This is taken from the British Homeopathic Association website.
"Homeopathy is based on the principle that ‘like cures like’ – in other words, a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it causes if it was taken in large amounts.
This idea dates back to Hippocrates (460-377BC), who also thought that symptoms specific to an individual should be taken into account before making a diagnosis. This is also an important principle of homeopathy, where an individual’s unique symptoms are important in distinguishing the correct medicine.
Samuel Hahnemann. The idea of like curing like was not to re-emerge in any great way until a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) came to devise the system of medicine that we know as homeopathy.
Hahnemann trained in medicine and chemistry. Working as a doctor in the late 18th century, he was dissatisfied with the conventional medical practices of his day. Blood-letting, purging and giving patients large doses of toxic materials such as arsenic and lead were commonplace. Hahnemann disagreed with these harsh methods.
He was investigating the effects of various medicinal substances on himself and other healthy volunteers when he deduced that an illness could be treated with a very small amount of a substance that, in larger quantities, could cause that illness.
To avoid harmful effects from normal doses of the substances he diluted each medicine until he reached the greatest dilution that would still produce a response. These experiments were called provings and led him to observe and describe the basic principles of homeopathic medicine".
Two early pioneers were Clemens von Boenninghausen and Constantine Hering. Boenninghausen compiled the first repertory of symptoms which is still used today. Hering is seen as the "Father" of Homeopathy in America , travelling to Pennsylvania in 1833. He was responsible for a number of provings of remedies.
Bernhardt Fincke invented the first very efficient potentizing machine allowing high potencies to be made more readily.
Harvey Quin was the first practitioner in the UK starting in London in 1832. In 1850 the London Homeopathic Hospital was founded. In the late 19th century British homeopathy was dominated by the debate between Richard Hughes, advocating low potencies and a more "herbal" like approach and James Tyler Kent , a proponent of high potencies.
Important leaders in the homeopathic community in the earliest 20th century included Sir John Wear, Margerie Blackie and Margaret Tyler.
Homeopathy was incorporated into the NHS after the Second World War. There have been 5 homeopathic hospitals in the UK
In more recent times the approach to homeopathic method has exploded into new areas based on Sankaran's sensation theories and the work of Jan Scholten on the periodic table and the plant and animal kingdoms.
"Homeopathy is based on the principle that ‘like cures like’ – in other words, a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it causes if it was taken in large amounts.
This idea dates back to Hippocrates (460-377BC), who also thought that symptoms specific to an individual should be taken into account before making a diagnosis. This is also an important principle of homeopathy, where an individual’s unique symptoms are important in distinguishing the correct medicine.
Samuel Hahnemann. The idea of like curing like was not to re-emerge in any great way until a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) came to devise the system of medicine that we know as homeopathy.
Hahnemann trained in medicine and chemistry. Working as a doctor in the late 18th century, he was dissatisfied with the conventional medical practices of his day. Blood-letting, purging and giving patients large doses of toxic materials such as arsenic and lead were commonplace. Hahnemann disagreed with these harsh methods.
He was investigating the effects of various medicinal substances on himself and other healthy volunteers when he deduced that an illness could be treated with a very small amount of a substance that, in larger quantities, could cause that illness.
To avoid harmful effects from normal doses of the substances he diluted each medicine until he reached the greatest dilution that would still produce a response. These experiments were called provings and led him to observe and describe the basic principles of homeopathic medicine".
Two early pioneers were Clemens von Boenninghausen and Constantine Hering. Boenninghausen compiled the first repertory of symptoms which is still used today. Hering is seen as the "Father" of Homeopathy in America , travelling to Pennsylvania in 1833. He was responsible for a number of provings of remedies.
Bernhardt Fincke invented the first very efficient potentizing machine allowing high potencies to be made more readily.
Harvey Quin was the first practitioner in the UK starting in London in 1832. In 1850 the London Homeopathic Hospital was founded. In the late 19th century British homeopathy was dominated by the debate between Richard Hughes, advocating low potencies and a more "herbal" like approach and James Tyler Kent , a proponent of high potencies.
Important leaders in the homeopathic community in the earliest 20th century included Sir John Wear, Margerie Blackie and Margaret Tyler.
Homeopathy was incorporated into the NHS after the Second World War. There have been 5 homeopathic hospitals in the UK
In more recent times the approach to homeopathic method has exploded into new areas based on Sankaran's sensation theories and the work of Jan Scholten on the periodic table and the plant and animal kingdoms.