homeopathy

n. method for treating disease in which a patient receives small doses of a remedy that would produce symptoms of the disease in a healthy person

Homeopathy (also homœopathy or homoeopathy; from the Greek, ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar" + πάθος, páthos, "suffering" or "disease") is a form of alternative medicine, postulated in the late 18th century by  German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Homeopathy is a vitalist therapy, claiming to act by treating imbalances in a hypothetical vital force. Substances, which in large quantities would cause symptoms similar to the disease, are administered in heavily diluted formulations, with shaking at each stage of the dilution. This process of serial dilution, called potentization, is claimed to remove any negative side-effects of the treatment, but to retain some therapeutic powers. Although at many of the higher dilutions no molecules of the original substance are likely to remain, homeopaths contend that the shaking causes some memory of the diluted substance to remain, and that this imprint has medical effects on the body.
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Homeopathy /ho·me·op·a·thy/ a system of therapeutics based on the administration of minute doses of drugs which are capable of producing in healthy [more]Homeopathy - Community and Resources

Noun
1. a method of treating disease with small amounts of remedies that, in large amounts in healthy people, produce symptoms similar to those being treated
(synonym) homoeopathy
(antonym) allopathy
(hypernym) medical care, medical aid

(n.)
The art of curing, founded on resemblances; the theory and its practice that disease is cured (tuto, cito, et jucunde) by remedies which produce on a healthy person effects similar to the symptoms of the complaint under which the patient suffers, the remedies being usually administered in minute doses. This system was founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, and is opposed to allopathy, or heteropathy.