Pharmacodynamic principles of homeopathy

Abstract

Homeopathy was already known to Hippocrates and further studied by Hahnemann. However, since the discovery of the medical effects of digitalis by William Withering around 1785, and the first synthesis of an organic molecule, urea, by Friedrich Wöhler in 1828, and through the further rapid evolution of modern pharmacological chemistry and molecular biology, it has gradually been abandoned as a serious therapeutic alternative to allopathy by most practitioners of scientifically founded medicine. Because a credible scientific explanation for its mode of action has been lacking, homeopathy is regarded by many medical researchers and scientists as, at best, placebo therapy, in spite of the fact that for centuries hosts of patients have testified to its effects. It is suggested that the gulf between homeopathy and allopathy can be reconciled if one takes into consideration modern knowledge of physiology, biochemistry and the physical properties of the water used in the potentiation process. A description of the mechanisms occurring during potentiation, both inside and outside a live mammalian organism, is presented.