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Homeopathy (also spelled homaeopathy or homoeopathy) from the Greek words homoios (similar) and pathos (suffering), is a controversial system of alternative medicine. The model of homeopathy was developed by the Saxon physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) and first published in 1796.

Homeopathy calls for treating "like with like", a doctrine referred to as the "Law of Similars". The practitioner considers the totality of symptoms of a particular case, then chooses as a remedy a substance that has been reported in a homeopathic proving to produce a similar set of symptoms in healthy subjects. The remedial substance is usually given in extremely low concentrations. Dilutions are performed according to a procedure known as potentization.

With few exceptions, homeopathy is not accepted by medical doctors or scientists because its claimed efficacy and proposed mechanism of action have not been verified by the standards of modern medicine and the scientific method.

There are several reasons why a physician or any other medical professional ought to learn about homeopathic medicine. In addition to the health benefit if homeopathy works, study of homeopathy can impart knowledge and unique homeopathic perspectives that will benefit even a skeptical student and his or her patients.

The most important reason to study any medical therapy is for the benefit the therapy can offer to patients. Although homeopathy has not been studied as extensively as almost anyone would like, homeopaths have accumulated two centuries worth of documented clinical evidence of homeopathy's efficacy in a very broad range of illnesses. Recent research tends to support this experiential evidence. Homeopathy first became famous as a means of successfully treating the horrible epidemics of the nineteenth century. Because we are now threatened by the rise of new microbial diseases and the waning effectiveness of antibiotics, other options are urgently needed. Homeopathy can often provide an effective alternative to antibiotics. Homeopathy's most unique capability is to alleviate chronic illness; because treatment of chronic illness is conventional medicine's greatest weakness, homeopathy may be the ideal form of complementary medicine.

Another reason to study homeopathy is its popularity. Regardless of a physician's own interest in homeopathy, some of his or her patients are very likely to be using it. At a minimum, physicians must learn about the uses and misuses of homeopathic medicine for their patients' safety.

Eisenberg and others conducted a landmark study of "unconventional medicine" that determined that roughly 600,000 American adults saw homeopathic practitioners in 1990, and another 1.2 million used homeopathy for self-care. Over the past decade, figures show that sales of homeopathic medicine have been rising at an annual rate of approximately 20%.

A 1997 survey by Landmark Healthcare found that 5% of the American adult population, approximately 9 million people, reported use of homeopathic products in the prior year; 73% of that use was for self-treatment.

David Eisenberg and colleagues followed up on their 1990 data with another national survey in 1997. They found that the use of homeopathy increased fivefold to 6.7 million adults - 3.4% of the adult population. They also found that self-care use increased to more than 82%, meaning that 5.5 million American adults were using homeopathy independent of any professional supervision.

A linear projection of these data suggests that the number of adult Americans using homeopathy by 2002 has risen to 12 to 13 million, with 8 to 10 million using it on their own. Although many of the most popular homeopathic products sold in the United States are specifically intended for use by children, we have no national data regarding the extent of pediatric use.

Self-treatment predominates the homeopathic landscape and its repercussions must highlight any consideration of homeopathy by American health care providers. In their first survey, Eisenberg and colleagues found that more than 60% of those using unconventional therapies did not tell their conventional physicians. This was disturbing proof of patients' mistrust of their conventional physicians' attitudes. Unfortunately, the second survey did not find any improvement in the following years. Patients have simply been unwilling to speak to their conventional physicians about their use of alternative therapies. Assuming this figure is applicable to homeopathy, approximately 6 to 8 million Americans use homeopathic medicines every year without the knowledge of their conventional physician or the supervision of a professional homeopath. Their conventional physicians therefore do not know whether the effects, beneficial or adverse, their patients are experiencing are from the covert use of homeopathy or from conventional treatment.

Assuming this pattern of nondisclosure holds true for homeopathic patients (we have no data to support or confirm this supposition), that minority who do inform their physicians are likely to be more knowledgeable about the subject than their physicians. Only rarely do patients tell me they discussed their use of homeopathy with their "other" doctors. When a patient reports that a conventional physician has even the most meager knowledge of homeopathy, it is a rare event. This ignorance can be harmful to the patient and embarrassing to the physician.

Homeopathic medicine's philosophy of healing and understanding of illness adds tremendously to the practice of medicine. Hering's Laws of Cure, for example, helps the physician determine whether a patient's response to any therapy is curative or suppressive. This method of analysis is applicable whether the treatment is homeopathy, acupuncture, conventional medication, or surgery. The family practice residents and medical students in my classes have been excited about the philosophic understanding of health they have gained from studying homeopathy. They have a hunger to make sense of their growing experience of clinical medicine. Homeopathic philosophy can help them achieve an understanding beyond what they learn in their conventional training. . .

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