Homeopathy medicine

Homeopathy  is a pseudoscientificsystem of alternative medicine. It was created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people would cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like".Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using a process called homeopathic dilution. This process involves repeatedly diluting a chosen substance, typically until nothing—that is, not even a single molecule—of the original substance is likely to remain in the product. Between the dilution iterations homeopaths practice hitting and/or violently shaking the diluent, and claim that it makes the diluent remember the original substance after its removal. The diluent is typically either distilled water, ethanol or sugar. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease.

Despite the claims by the practitioners, homeopathic preparations are not effective for treating any medical condition. All relevant scientific knowledge about physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology gained since at least the mid-19th century confirms that homeopathic remedies have no active content and no biophysical effect. Hahnemann's theory of disease, centered around principles he termed Miasms, is inconsistent with the germ theory of disease in medicine. Clinical trials have generally demonstrated no objective effect from homeopathic preparations. Its lack of effectiveness has led to it being characterized within the scientific and medical communities as quackery and nonsense.

Homeopathic preparations are referred to as "homeopathics" or "remedies". Practitioners rely on two types of reference when prescribing: Materia medica and repertories. A homeopathic materia medica is a collection of "drug pictures", organized alphabetically. These entries describe the symptom patterns associated with individual preparations. A homeopathic repertory is an index of disease symptoms that lists preparations associated with specific symptoms. In both cases different compilers may dispute particular inclusions. The first symptomatic homeopathic materia medica was arranged by Hahnemann. The first homeopathic repertory was Georg Jahr's Symptomenkodex, published in German in 1835, and translated into English as the Repertory to the more Characteristic Symptoms of Materia Medica by Constantine Hering in 1838. This version was less focused on disease categories and was the forerunner to later works by James Tyler Kent. Repertories, in particular, may be very large.

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Journal of evolutionary medicine