Contrary to popular belief, "homeopathy" is not the same as herbal medicine. Homeopathy is based on core principles, unchanged since its invention by Samuel Hahnemann in 1796.
The similar law states that anything that causes your symptoms will also cure the same symptoms. Therefore, if you find yourself unable to sleep, caffeine will help. This so-called law was based on nothing more than Hahnemann's own imagination. You don't need to have a medical degree to see faulty reasoning in taking caffeine (a stimulant) to help you sleep; However, caffeine is, even today, prescribed by homeopaths (under the name "coffea") as a treatment for insomnia.
Continuing with his "law of the like," Hahnemann proposed that he could enhance the effect of his "cure-like treatments" by repeatedly diluting them in water. The more diluted the remedy, Hahnemann decided, the stronger it would become. Thus was born his "Law of Infinitesimals".
While transporting his remedies in a horse-drawn cart, Hahnemann made another "breakthrough." He decided that vigorous stirring of a homeopathic remedy would further increase its potency. This shaky process was called ' succussion '. In ritually preparing a homeopathic remedy, the homeopath will shake or touch the preparation at each stage of dilution, in order to "boost" it.
Modern homeopaths believe that this process of "empowerment" allows water to retain the "memory" or "vibration" of the original substance, long time after it has been diluted to nothingness. Of course, there is no good scientific evidence to suggest that water has such a capacity, nor any indication of how it might be able to use this "memory" to heal a sick patient.
Despite being rooted in superstition, ritual, and sympathetic magic, the laws devised by Hahnemann are still in use by homeopaths today.
For Hahnemann's Laws to be correct, we would have to shake off pretty much everything we have learned over the past two centuries about biology, pharmacology, mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Diseases are not effectively treated by the administration of substances that cause similar symptoms; serial dilution and succussion do not "potentiate" a remedy.
