My Third Blog Post

History

1857 painting by Alexander Beydeman, showing historical figures and personifications of homeopathy observing the brutality of medicine of the 19th century

Historical context

Homeopaths claim that Hippocrates may have originated homeopathy around 400 BC, when he prescribed a small dose of mandrake root to treat mania, knowing it produces mania in much larger doses.^[28] In the 16th century, the pioneer of pharmacology Paracelsus declared that small doses of "what makes a man ill also cures him".^[29] Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) gave homeopathy its name and expanded its principles in the late 18th century.

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, mainstream medicine used methods likebloodletting and purging, and administered complex mixtures, such as Venice treacle, which was made from 64 substances including opium, myrrh, and viper's flesh.^[30] These treatments often worsened symptoms and sometimes proved fatal.^[31][32] Hahnemann rejected these practices – which had been extolled for centuries^[33] – as irrational and inadvisable;^[34] instead, he advocated the use of single drugs at lower doses and promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of how living organisms function, believing that diseases have spiritual, as well as physical causes.^[35]