HOMOEOPATHY THE SECOND MOST POPULAR SYSTEM OF MEDICINE IN THE WORLD
Geography and You|Issue 141, 2020
Samuel Hahnemann founded homoeopathy in 1796 as a holistic system of medicine where ‘the person in the disease’ is treated and not ‘the disease in the person’. it is perhaps the best alternative system of medicine, which is safest for the new born, the elderly and affordable even to the poorest. homoeopathic medicines are effective in infections, allergies, auto-immune, surgical, hormonal and psychological diseases, in addition to veterinary and plant diseases.
Girish Gupta
HOMOEOPATHY THE SECOND MOST POPULAR SYSTEM OF MEDICINE IN THE WORLD

Homoeopathy was invented by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann, in 1796, rising from his discontentment with the contemporary mode of treatment. The Cinchona bark was to him what that falling of an apple was to Newton. The bark of the plant was used to alleviate malaria symptoms at the time. He used it on himself to find that Cinchona elicits symptoms similar to the disease itself. That set him thinking, leading him to conduct several experiments with different substances, which in each instance produced symptoms in the healthy individuals, similar to those in the unwell. Subsequently, he coined the phrase ‘Similia Similibus Curantur’ which means ‘Let likes be treated by likes’ (Hahnemann 2007). He also demonstrated the therapeutic potential of ultrahigh diluted or potentised drugs on healthy as well as ailing individuals. Homoeopathy is a holistic system of medicine in which a person is treated in totality, not only a diseased organ or a pathological condition. From the point of view of modern medicine, it is a psychosomatic system where a ‘person in disease’ is taken into consideration and not the ‘disease in person’.

Homoeopathy has spread in almost all the countries of the world and has been accepted by the public as an alternative system of medicine. Its affordability and lack of adverse effects marks its increasing acceptance despite poor support by the governments. Homoeopathy, since its inception, has always been a target of criticism by modern scientists and physicians the world over. This is mainly due to a lack of scientific evidence of medicinal materials or molecules in the potentised formulations. However, ‘absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence’. Scientific investigations have elicited the presence of nanoparticles in homoeopathic drugs beyond Avogadro's number which may explain the mechanism of action of these formulations (Rajendran 2015).

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