Allopathy

Allopathy is a term coined sometime in the late 18th century by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician who was the founder of homeopathy. Derived from the Greek (ἄλλος, állos, other, different + πάϑος, páthos, suffering), "allopathy" was meant to be contrasted to his own theory of "homeopathy", whose underlying concept was "like cures like" and was based on "the principle of similars". Allopathy, therefore, according to Hahnemann, because it was based on "the principle of opposites", was supposed to characterize all other types of medical theories and applications. The word "homeopathy", also Hahnemann's creation, which is in widespread use to this day, was derived from the Greek hómoios (similar) and páthos (suffering).

The term "allopathy" was used frequently throughout the first half of the 19th century, particularly in the United States, to describe various forms of conventional medicine, even by non-homeopathic practitioners themselves. In the last half of that century, however, it came under attack by increasingly powerful medical associations and by the turn of the 20th century it had fallen into disrepute. Forty years later, during which time conventional medicine had begun to adopt a firmly scientific basis, the 1941 printing of the Encyclopedia Britannica, had, in its 23-volume set, a one-page article on homeopathy, 34 pages devoted to "Medicine" and "Medical" off-shoots, but no article at all about allopathy. Even its index, comprising an entire volume of 978 pages, made no mention of it.

The term, however, is still used occasionally today, generally in a disparaging fashion, by some practitioners of alternative medicine to characterize what others call conventional medicine. A reason that it is considered derogatory is that mainstream medicine is not based on a theory of opposites. In many cases, medical therapy either helps replaced a failed body system (e.g., administering insulin in Type I diabetes, when the body no longer makes its own), or with drugs to reduce the acquired insulin resistance of body cells in Type II diabetes. Many new therapies directly reinforce or regulate physiologic mechanisms operating at a molecular level.

One contemporary usage, which is not considered derogatory and respects historical tradition, is used to distinguish between U.S. osteopathic medical schools that grant the Doctor of Osteopathy (D.O.) degree versus "allopathic" medical schools that grant the degree Doctor of Medicine (Latin Medicinae doctorum, or M.D.). In the U.S., both types of medical schools are recognized as "mainstream"; the osteopathic schools teach additional musculoskeletal manipulations but the core curricula are otherwise identical. In the U.K., "osteopaths" are trained only in manipulations.