Adjacent Words

homeopathy definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a method of treating disease with small amounts of remedies that, in large amounts in healthy people, produce symptoms similar to those being treated [syn: homeopathy, homoeopathy] [ant: allopathy]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: German Homöopathie, from homöo- homeo- + -pathie -pathy Date: 1826 a system of medical practice that treats a disease especially by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in healthy persons produce symptoms similar to those of the disease • homeopath noun

Britannica Concise

System of therapeutics founded in 1796 by S. Hahnemann on the principle that "like cures like." That is, substances that in healthy persons would produce the symptoms from which the patient suffers are used to treat the patient. Hahnemann further stated that the potency of a curative agent increases as the substance is diluted. When it was introduced, homeopathy was a mild, welcome alternative to heavy-handed therapies such as bleeding, but it has since been criticized for focusing on symptoms rather than causes. With the rise of alternative medicine, it has seen a resurgence.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Homeopathy Ho*me*op"a*thy, n. [Gr. ? likeness of condition or feeling; ? like (fr. ? same; cf. Same) + ? to suffer: cf. F. hom['e]opathie. See Pathos.] (Med.) The art of curing, founded on resemblances; the theory and its practice that disease is cured (tuto, cito, et jucunde) by remedies which produce on a healthy person effects similar to the symptoms of the complaint under which the patient suffers, the remedies being usually administered in minute doses. This system was founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, and is opposed to allopathy, or heteropathy. [Written also hom[oe]opathy.]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Note: in BRIT, also use 'homoeopathy' Homeopathy is a way of treating an illness in which the patient is given very small amounts of a drug that produces signs of the illness in healthy people.