Homeopathy is a system of natural health care that has been in worldwide use for over 200 years. Homeopathy treats each person as a unique individual with the aim of stimulating their own healing ability. A homeopath selects the most appropriate medicine based on the individual’s specific symptoms and personal level of health.
It is recognised by the World Health Organisation as the second largest therapeutic system in use in the world. While it is most popular in India and South America, over thirty million people in Europe, and millions of others around the world, also benefit from its use.
Homeopathy was first mentioned by Hippocrates (462–377 BC), but it was a German physician, Hahnemann (1755–1843), who established homeopathy’s basic principles:
- law of similarity
- direction of cure
- principle of single remedy
- the theory of minimum diluted dose
- and the theory of chronic disease
In homeopathy, diseases are treated with remedies that in a healthy person would produce symptoms similar to those of the disease. Rather than fighting the disease directly, medicines are intended to stimulate the body to fight the disease. By the latter half of the 19th century, homeopathy was practiced throughout Europe as well as in Asia and North America.
Homeopathy Today
Homeopathy has been integrated into the national health care systems of many countries, including India, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom. While homeopathy enjoys popular support in many countries, it almost disappeared in the United States in the 1920s, due largely to the efforts of the pharmaceutically-controlled medical establishment. Today, however, more and more people are turning to this safe, non-toxic alternative form of treatment. Homeopathy is part of national health systems in the UK.
Why homeopathy so popular?
- Homeopathic treatment works with your body’s own healing powers to bring about health and well being.
- You are treated as an individual, not as a collection of disease labels.
- Homeopathy treats all your symptoms at all levels of your being – spiritual, emotional, mental and physical and finds the ‘like cures like’ match for them.
- Homeopathic remedies, are providing in a minimum dose, are gentle, subtle and powerful. They are non-addictive, and not tested on animals.