Who First Developed Homoeopathy?

Homoeopathy was developed in the 18th century by Dr Samuel Hahnemann. He found out that small amounts of the bark from a cinchona tree, a plant based remedy commonly used at the time to treat malaria, caused malarial-type fevers when it was taken by someone who was healthy and had no malaria.

He developed a theory that 'like treats like' and said that the best treatment for any disease was small amounts of a substance that, when given in larger amounts, would produce the same symptoms of the illness in a normal healthy person.

Hahnemann thought his way of doing things was better than the medical treatments used at the time. He was probably correct, as these included drugs based on poisons such as arsenic and blood letting, trepanning and purging, most of which made the patient sicker. His dilute medicines no doubt did very little harm – they probably saved patients from more drastic treatments and gave their bodies a chance to recover naturally.