A system of healing in which the patient is given extremely diluted substances that cause symptoms similar to the disease that is to be cured. This is called the law of similars or “like cures like” or as its creator said in Latin: similia similibus curentur.

Although somewhat plausible when its creator, Samuel Hahnemann, dreamed it up at the end of the 18th century, it has since been shown to be no better than a placebo, and is now dismissed as quackery.

Homoeopathy was especially popular during the 19th century, but had all but disappeared by the 1950s. It is currently enjoying a revival, possibly because scientific medicine has become too difficult to understand for the layperson in combination with mediatisation and sensationalisation of mistakes and fraud in the medical and pharmaceutical communities.

The word is a combination of two Greek words namely homoios (similar) and pathos (suffering).