![]() ![]() The term allopath was used by Hahnemann and other early homeopaths to highlight the difference they perceived between homeopathy and the "conventional" heroic medicine of their time. The practice of medicine in both Europe and North America during the early 19th century is sometimes referred to as heroic medicine because of the extreme measures (such as bloodletting) sometimes employed in an effort to treat diseases. ![]() The terms "allopathic medicine" and "allopathy" are drawn from the Greek prefix ἄλλος ( állos), "other," "different" + the suffix πάθος ( páthos), "suffering". ![]() Jarvis, stated that "although many modern therapies can be construed to conform to an allopathic rationale (e.g., using a laxative to relieve constipation), standard medicine has never paid allegiance to an allopathic principle" and that the label "allopath" was "considered highly derisive by regular medicine." Most modern science-based medical treatments (antibiotics, vaccines, and chemotherapeutics, for example) do not fit Hahnemann's definition of allopathy, as they seek to prevent illness, or alleviate an illness by eliminating its cause. American health advocate and sceptic William T. Kimball Atwood, an American medical researcher and alternative medicine critic, said the meaning implied by the label of allopathy has never been accepted by conventional medicine and is still considered pejorative by some. The term allopathy was also used to describe anything that was not homeopathy. Ī study released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 defined "allopathic medicine" as "the broad category of medical practice that is sometimes called Western medicine, biomedicine, evidence-based medicine, or modern medicine." The WHO used the term in a global study in order to differentiate Western medicine from traditional medicine, and from complementary/ alternative medicine, noting that in certain areas of the world “the legal standing of practitioners is equivalent to that of allopathic medicine” where practitioners are certified in both complementary/alternative medicine and Western medicine. Heroic medicine was based on the belief that disease is caused by imbalance among the four " humours" (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) and sought to treat disease symptoms by correcting that imbalance, using "harsh and abusive" methods to induce symptoms seen as opposite to those of diseases rather than treating their underlying causes: disease was caused by an excess of one humour and thus would be treated with its "opposite". It was originally used by 19th-century homeopaths as a derogatory term for heroic medicine, the traditional European medicine of the time and a precursor to modern medicine, that did not rely on evidence of effectiveness. The terms were coined in 1810 by the inventor of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann. Homeopathy looks at the horrors of Allopathy, by Alexander Beideman (1857) ![]()
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