Homeopathy began with the discoveries of its founder Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a conventionally-trained German physician. At the time of his discoveries, Hahnemann was the leading translator of medical and scientific texts and it was due to his exposure to a variety of medical thoughts that led him to coin the term Homeopathy. “Homois” in greek means SIMILAR, and “pathos” means SUFFERING, and refers to the law of similars that is the basis of this system of medicine. The law of similars was actually described by both Hippocrates and Paracelsus before Hahnemann coined the modern term.

What Hahnemann re-discovered was that any substance given in a small, diluted form, will produce the same symptoms in a healthy individual as it will cure in an ill individual. It is a non-toxic, gentle form of medicine that stimulates the body’s inherent ability to heal itself. The symptoms of the disease are looked upon as the body’s defence mechanism, and homeopathic remedies are designed to stimulate the body’s curative processes as opposed to only suppressing the symptoms.

*Fun side note – Hahnemann was the first physician to recognize that the physiologies of men and women are different, and he was the first to include women in his medical studies. A statue of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann can be found in Scott Circle, Washington, DC.