(also spelled homœopathy
or homoeopathy) from the Greek words hómoios (similar) and
páthos (suffering), is a system of alternative medicine
that strives to treat "like with like" [the etymological
origin of the word homeopathy: 'similar suffering' Homeopathy
is one type of alternative medicine, being particularly
popular in Europe and India, although less so in the USA,
where such therapies have been subject to tighter regulation.
Recently, even stricter European regulations were also implemented
by the EDQM.
Homeopathy rests on the premise of treating sick persons
with extremely diluted agents that - in undiluted doses
- are deemed to produce similar symptoms in a healthy individual.
Its adherents and practitioners assert that the therapeutic
potency of a remedy can be increased by serial dilution
of the drug, combined with succussion or vigorous shaking.
In common with allopathic medicine, homeopathy regards diseases
as morbid derangements of the organism.
However, it differs in preferring to view each case of sickness
as a strictly individual phenomenon.[6] The term "homeopathy"
was coined by the Saxon physician Christian Friedrich Samuel
Hahnemann (1755–1843) and first appeared in print in 1807.[7],
although he had previously outlined his axiom of medical
similars in a series of articles and monographs commencing
in 1796
