Homeopathy is a system used to treat diseases , based on the supply of small doses of those substances that, in a larger quantity, would generate symptoms similar or identical to those they are intended to combat .
Considered part of alternative medicines , homeopathy was developed by the German doctor Samuel Hahnemann at the end of the 18th century . Starting from the idea that "like can cure like," Hahnemann maintained that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in a healthy individual serves to cure those same symptoms in a sick subject. Thus he laid the foundations of homeopathy.
Many claim that homeopathy is a pseudoscience whose preparations have the same effect as a placebo . Others, however, claim that it is an effective therapeutic method.
Homeopathic treatments are developed through dilutions . Through a practice known as potentiation or dynamization , the homeopath dilutes a substance in distilled water or alcohol and then shakes it vigorously. This would allow, according to homeopathy, to activate the "vital energy" present in the diluted substance.
The preparation of homeopathic dilutions is carried out according to the repertoires , which are the reference books of homeopathy. The homeopath also takes into account other issues beyond the symptoms , such as the personality and the general psychological and physical state of the patient.
The "official" media usually opposes homeopathy, stating that "it is important that it does not replace conventional medical practices , based on scientific knowledge." According to the detractors of homeopathy, if a person stops going to the doctor to put their health in the hands of a specialist in these alternative practices, their life may be in serious danger.
But there is no absolute position, one that is impossible to refute with strong evidence, since despite the rejection that homeopathy has historically received, it continues to stand and function thanks to its millions of followers. This war between traditional medicine and homeopathy has been going on for a long time, as much as a couple of centuries, and precisely its detractors claim that in all these decades no disease has been cured through its treatments , to which its defenders respond with stories. opposite.
Among the numerous pieces of evidence supported by the detractors of homeopathy is the fact that the remedies prepared by its specialists usually use ingredients that can also cause the same symptoms that they seek to make disappear. To cite a specific example, belladonna , which has the potential to cause fever, can be used to treat fever .
The weight of science is undeniable: we trust the discoveries of medicine , astronomy, electronics and the automotive industry, among many other fields, as if they were absolute truths. Most people adore anything with the label "scientific" on its cover, but almost no one is knowledgeable enough to understand these topics or, more usefully, to form an opinion on them, even opposite to that of the scientists themselves.
The reasons most people give for supporting traditional medicine and opposing homeopathy can be summarized in the phrase "because everyone says so" or, a shorter but no less rich version, "just because." In 2017, the Spanish Royal National Academy of Pharmacy , founded in 1737, declared that despite the controversial nature of this eternal battle between both disciplines, homeopathic therapies are rarely analyzed with scientific tools , which is why the statements against them they lack the necessary weight to definitively crush them.