Homeopathy Overview

Homeopathy is a holistic form of medicine that treats illnesses through the use of extreme dilutions of herbs, animal substances and chemical compounds. The term homeopathy comes from the Greek homeo meaning "similar," and pathos meaning "suffering." Samuel Hahnemann, an 18th-century German physician, coined the term in 1796.

Hahnemann tested hundreds of substances on himself, cataloguing their effects. Homeopaths view symptoms as the body's natural reaction to fighting an illness, whereas conventional medicine believes symptoms are part of the illness.

Homeopathy was controversial from its outset because of Hahnemann's other postulate, the Law of Potentization—that homeopathic medicines grow stronger as they become more dilute. Critics renounce the practice as quackery and some say that results from homeopathy are simply a placebo effect. Placebos have been shown to produce positive results in roughly one-third of patients suffering from any illness.

In 1991, Dutch epidemiologists analyzed 105 studies of homeopathic treatment from 1966 to 1990. Eighty-one studies found patients had benefited from homeopathy, prompting the conclusion that "the evidence is to a large extent positive. It would probably be sufficient for establishing homeopathy as treatment for certain conditions."