"With its long history of safe use, homeopathic medicines stand at the forefront of the complementary and alternative medicines which Americans are increasingly seeking."
-- American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists |
The basic principles of homeopathy were formulated by a German physician and pharmacist, Samuel Hahnemann, in the late 1700's. By the 1920's, the use of homeopathic medicine by concerned physicians was widespread. Today, licensed pharmacists in their '70s recall the steps used to prepare homeopathic medicines to fill prescriptions from respected physicians.
The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 recognized homeopathy as a standard method of health care. Homeopathic medicines were considered drugs and classified as either prescription or non-prescription (over-the-counter), depending on the strength of their formulation.
It has been suggested that the practice of homeopathy declined, in part because of incredible rise of the pharmaceutical industry after the Second World War and the economics associated with patent protected chemical or genetic-based drugs.
It has also been suggested that the decline of homeopathy was linked in part to an "image" problem. Physicians worried that the use of the pre-penicillin age medicine would brand them as being "old fashioned."
This trend began to reverse during the 1980s as consumers questioned whether treatments now considered "conventional" medicine, were truly delivering "wellness." By 1996 a Norwegian study showed that attitudes by younger (and now often female)doctors had changed dramatically. Of 1,434 doctors responsing to a survey 7% said they would welcome collaboration with a homeopath and another 31% reported that they would respond positively to a patient who wished to try homeopathy.
Homeopathy rests on three principles:
The interview between homeopath and patient is of great importance. Successful treatment depends upon the homeopath's ability to diagnose the unwellness from which all other symptoms arise. It is this source unwellness which is then addressed through a homeopathic regimen.
Enthusiasts claim for homeopathy a two hundred year track record of curing illness. They cite the widepread public attention homeopathy received through its presumed effectiveness during epidemics of cholera in the 19th century.
During the great influenza epidemic of the 1920's, homeopathic hospitals, it is said, reported low death rates, while hospitals employing conventional medicine reported death rates of 20% to 30%.
Since the late '40's, double blind trials testing homeopathy on various medical conditions have led to mixed results. Some are claimed to support the use of homeopathy. In other cases, this method of evaluation proved itself incapable of documenting the success of homeopathic cures.
In a report published in the September 20, 1997 issue of Lancet, Dr. Wayne Jonas, head of the Office of Alternative medicine, and Dr. Klaus Linde, concluded that, when the evidence of the 89 studies of homeopathy judged to be of good quality was pooled, homeopathy was deemed to be 2.45 times more effective than placebo.
In 1996, an unpublished study from the Homeopathic Medicine Research Group, an organization formed by the European Union to determine the effectiveness of homeopathy, concluded that homeopathy was more effective than a placebo... and the probability was only 0.027% that this result might be due to chance!
Remarkably, a group skeptical toward homeopathy had assisted in the study's design.
In the February 9, 1991 issue of the British Medical Journal, an analysis by two Dutch researchers asked to assess the efficacy of various forms of alternative medicine, reported that although initially they had been sceptics as to homeopathy and alternative medicine in general, "The amount of positive results came as a surprise to us... The evidence presented in this review would probably be sufficient for establishing homeopathy as a regular treatment for certain indications."
Today, as we learn more and become more sensitive to the relationships between all living things, homeopathy has rightfully attracted the interest of a great many intelligent, inquisitive and preceptive minds within both the lay and the medical community. ##