About Homeopathy » History

Historical context
An early assertion that like cures like was made by Hippocrates about 400 BC, when he prescribed mandrake root, which produced mania, to treat mania, by prescribing a dose smaller than what would produce mania.^[199] In the 5th century BCE the Greek physician Hippocrates (?460–?377 BCE) clearly established the idea that disease was the result of natural forces rather than divine intervention, and that patients' own powers of healing should be encouraged. Contemporary medical theories were based upon the Law of Contraries, which advocated treating an illness by prescribing a substance that produced opposite or contrary symptoms. Diarrhea, for example, could be treated by a substance that caused constipation, such as aluminum hydroxide.

In the 16th century the pioneer of pharmacology Paracelsus declared that small doses of "what makes a man ill also cures him."^[200] but it was Hahnemann who gave it a name and laid out its principles in the late 18th century. At that time, mainstream medicine employed such measures as bloodletting and purging, used laxatives and enemas, and administered complex mixtures, such as Venice treacle, which was made from 64 substances including opium, myrrh, and viper's flesh.^[201][202] Such measures often worsened symptoms and sometimes proved fatal.^[203][204] While the virtues of these treatments had been extolled for centuries,^[205] Hahnemann rejected such methods as irrational and inadvisable.^[206] 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.^[25][207] (At the time, vitalism was part of mainstream science; it wasn't completely discarded until the 20th century, with the development of microbiology, the germ theory of disease,^[208] and advances in chemistry.^[209][210]) Hahnemann also advocated various lifestyle improvements to his patients, including exercise, diet, and cleanliness.^{[206][211][212]}

In contrast, Hippocrates developed the use of the Law of Similars, based on the principle that "like cures like". This theory proposed that substances capable of causing symptoms of illness in healthy people could also be used to treat similar symptoms during illness. For example, Veratrum album (white hellebore), which was considered effective against cholera, caused violent purging that led to severe dehydration if administered in large doses—symptoms exactly like those of cholera itself. Between the 1st and 5th centuries CE the Romans made further developments in medicine. They introduced more herbs into the pharmacopeias, improved public hygiene, and observed the structure and function of the human body, although this was limited by social taboo, which prevented the dissection of bodies. Existing medical knowledge was codified and rationalized by Galen (?130–?200 CE), a Roman physician, anatomist, and physiologist. He adopted many ancient Greek principles, including the Aristotelian theory of the "four humors," which claimed that the human body was made up of four humors—blood, choler (yellow bile), melancholy (black bile), and phlegm— that must be kept in balance to ensure vitality and health.

After the decline of the Roman empire, little progress was made for centuries in the field of European medicine. A combination of herbal folklore, religious influences, and Galenic theory provided the basis for understanding and treating illness right through to the 17th century. Only when the Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541) began to develop his theories did the study of medicine start to evolve again. Paracelsus revived the ancient Greek theory of the Doctrine of Signatures, which was based on the premise that the external appearance of a plant—God's "signature"—indicated the nature of its healing properties. For example, Chelidonium majus (greater celandine) was used to treat conditions affecting the liver and gallbladder because the yellow juice of the plant resembled bile.

Paracelsus argued that disease was linked to external factors such as contaminated food and water rather than to mystical forces, and he challenged his contemporaries to recognize the body's natural ability to heal itself, claiming that the practice of medicine should be based on detailed observation and "profound knowledge of nature and her works." According to his theories, all plants and metals contained active ingredients that could be prescribed to match specific illnesses. Concentrating on practical experiments rather than on alchemy, he laid the foundations for the early stages of chemistry and subsequent development of pharmaceutical medicine, introducing new medicines, such as opium, sulfur, iron, and arsenic, into the contemporary repertory. His exploration of the chemical and medicinal properties of many substances, and his advocacy of the Hippocratic concept of "like cures like," also made Paracelsus a key figure in the development of homeopathy. According to the British homeopath James Compton Burnett (1840–1901), the author of several important works on homeopathy that are still in use today, "Paracelsus planted the acorn from which the mighty oak of homeopathy has grown."


Hahnemann's concept
Hahnemann conceived of homeopathy while translating a medical treatise by Scottish physician and chemist William Cullen into German.^[27] Being skeptical of Cullen's theory concerning cinchona's action in intermittent fever, Hahnemann ingested some of the bark specifically to see if it cured fever "by virtue of its effect of strengthening the stomach".^[213] 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 intermittent fever, the disease that the bark was ordinarily used to treat. From this, Hahnemann came to believe that all effective drugs produce symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the diseases that they treat. This later became known as the "law of similars", the most important concept of homeopathy.^[27] The term "homeopathy" was coined by Hahnemann and first appeared in print in 1807, although he began outlining his theories of "medical similars" or the "doctrine of specifics" in a series of articles and monographs in 1796.^[214][215] Hahnemann began to test what effects substances produced in humans, a procedure that would later become known as "homeopathic proving".^[216] These time-consuming tests required subjects to clearly record all of their symptoms as well as the ancillary conditions under which they appeared. Hahnemann saw these data as a way of identifying substances suitable for the treatment of particular diseases.^[216] The first collection of provings was published in 1805 and a second collection of 65 remedies appeared in his book, Materia Medica Pura, in 1810.^[217] Hahnemann believed that large doses of drugs that caused similar symptoms would only aggravate illness, so he advocated extreme dilutions of the substances; he devised a technique for making dilutions that he believed would preserve a substance's therapeutic properties while removing its harmful effects,^[8] proposing that this process aroused and enhanced "the spirit-like medicinal powers of the crude substances".^[218] He gathered and published a complete overview of his new medical system in his 1810 book, The Organon of the Healing Art, whose 6th edition, published in 1921, is still used by homeopaths today.^[27]


Medical practices by the 19th century
The period between the 16th and 19th centuries saw continued advancement in medical knowledge. The development of the printing press, and the publication of herbals in languages other than Latin, brought herbal knowledge into homes on a wide scale and decreased the monopoly of doctors and apothecaries on the treatment of illness. Hugely influential English-language herbals, such as the Herball of John Gerard (1545–1612), and The English Physitian by Nicholas Culpeper (1616–54), were published during this period.

Despite medical advances and greater dispersal of herbal lore, however, the general health of the population remained poor in many Western countries. Industrialization was accompanied by population transition from rural areas to polluted, overcrowded cities with working conditions that were often unsafe. Standards of public hygiene and medical care were often low, and the mentally ill were treated in asylums. Violent medical practices, including blood-letting, leeching, and purging, became increasingly widespread and were often detrimental to people's health. Toxic substances such as lead, mercury, and arsenic were in common usage medicinally, and the cure often proved to be more harmful to patients than the illness, with some patients dying and many more suffering serious long-term side-effects as a result of the drastic or extreme treatments they had received.


19th century: rise to popularity and early criticism
Homeopathy achieved its greatest popularity in the 19th century. Dr. John Franklin Gray (1804-1882) was the first practitioner of homeopathy in the United States, beginning in 1828 in New York City. The first homeopathic schools opened in 1830, and throughout the 19th century dozens of homeopathic institutions appeared in Europe and the United States.^[219] By 1900, there were 22 homeopathic colleges and 15,000 practitioners in the United States.^[220] Because medical practice of the time relied on ineffective and often dangerous treatments, patients of homeopaths often had better outcomes than those of the doctors of the time.^[221] Homeopathic remedies, even if ineffective, would almost surely cause no harm, making the users of homeopathic remedies less likely to be killed by the treatment that was supposed to be helping them.^[27] The relative success of homeopathy in the 19th century may have led to the abandonment of the ineffective and harmful treatments of bloodletting and purging and to have begun the move towards more effective, science-based medicine.^[204] One reason for the growing popularity of homeopathy was its apparent success in treating people suffering from infectious disease epidemics.^[222] During 19th century epidemics of diseases such as cholera, death rates in homeopathic hospitals were often lower than in conventional hospitals, where the treatments used at the time were often harmful and did little or nothing to combat the diseases.^[223]

From its inception, however, homeopathy was criticized by mainstream science. Sir John Forbes, physician to Queen Victoria, said in 1843 that the extremely small doses of homeopathy were regularly derided as useless, "an outrage to human reason".^[224] James Young Simpson said in 1853 of the highly diluted drugs: "No poison, however strong or powerful, the billionth or decillionth of which would in the least degree affect a man or harm a fly."^[225] 19th century American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was also a vocal critic of homeopathy and published an essay in 1842 entitled Homoopathy, and its kindred delusions.^[226] The members of the French Homeopathic Society observed in 1867 that some of the leading homeopathists of Europe not only were abandoning the practice of administering infinitesimal doses but were also no longer defending it.^[227] The last school in the U.S. exclusively teaching homeopathy closed in 1920.^[27]


Revival in the late 20th century
The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 (sponsored by Royal Copeland, a United States Senator from New York and homeopathic physician) recognized homeopathic remedies as drugs. By the 1950s, there were only 75 pure homeopaths practicing in the U.S.^[228] However, in the mid to late 1970s, homeopathy made a significant comeback and sales of some homeopathic companies increased tenfold.^[229] Greek homeopath George Vithoulkas performed a "great deal of research to update the scenarios and refine the theories and practice of homeopathy" beginning in the 1970s, and it was revived worldwide;^[82][230] in Brazil during the 1970s and in Germany during the 1980s.^[231] The medical profession started to integrate such ideas in the 1990s^[232] and mainstream pharmacy chains recognized the business potential of selling homeopathic remedies.^[233]