User talk:D. Matt Innis/Homeopathy lead
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a system of alternative medicine. The term derives from the Greek hómoios (similar) and páthos (suffering). The underlying concept of homeopathy is "like cures like" and is based on "the principle of similars", which asserts that substances known to cause particular symptoms can also, in low and specially prepared doses, help to cure diseases that cause similar symptoms.[1] Some principles of homeopathy have been utilized in various forms in various medical systems for thouands of years in many diverse cultures[2] Related maxims such as the "Law of similars" are common in anthropological literature.[3] [4] [5], but they were first methodically set out by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), who observed that a medicine sometimes evoked symptoms similar to those of the illness for which it was prescribed.
In homeopathic theory, every person has a "vital force", with the power to promote healing and/or maintain good health (the term "vital force" is akin to qi[6] in traditional Chinese medicine). In this theory, the symptoms of a disease reflect efforts of the vital force to counter infection, or to resist damage from environmental toxins or from various stresses. Homeopathic treatment attempts to strengthen this "vital force" with the help of remedies, which are extremely small doses of drugs diluted and vigorously shaken ("succussed") in water or ethanol and dispensed in pills or liquid form. They are chosen for their ability (in large doses) to provoke the very symptoms that the remedy is intended to heal (and thereby for their presumed ability to stimulate natural healing). Homeopaths believe that this "vital force" is akin to what physiologists would call the body's "defense systems".
Although homeopathy is practiced by some medical doctors, as well as by other health professionals in virtually every country in the world, most mainstream medical doctors and scientists, particularly those in the West, do not accept the principles of homeopathy today.[7] In addition to those homeopathic remedies prescribed in the professions practicing homeopathy, remedies are used by consumers all over the world for self-treatment of common self-limiting ailments and injuries.
"Classical homeopathy" or "Hahnemannian homeopathy" refers to the original principles of this medical system in which a single remedy is chosen according to the physical, emotional, and mental symptoms that the sick individual is experiencing rather than only the diagnosis of a disease. "Commercial" or "user-friendly" homeopathy refers to the use of a mixture of remedies in a single formula containing individual ingredients that are generally chosen by the manufacturer for treating specific ailments.
- ↑ For homeopathic remedy selection, "symptom" refers to important external manifestations of a disease, without the medical distinction between symptom and sign. As a medical term, syndrome may be closer to the combination of manifestations used in homeopathic remedy selection, although the procedure for diagnosis is the same.
- ↑ Boyd, Linn (1936), The Simile in Medicine, Boericke and Tafel
- ↑ Frazer, James George, Chapter III: Sympathetic Magic; 1. The Principles of Magic, The Golden Bough: A study of magic and religion, Project Gutenberg
- ↑ Hodgen, Margaret Trabue (1964), Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 392
- ↑ Scofield, Edward L.W. (June 20, 2001), "Homeopathy “Similia Similibus Curentur”", Innominate Society
- ↑ qi is the correct spelling in pinyin, which is the Romanization scheme approved by the Chinese government and used by (probably) most western scholars today. "Ch'i" (note the apostrophe!) is the correct spelling in the Wade-Giles system, which was widely used before pinyin, survives in many older texts, and is still used by some western scholars today.
- ↑ In India, homeopathy has the status of a 'national system' of medicine. Even in Europe, homeopathy is practiced by many conventional physicians, including 30-40% of French doctors and 20% of German doctors.