Homeopathy vs. Allopathy: Similar or Different?

No, They Are Not the Same.

Homeopathy and allopathy are based on profoundly different principles. Though the desired outcomes may, on the surface, be the same, the principles guiding the treatment will impact the long-term sustainability of a patient’s health.

An acute observer and compassionate physician, homeopathy’s founder, Samuel Hahnemann, study of disease and cure led to principles still practiced by homeopaths and are starkly different and a counter way of treating illness in the human body—allopathy.

Similia Similabus

The foundational principle of homeopathy is simila similabus—like cures like.1 This principle was observed by the polymath Samuel Hahnemann when cinchona bark given to a healthy person caused malaria-like symptoms. Hahnemann rightly reasoned that when the substance was given to a person suffering from the same ailment, the symptoms were removed, and the person was cured. Homeopathy, or similar to the suffering, is defined by this principle.

This principle is in contrast to the fundamental law of allopathy—the treatment is different or “other“ than the disease and seeks to treat the symptoms of the disease as they present in the body or mind of the patient. Allopathic treatment generally focuses on the remission of a particular symptom by a medication designed to alleviate the symptom and is seen as successful if the presenting complaint is removed.2 Unintended effects, though not desired, are accepted.

1 Hahnemann, S. (2010) Organon of the medical art. Edited by W.B. O’Reilly. Redmond, WA: Birdcage Books
2 ibid