Homeopathy was founded 200 years ago by Samuel Hahnemann a physician and chemist in the 1800s.
Disillusioned with the treatment of the sick in that era Hahnemann renounced his practice and began translating books. It was while he was doing this that he came across writing that said Peruvian bark (Cinchona) due to the bitterness, contributed to wellness of malaria patents.
He disagreed with this statement and decided to take a small amount of Peruvian bark twice a day to see what would happen, and he documented all the changes he felt throughout his body.
Hahnemann was amazed to find that he started displaying symptoms like Malaria and that every time he stopped taking the Peruvian bark the symptoms went away.
He started to experiment on other plants, minerals and animal substances, and was amazed that symptoms started to appear in his body while taking them all. He documented his findings and called them provings. By observing these provings, he discovered the healing properties of the different substances.
Hahnemann believed to cure dis-ease he had to seek medicines that could stimulate the same symptoms in a healthy body.
This became the first principle of Homeopath. “Let like be cured by like”.
We see this in conventional medicine today eg: radiation is a cancer treatment but in a healthy person it can cause cancer.
Hahnemann began to match his patients’ symptoms to his findings, but giving the crude form often produced toxic symptoms. After years of study he developed a system called potentization where the crude mixture would be diluted and succussed (shaken), this he found to eradicate the side effects and strengthened the substance.
He was then able to match a person’s symptoms, and match intensity of their illness safely without side effects.
This was the birth of homeopathy as we know it today.