Homeopathy was born in Germany around the end of the eighteenth century through the
work of Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843). In the context of a medical era characterized
by remedies such as bloodletting and the therapeutic use of odd blends of poorly defined
substances, it can be understood that homeopathy had its own appeal. Yet, taking into
account the Avogadro law as well as the huge dilutions of homeopathy products, their
contents in term of active principles is close to zero, thus making indistinguishable
the various available brands with alleged different therapeutic properties. In 1988
the interest for homeopathy rose because a scientific publication [
[1]
] offered the views that the dilutions and shakings of the homeopathy products would
trigger a putative “memory of the water”. This bold hypothesis was subsequently dismantled
by experiments carried out with a double-blind design and suitable controls [
[2]
].Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 23, 2017
Accepted:
March 17,
2017
Received:
March 13,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.