Practiced worldwide, homeopathy was developed in Germany over 200 years ago. According to the U.S. 2007 National Health Interview Survey, nearly five million Americans used homeopathy in the previous year. As popular as homeopathy is in the U.S., its use in Great Britain, India, Brazil and other countries is far greater.
Homeopathy is based on three principles: 1) The law of similars, a phenomenon first observed by Hippocrates; 2) The minimum dose, that sometimes includes ultra-dilute preparations; and 3) Individualized treatment, in which one patient’s experience of a condition takes precedence over the name of the disease.
Though homeopathy has been evaluated in numerous clinical trials, and has millions of proponents, it remains controversial. The principle of individualized treatment creates methodological challenges when conducting double-blind, placebo-controlled research on homeopathy for a specific condition. Whereas a conventional pharmaceutical trial studies one drug for a specific condition, a homeopathic trial could require 10 (or more) medicines for a specific condition. Consequently, the research literature is inconclusive on the effectiveness of homeopathy.
While in the College of Naturopathic Medicine at Sonoran University, our students learn the principles of homeopathy, the fundamentals of case-taking, materia medica and critically evaluating homeopathy’s historic and emerging body of research. Gain clinical experience treating patients with homeopathy at the Sonoran University Medical Center and our community health clinics. Sonoran University and its students have conducted research in the field of homeopathy, including clinical trials for allergies, altitude sickness (on Mount Everest), as well as homeopathic provings.