Homeopathy

Homeopathy - The theory that tiny amounts of harmful substances prompt the body to cure itself.

German Physician Samuel Hahnemann was so disturbed by the use of bloodletting, leeching and purging in common medical procedure that he gave up his own practice and became a researcher. In 1796 he identified the founding principle of homeopathy: that a substance which produces symptoms in a person who is sick. Hahnemann refined his theory with two other principles: first, that the less you use of a substance, the more potent it becomes and second that a sickness is always unique to the person who is suffering it.

The idea of homeopathy closely echoes the Hippocratic idea that "like cures like". Hahnemann came across a version of this "law of similars" in 1790. Homeopaths claim that the principle is the same as that underlying vaccination: just as a vaccine provokes a reaction from the individual's immune system that in the future protects against that person from actual disease, so the homeopathic remedy, it is said, provokes the body into healing.

It is hardly surprising that homeopathy was embraced in the early nineteenth century: medical procedures, just as Hahnemann claimed often did more harm than good. Today, homeopathy's impact is evidenced by the existence of a multimillion-dollar industry in alternative medicine. And the persistence of the idea that there is more to human healing than conventional medicine allows for remains a challenge: are we more than the sum of our parts, or does it just make us feel good to think we are ?