Homeopathic Medicine

Homeopathic Medicine or Homeopathy (also homœopathy or homoeopathy; from the Greek ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar" + πάθος, páthos, "suffering") is a form of alternative medicine based upon principles first defined by Samuel Hahnemann in 1796. A central thesis of homeopathy is that an ill person can be treated using a substance that can produce, in a healthy person, symptoms similar to those of the illness.

Practitioners select treatments according to a patient consultation that explores both the physical and psychological state of the patient, both of which are considered important to selecting the remedy. According to Hahnemann, serial dilution, with shaking between each dilution, removes the toxic effects of the substance, while the essential qualities are retained by the diluent (water, sugar, or alcohol).

Claims to the efficacy of homeopathic treatment beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by the collective weight of scientific and clinical evidence. Common homeopathic preparations are often indistinguishable from the pure diluent because the purported medicinal compound is diluted beyond the point where there is any likelihood that molecules from the original solution are present in the final product; the claim that these treatments still have any pharmacological effect is thus scientifically implausible and violates fundamental principles of science, including the law of mass action.

Critics also object that the number of high-quality studies that support homeopathy is small, the conclusions are not definitive, and duplication of the results, a key test of scientific validity, has proven problematic at best scientific evidence supporting its efficacy and its use of remedies without active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be regarded as pseudoscience or quackery. The lack of convincing

Homeopathic remedies are generally considered safe, with rare exceptions, although homeopaths have been criticized for putting patients at risk by advising them to avoid conventional medicine, such as vaccinations, anti-malarial drugs and antibiotics.

In many countries, the laws that govern the regulation and testing of conventional drugs do not apply to homeopathic remedies. Current usage around the world varies from two percent of people in the United Kingdom and the United States to 15 percent in India, where it is considered part of Indian traditional medicine. In the UK, the National Health Service runs five homeopathic hospitals, and in the 1990s, between 5.9 and 7.5 percent of English family doctors are reported to have prescribed homeopathic remedies, a figure rising to at least 12 percent in Scotland. However, the number of homeopathic remedies prescribed by GPs in England dropped by over 40% between 2005 and 2007, with homeopathy accounting for only 0.006% of the total prescribing budget.

Nevertheless, homeopathy remained popular worldwide, with the president of the French Association for Homeopathy Research stating in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization that homeopathy is "one of the most widespread non-conventional approaches to treatment known to the world, along with traditional Chinese medicine, herbal medicine and osteopathy."

Source: Wikipedia