Homœopathy

[Gr. omiopatheia, likene of conditions, from omios , like, or similar, and pathos , affection.] ( Med .) A system of medical practice, of which the fundamental principle is the treatment of diseases by the administration of such remedies, as, when given to the healthy subject, will produce symptoms similar to those from which the patient is suffering. The relation between drugs and the diseases which they are capable of curing is expre ed by the formula similia similibus curantur , or "like cures like." The Homœopathic school of medicine owes its existence to the genius of the eminent physician and chemist Samuel HAHNEMANN, q. v. In the year 1790, while engaged in Fig . 1307.-HAHNEMANY translating Cullen's "Materia Medica," to his great surprise, he discovered that Peruvian bark was capable of exciting upon a healthy subject symptoms similar to those of fever and ague - a disease for the cure of which it had long been deemed a specific. With the true spirit of inductive philosophy, he set himself resolutely at work; - examining the records of ancient medical writers, to ascertain whether other examples might not be found of remedies which had cured symptoms similar to those which they were capable of producing, he was induced to believe that the case of Peruvian bark physicians, by the great reduction of doses, habitually practice homeopathy in fact, though nominally adhering to allopathy. The sale of homœopathic specific remedies has also developed into an immense busine . Homog'amous, a. [Gr. homos , and gamos , wedlock.] ( Bot . ) Having flowers all tubular, similar, and perfect, as in Eupatorium , Liatris, .