Homoeopathy was discovered in Germany 200 years back by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann.
He was a M.D physician. However, he was getting disenchanted with the kind of treatment doctors gave patients in his days. Most of it involved purging, one way or another. Patients were given laxatives, emetics or were made to bleed by applying leeches, in an attempt to cure diseases. Hahnemann gave up his practice of medicine and worked as a chemist.
He was also a scholar fluent in 14 languages. So he started translating the original medical work while he was translating one of the work of a doctor he came across the detail that the bark of the Cinchona tree could cure malaria.
Having a scientific mind, he decided to experiment. He ate a little of Cinchona bark and noted it produced symptoms similar to malaria. He gave the same bark to few of his friends and relatives and they produced malaria like symptoms. But he went one step further whenever a patient came with malaria; administration of this bark cured the disease condition!
He continued experimenting with different medicinal substances. He noticed that those that produced symptoms similar to a disease were capable of treating the disease. He formulated the law: SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURENTUR. (LIKE Cures LIKE).
Homoeopathy was born!!!
Homeopathy is a specialized system of medicine developed by "Dr.Samuel Christian Frederic Hahnemann" based on the natural law of healing "Similia Similibus Curentar" which means likes are cured by likes.
"Homois" means like (Or similar) and "pathos" means suffering.Thus Homeopathy is a system of treating diseases by the administration of remedies which possess power of producing similar sufferings in a healthy being.
This law of Similars for curing has been in use since the time of Hippocrates, Father of medicine. But it was Dr.Samuel Hahnemann who developed it into a complete system of medicine enunciating the law and its application in 1810.