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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: homeopathy
Homeopathyhōmēŏp'əthē, system of medicine whose fundamental principle is the law of similars—that like is cured by like. It was first given practical application by Samuel Hahnemann of Leipzig, Germany, in the early 19th cent. and was designated homeopathy to distinguish it from the established school of medicine which he called allopathy. The American Institute of Homeopathy was founded in 1844, and the practice of homeopathy was popularized in the United States by the physician and senator Royal S. Copeland (1868–1938). It had been observed that quinine given to a healthy person causes the same symptoms that malaria does in a person suffering from that disease; therefore quinine became the preferred treatment in malaria. When a drug was found to produce the same symptoms as did a certain disease, it was then used in very small doses in the treatment of that disease. U.S. medical schools do not presently emphasize the homeopathic approach, although it has become popular among some physicians in European and Asian nations and is widely used by the public in over-the-counter medications.

See N. Robins, Copeland's Cure: Homeopathy and the War between Conventional and Alternative Medicine (2005).

The Columbia Encyclopedia. Copyright © 2001-09 Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Wikipedia search results for: Homeopathy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.. Apart from the symptoms of the disease, homeopaths use aspects of the patient's physical and...more »
Columbia Encyclopedia search results: homeopathy
Results 1 - 3  of 3
  • Hahnemann, Samuel

    Hahnemann, Samuel, 1755–1843, German physician, founder of homeopathy. He expounded his system in Organon of the Rational Art of Healing (1810, tr. 1913). He practiced in Leipzig, Köthen, and ...

  • alternative medicine

    Alternative medicine, the treatment and prevention of disease by techniques that are regarded by modern Western medicine as scientifically unproven or unorthodox. The term alternative medicine...

  • Holmes, Oliver Wendell, American author and physician

    Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809–94, American author and physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1829; M.D., 1836); father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He began his medical career as...

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