Current Popularity, Acceptance, and Regulation of Homeopathy

Abstract

Considering the atrocious risks of heroic medicine—the name given retrospectively to the conventional treatments of Hahnemann’s time—it is easy to see why homeopathy quickly conquered the world. Partly stimulated by Hahnemann’s criticism, conventional medicine gradually began to abandon its dangerous treatments and became more and more scientific. Consequently, it began to discover ever more effective treatments. These developments significantly contributed to a decline in homeopathy’s popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The downturn only changed in the 1970s when alternative medicine—and with it homeopathy—started to experience a revival. Today homeopathy has again a sizeable following, particularly in Germany, France, India, Britain, and the US.