Overview

Alternative medicine enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1800s. Both medical practitioners and patients began to understand the possibility of healing the body without invading it, and all the common methods of alternative medicine approached healing in this noninvasive way. The most popular and prevalent alternative medicine of the nineteenth century was homeopathy. Osteopathy also grew to be an accepted alternative to traditional, or allopathic, medicine. What is now considered chiropractic medicine was created in 1895. The benefits of hydrotherapy were also enjoyed in the nineteenth century.

Background

Homeopathy

A German physician named Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) founded the practice of homeopathy near the beginning of the nineteenth century. He joined the Greek terms homoios and pathos, meaning, respectively, "similar" and "suffering." This juxtaposition...