Homeopathy

Although during ….. past 200 years many people in Britain, Europe and America have felt better for consulting ….. homeopath, …..orthodox doctors are scornful. According to them, homeopathic remedies only work because …. people who take them believe that they will work. Scientists are sceptical because they are convinced that …. remedies do not contain enough of …. substance to have any effect. But …. idea of taking ….. smallest possible amount, or minimum dose, of ….. remedy is fundamental to homeopathy. …. British Medical Association's 1986 report on …..alternative medicine rejected homeopathy out of ….hand - …. theory of minimum dose was irrational.

Dr Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), …. father of homeopathy, objected to …. barbarous practices of allopathic medicine. ….18th century doctors relied on blood letting and prescription of poisonous mixtures of drugs. Hahnemann noticed that ….substances which produced …. same symptoms as …. particular disease could be used to cure it. Hahnemann came across this phenomenon (first described by Hippocrates) when he experimented with ….cinchona or Peruvian bark, from which quinine is derived. Knowing that …. drug was effective against malaria, he took it and found that he developed all … symptoms of malaria. Through extensive testing on himself,friends, and family, he drew …. drug pictures of hundreds of substances and established …. law of similars, or treatment of like by like.

Since …. substances were often toxic, Hahnemann began to experiment with methods of diluting them to find …. smallest possible dose - …. cure without side effects. He diluted one part of …. substance with 99 parts of …. mixture of water and alcohol and gave …. result 100 powerful shocks, or successions. He called this dilution …. first centesimal potency.

In …. London cholera epidemic of 1854, …. death rate in ….orthodox London hospitals was 53.2 per cent, compared with …. death rate in …. London Homeopathic Hospital of 16.4 per cent. This striking difference may be accounted for by other aspects of homeopathy - its emphasis on diet, exercise, and fresh air and …. patient's spiritual, emotional, and intellectual wellbeing. Whether …minimum dose is, vindicated or not, patients will continue to seek ….relief from …. ailments ….conventional medicine cannot cure. And they will continue to benefit from …. time and attention they receive from ….homeopathic practitioners.

The Guardian (BrE)