What Is Homeopathy?

Homoeopathy is a complete system a medicine with its origins in Classical Greece. Hippocrates discussed the value of treating like with like and throughout history many other commentators have done likewise. However, it was not until the early nineteenth century that a formal system based on the principle of similarity was forthcoming as a result of the work of a number of physicians in Europe at the time, Samuel Hahnemann being foremost amongst them. Homeopathy – as it came to be called – quickly spread throughout Europe, Asia and the New World and attained great popularity and importance.

Whilst there was a decline in the importance of homoeopathy in the middle of the twentieth century due to advances made by mainstream medicine, homeopathy is now enjoying a resurgence and renewed popularity because of its high degree of safety, freedom from side effects and its concentration on the rebalancing and returning to health of the whole person.

Homoeopathy almost certainly works by directly acting on and balancing the interface between the nervous, hormonal and immune systems (an area of current research called psychoneuroimmunology) and in doing so results in beneficial effects in other systems and parts of the body.