Editing Homeopathy (section)

===19th century: rise to popularity and early criticism===
[[File:Beydeman Gomeopatiya vzir.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Homeopathy Looks at the Horrors of Allopathy]]'', an 1857 painting by Alexander Beydeman, showing historical figures and personifications of homeopathy observing the [[heroic medicine|brutality of medicine]] of the 19th century]]Homeopathy achieved its greatest popularity in the 19th century. It was introduced to the United States in 1825 by Hans Birch Gram, a student of Hahnemann.<ref name="Miller">{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Timothy |author-link=Timothy Miller |title=America's alternative religions |publisher=State University of New York Press, Albany |date=1995 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/americasalternat00mill/page/80 80] |isbn=978-0-7914-2397-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/americasalternat00mill/page/80 }}</ref> The first homeopathic school in the United States opened in 1835 and the [[American Institute of Homeopathy]] was established in 1844. Throughout the 19th century, dozens of homeopathic institutions appeared in Europe and the United States,<ref name="Julian">{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/homeopathy_1825_1849.html
 |title        = Homeopathy Timeline
 |access-date  = July 23, 2007
 |website= Whole Health Now
 |archive-date = December 15, 2018
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20181215122834/http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/homeopathy_1825_1849.html
 }}</ref> and by 1900, there were 22 homeopathic colleges and 15,000 practitioners in the United States.<ref name="Time19951125" />

Because medical practice of the time relied on treatments which were often ineffective and harmful, patients of homeopaths often had better outcomes than those being treated by medical practitioners.<ref name="pmid8885813">{{cite journal |last1=Ernst |first1=E. |last2=Kaptchuk |first2=TJ |title=Homeopathy revisited |journal=Archives of Internal Medicine |volume=156 |issue=19 |pages=2162–4 |year=1996 |pmid=8885813 |doi=10.1001/archinte.156.19.2162}}</ref> Though ineffective, homeopathic preparations are rarely detrimental, thus users are less likely to be harmed by the treatment that is supposed to be helping them.<ref name="homhist1" /> The relative success of homeopathy in the 19th century may have led to the abandonment of the ineffective and harmful treatments of [[bloodletting]] and purging and begun the move towards more effective, [[science-based medicine]].<ref name="kaufmanm">
{{cite book
 |author      =Kaufman M
 |title       =Homeopathy in America: The rise and fall of a medical heresy
 |publisher   =[[The Johns Hopkins University Press]]
 |year        =1971
 |isbn        =978-0-8018-1238-5
}}{{Page needed|date=March 2011}}</ref> One reason for the growing popularity of homeopathy was its apparent success in treating people suffering from infectious disease epidemics.<ref>
{{cite book
 |author      =Coulter HL
 |year        =1973
 |title       =Divided Legacy
 |pages       =II:544–46; III:267–70, 298–305
 |location    =Berkeley
 |publisher   =North Atlantic
 |oclc        =9538442
}}</ref> During 19th-century epidemics of diseases such as [[cholera]], death rates in homeopathic hospitals were often lower than in conventional hospitals, where the treatments used at the time were often harmful and did little or nothing to combat the diseases.<ref>Death rates in conventional hospitals were typically two- to eight-fold higher than in homeopathic hospitals for patients with these infectious diseases; see
{{cite book
 |title       =The logic of figures or comparative results of homeopathic and other treatments
 |author      =Bradford TL
 |publisher   =Kessinger
 |year        =2007
 |orig-date    =1900
 |isbn        =978-1-4304-8892-7
}}{{Page needed|date=March 2011}}</ref>

Even during its rise in popularity, homeopathy was criticized by scientists and physicians. [[John Forbes (physician)|Sir John Forbes]], physician to [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]], said in 1843 that the extremely small doses of homeopathy were regularly derided as useless and considered it "an outrage to human reason".<ref name="John_Forbes">
{{cite book
 |author      =Forbes J
 |title       =Homeopathy, allopathy and young physic
 |location    =London
 |year        =1846
}}</ref> [[James Young Simpson]] said in 1853 of the highly diluted drugs: "No poison, however strong or powerful, the billionth or decillionth of which would in the least degree affect a man or harm a fly."<ref>
{{cite book
 |author      =Simpson JY
 |title       =Homoeopathy, its tenets and tendencies, theoretical, theological and therapeutical
 |location    =Edinburgh
 |publisher   =Sutherland & Knox
 |year        =1853
 |page        =11
}}</ref> Nineteenth-century American physician and author [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.|Oliver Wendell Holmes]] was also a vocal critic of homeopathy and published an essay entitled ''[[Homœopathy and Its Kindred Delusions]]'' (1842).<ref name="Holmes" /> The members of the French Homeopathic Society observed in 1867 that some leading homeopaths of Europe not only were abandoning the practice of administering infinitesimal doses but were also no longer defending it.<ref>
{{cite journal
 |title       =Homœopathists vs homœopathy
 |editor      =Allen JA
 |journal     =Chic Med J
 |pages       =268–69
 |year        =1867
 |volume      =24
 |issue =6
 |pmid =37412875
 |pmc =9801777
 |url         =https://books.google.com/books?id=R08VAAAAYAAJ&q=leading+europe+abandoning&pg=PA268
 }}</ref> The last school in the United States exclusively teaching homeopathy closed in 1920.<ref name="homhist1" />