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- The rationale behind homeopathy and how remedies purportedly work
- Ailments that homeopathic remedies are commonly used to treat
- Ways to find a qualified homeopathy practitioner and what to expect
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What Is Homeopathy?
Homeopathy is an alternative medicine practice based around the idea that the human body has a natural ability to heal and that symptoms are merely signs of the body healing itself. A homeopathic remedy is taken to “stoke the fire” of the symptoms and therefore speed the healing process. A practitioner of homeopathy is also called a homeopath.
For example, if you have a fever, your elevated body temperature may feel unpleasant and harmful, but in fact that heat is a natural response to the invasion of disease organisms. With your body’s furnace turned way up, the
virus or bacteria is killed, and your internal systems can relax back to normal functioning.
The Three Principles of Homeopathy
Homeopathy’s ideas and practices can be boiled down to three basic principles and theories:
- The law of similars: If a large amount of a substance causes a symptom (such as a headache) in a healthy person, smaller amounts of that same substance may treat the same symptom (a headache) in an ill person. This approach can also be called “like cures like.”
- The minimum dose: The power of a substance increases the more it is diluted; the substance leaves its “essence,” or memory of itself, in the diluted fluid.
- The single remedy: Most homeopathic treatments involve only one remedy for all the physical or mental suffering that a patient is experiencing.
Homeopathy vs. Conventional Medicine
Conventional medicine is what most people think of when describing Western healthcare. In conventional medicine, drugs are used to soften the symptoms (such as cough syrup for a cough) and sometimes to make them go away (such as antibiotics for an infection).
In homeopathy, a remedy is given to cause symptoms. This practice is in keeping with homeopathy’s central idea that symptoms stimulate a person’s defense systems and are necessary for a person to heal. You don’t have to choose between homeopathy and conventional medicine: they are often used simultaneously. In fact, many homeopathic practitioners are licensed primarily in another medical field.
Historical Roots
The German doctor Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann is credited with the popularization of homeopathic practice and theory. He began his studies during the late 1700s, a time when it was common for doctors to treat diseases with bloodletting, leeches, and dangerous substances that encouraged vomiting and bowel release.
Early Treatments
Hahnemann’s most cited experiments involved the treatment of malaria. The disease was being treated with quinine by that time, but Hahnemann did not buy into the explanations given as to why quinine worked. He decided to try the drug himself to see what would happen, even though he was not suffering from malaria. The effects produced by
the quinine were strikingly similar to the symptoms of
malaria—fever, chills, a quickened pulse, headache, and extreme thirst. This experience led Hahnemann to formulate his first theories—that certain drugs work because they cause the same symptoms as the diseases they treat.
20th-Century Revival
The use of homeopathy declined in the United States in the 1930s, as there were new advances in modern medicine. It saw a rebirth a few decades later, as more Americans began looking toward alternatives to conventional medicine.
Does Homeopathy Work?
There have been dozens of studies of homeopathy since the 1980s, with widely varying results: some positive, some negative, some reporting no effects of treatment one way or the other. People on both sides of the fence—supporters of homeopathy and critics alike—have used these results to back up their own assertions.
Is a Scientific Explanation Needed?
Some supporters of homeopathy feel that a solid scientific explanation is not necessary—in short, that “if it works, it works.” This stance is akin to the idea of a placebo effect, which is best described as a psychological, rather than physical, response to a medicine. For example, if you believe that a certain pill will cure your headache, you may feel better simply due to your anticipation of getting better.
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