(also
spelled homœopathy or homoeopathy) from the Greek
words hómoios (similar) and páthos (suffering),
is a system of alternative medicine that strives
to treat "like with like" [the etymological
origin of the word homeopathy: 'similar
suffering' Homeopathy is one type of alternative
medicine, being particularly popular in Europe
and India, although less so in the USA, where
such therapies have been subject to tighter
regulation. Recently, even stricter European
regulations were also implemented by the
EDQM.
Homeopathy rests on the
premise of treating sick persons with extremely diluted
agents that - in undiluted doses - are deemed to
produce similar symptoms in a healthy individual. Its
adherents and practitioners assert that the therapeutic
potency of a remedy can be increased by serial dilution
of the drug, combined with succussion or vigorous
shaking. In common with allopathic medicine, homeopathy
regards diseases as morbid derangements of the
organism.
However, it differs in
preferring to view each case of sickness as a strictly
individual phenomenon.[6] The term "homeopathy" was
coined by the Saxon physician Christian Friedrich
Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) and first appeared in
print in 1807.[7], although he had previously outlined
his axiom of medical similars in a series of articles
and monographs commencing in 1796.