![]() Upon ingesting the bark, he noticed few stomach symptoms, but did experience fever, shivering and joint pain, symptoms similar to some of the early symptoms of malaria, the disease that the bark was ordinarily used to treat. Being sceptical of Cullen’s theory concerning cinchona’s action in malaria, Hahnemann ingested some of the bark specifically to see if it cured fever "by virtue of its effect of strengthening the stomach". Samuel Hahnemann conceived of homeopathy while translating a medical treatise by Scottish physician and chemist William Cullen into German. ) Hahnemann also advocated various lifestyle improvements to his patients, including exercise, diet, and cleanliness. (At the time, vitalism was part of mainstream science in the twentieth century, however, medicine discarded vitalism, with the development of microbiology, the germ theory of disease, and advances in chemistry. Instead, he favored the use of single drugs at lower doses and promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of how living organisms function, believing that diseases have spiritual, as well as physical causes. ![]() While the virtues of these treatments had been extolled for centuries, Hahnemann rejected such methods as irrational and unadvisable. Such measures often worsened symptoms and sometimes proved fatal. 7.1 Outline of past prevalence in Great BritainĪt the time of the inception of homeopathy, the late 1700s, mainstream medicine employed such measures as bloodletting and purging, the use of laxatives and enemas, and the administration of complex mixtures, such as theriac, which was made from 64 substances including opium, myrrh, and viper's flesh.6 Research on effects in other biological systems.1.3 Rise to popularity and early criticism. ![]() In many countries, the laws that govern regulation and testing of conventional drugs often do not apply to homeopathic remedies. Homeopathic remedies are generally considered safe, with rare exceptions however, homeopaths have been criticised for putting patients at risk by advising them to avoid conventional medicine, such as vaccinations, anti- malarial drugs and antibiotics. Ĭurrent usage around the world varies from two percent of people in Britain and the United States using homeopathy in any one year, to 15 percent in India, where homeopathy is now considered part of Indian traditional medicine. The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting its efficacy, and its contradiction of basic scientific principles, have caused homeopathy to be regarded as pseudoscience, or, in the words of a 1998 medical review, as "placebo therapy at best and quackery at worst". ![]() The ideas behind homeopathy are scientifically implausible and "diametrically opposed to modern pharmaceutical knowledge". Ĭlaims for efficacy of homeopathic treatment beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by scientific and clinical studies, although meta-analyses of homeopathy, which compare the results of many studies, face difficulty in controlling for the combination of publication bias and the fact that most of these studies suffer from serious shortcomings in their methods. Practitioners select treatments according to a patient consultation that explores the physical and psychological state of the patient, both of which are considered important to selecting the remedy. The end product is often so diluted that materially it is indistinguishable from pure water, sugar or alcohol. According to homeopaths, serial dilution, with shaking between each dilution, removes the toxic effects of the remedy while the qualities of the substance are retained by the diluent (water, sugar, or alcohol). Homeopathic practitioners contend that an ill person can be treated using a substance that can produce, in a healthy person, symptoms similar to those of the illness. Homeopathy (also homœopathy or homoeopathy from the Greek ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar" + πάθος, páthos, " suffering" or " disease") is a form of alternative medicine first defined by Samuel Hahnemann in the 18th century. ![]()
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