Hahnemann's original experiment with peruvian bark in Germany dates back to 1790. As he continued his research and began to treat patients according to the newly discovered principles, a group of students started to form around him. Over a period of several decades, homeopathy spread across much of Europe and its colonies throughout the world. European homeopaths introduced it in the United States in the 1820's.1
During the major cholera epidemics of the first half of the nineteenth century, homeopathic treatment was far more successful than the conventional medicine of the day in reducing fatalities,which helped to establish homeopathy as a major force in the medical world. Eventually, many medical colleges and hospitals dedicated to the use of homeopathy were established. Around the turn of the last century, there were twenty-two homeopathic medical schools and one hundred homeopathic hospitals in the United States alone.2
That period was really the golden era of homeopathy in this country, especially in the northeast. It enjoyed immense popularity especially among the educated populations in the major eastern cities where, according to some estimates, one in every four medical doctors was a homeopath. Many of the greatest homeopathic practitioners and thinkers whose legacy has profoundly influenced the evolution of homeopathy were the product of this period.
Threatened by the growing popularity of homeopathy, conventional practitioners organized themselves against further development of the homeopathic movement. Hence, the American Medical Association was created in 1846.3 Not only were homeopaths excluded from the organization, but for a full fifty years any physician who consulted or associated with homeopaths lost his membership. Homeopathy was also not popular with the pharmaceutical industry. Ever since the early days of Hahnemann, pharmacists felt threatened by the economic implications of homeopathic dilutions which are inexpensive to make.
The culmination of these efforts to discredit homeopathy came in the form of an analysis of the state of medical education in the United States published in 1910, known as the Flexner Report. The criteria for the evaluation was heavily biased against the homeopathic schools, and they subsequently lost their accreditation.
Along with this, there was also internal dissension between various factions of homeopathic practitioners. The main division was between high potency prescribers working from a constitutional perspective and low potency prescribers treating from a perspective closer to conventional medicine. Without a united, coherent philosophy the movement began to fall into disarray and was easy prey to detractors. Within a period of twenty years homeopathy was reduced to a mere footnote in the history of medicine in the United States.
Fortunately, though, the final chapter has still not been written. Homeopathy has continued to flourish elsewhere in the world. There are strong traditions alive throughout much of Europe, India and South America. With the emergence of interest in natural healing systems that have developed in this country over the last twenty-five years, homeopaths from abroad have found an entire new generation of appreciative students eager to revive the nearly dormant tradition. Today, a growing number of practitioners from all health care fields, along with a large number of lay people, are leading the renaissance of homeopathy in the United States. High quality homeopathic training programs and schools are becoming increasingly widespread, homeopathic journals are again flourishing, and publicity through the national media is on the rise. Even the National Institute of Health has begun to focus attention on homeopathy through the establishment of a committee to evaluate the usefulness of non-conventional methods of medicine.
