Homeopathy
"Homeopathy" is like many words in the English language and is derived from the Greek words "Homoios" and "pathos". Roughly translated this means "like treatment". Essentially therefore Homoeopathy is the medical practice of treating like with like.
The theory was known to both the ancient Greeks and Romans. It was re-discovered in Medieval Europe by Paracelcus, a famous Swiss pharmacist and physician but never put to any practical use.
Present day use of Homeopathy stems from the studies and work of Dr. Samuel Fredrich, born in Germany 1755. His first experiments were performed in 1794 concerned the action of Cinchona bark (precursor or helps to make the modern quinine) which had been used to treat ague or marsh fever (known as Malaria today.)
Dr. Hahnemann knew that Cinchona cured Malaria and he wanted to know what happened if a healthy person took cinchona. He found that it produced all the symptoms of Malaria'. So he deducted that by treating patients using very dilute solutions of cinchona bark in water/alcohol mixture he could treat the disease free from the toxicity of the bark alone. He also found that the more he diluted and shook the solution the better they worked. Therefore he concluded that the most dilute solutions had the most power or "potency".
Dr. Hahnemann went on to experiment and "prove" his theries using other medicinal herbs and mineral substances. Other doctors and pharmacists came to accept his ideas and methods of treatment which are known to be SAFE, EFFECTIVE and NON-TOXIC. Eventually homeopathy spread across Europe. More and more remedies were tried and "proved" on healthy human volunteers. Now Homeopathy is world wide and there over 4,500 remedies available to treat all disease from babies and children to adults of any age.