at times to a point where it is unlikely that even a molecule of the original ingredient is present.
Homeopathy is much more popular in Europe and India than in the USA. A study exploring the use of complementary medicine found the following percentages of various countries'
population to be using homeopathy for some of their health needs.
Belgium 56%
Denmark 28%
France 32%
Netherlands 31%
Sweden 15%
UK 16%
USA 3%
In the 1930s the popularity of homeopathy waned, especially in the USA and Europe, partly due to advances in conventional medicine and partly due to the Flexner Report (1910), which led to the closure of virtually all medical schools teaching alternative medicine in the USA. Homeopathy in the West had a renaissance in the 1970s, largely because of George Vithoulkas, that continues to this day.
Homeopathy is the essence of the art of healing. When homeopathy is well practiced, it is the medicine of choice to recover one's health from the great majority of acute and chronic problems.
The best thing about Homeopathy is that that its side effects are almost none. The FDA considers that there is no real concern over the safety of most
homeopathic products "because they
have little or no pharmacologically active ingredients". |
