Medicine is a branch of science which deals with the identification, management, and avoidance of medical ailments. There are few different fields of medicine that vary in their modalities and coverage area of diseases. Medical science is relied upon for the treatment of diseases but it’s itself split into several sub-groups. These are named as allopathic, homeopathic, and herbal medicines. Each one of these fields has certain benefits over the other but on the contrary, these also have limitations. Over the past few years, allopathic medicine has gained popularity over the other two fields. But still, several people contend with the use of homeopathic and herbal medicines, especially in underdeveloped countries.

Allopathic Medicines

The term ‘allopathy’ was used for the first time in the nineteenth century by ‘Samuel Hahnemann’ who was a renowned physician in Germany. The term was used to describe the most commonly used medicines at that time. The term is now used for medicines used by M.B.B.S doctors now. The modern system of allopathy includes healthcare set up which is comprised of the hospital, nurses, doctors, and technicians. The treatment is done through the use of medicines, surgery, therapies, etc. This field has achieved success to treat chronic medical conditions that were considered incurable before this advancement. Allopathy is most widely practiced in western countries currently. Other names of allopathic medicine are

  • conventional medicine
  • mainstream medicine
  • Western medicine
  • orthodox medicine
  • biomedicine

Homeopathic Medicine

It is a branch of medicine that treats entire systems of the human body and not only the affected part. Homeopathic medicine has three fundamental principles that the disease should be cured by a single drug, the lowest possible dose of the drug should be given and the third principle is ‘likes cure likes’.  Just like allopathic medicine, homeopathic medicine categorizes diseases into acute and chronic forms. Regarding the side effects of homeopathic medicines, it is so far considered that these medicines are harmless as they are mostly given in the lowest dose with a large amount of water.

Allopathic Vs Homeopathic Medicines

Treatment goal:

Allopathic medicine deals with a single system which is currently showing signs of disease or identify the harmful organism and treat it.

Aim of Homeopathic medicine is to help the body as a whole. Its objective is to strengthen the body defense so it can resist the disease or disease-causing organisms.

Coverage:

Allopathic has got a wide variety in the category of medicines.

Homeopathic medicines play a role in limited diseases.

Duration:

Allopathic takes a short time to treat the respective disease.

Homeopathic medicine takes a long time.

Principles:

Allopathic medicine has three principles i.e. surveillance, trial, and outcomes.

Homeopathic has principles of single-drug regimen, the lowest dose of drug, and similarity in symptoms and treatment.

Practice areas:

Allopathy is practiced all over the world.

Homeopathy is practiced in 43 countries (Asia 7, Africa 7, America 9, Australia 2 and Europe 20), more commonly in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Iran.

Vaccination:

Allopathy protects against some diseases through vaccines.

Homeopathy does not offer preventive strategies like vaccination but it makes the use of ‘nosodes’. They are prepared from dead pathogens, products of pathogens in a diluted manner. The evidence of its effectiveness is not known.

Surgery:

Allopathic medicine can cure chronic diseases like cancers through operative interventions.

Homeopathic medicines do not offer surgical procedures. This gives an edge to allopathic medicine over homeopathy as some diseases require only surgery to be treated fully.

Cost Factor:

Allopathic medicines cause a financial burden on people belonging to the lower middle class.

Homeopathic medicines have low price ranges.

Life-threatening diseases:

Allopathic or modern medicine provides a solution for life-threatening conditions either by medicines, surgery, or radiation.

There’s no homeopathic treatment for life-threatening diseases like any emergency, cancer, heart diseases, HIV/AIDS, neurological conditions, etc

Side Effects:

Allopathic medicines affect multiple systems in the body causing various adverse reactions leading to non-compliance by the patients.

Homeopathic medicines have very few side effects, if at all they have.

Which one of the two is better?

Conclusion:

These two fields of medicine have their pros and cons. As allopathic have many side-effects rather than Homeopathic. But nowadays the trend of using Homeopathic is not popular. Allopathic medicine makes the use of advanced methods that people nowadays rely upon. However, when surgeries are evaluated based on their outcomes, millions of surgeries per year are considered pointless. Your congenital commitment to homeopathy is laudable but truly unscientific. On the other hand, it is also believed that a lot of people ‘feel better’ with homeopathy, that’s a placebo effect, however, none ‘get better’ with homeopathy.

The developed countries are using allopathic medicines because there is a vast range of allopathic medicines available for every disease. There are a lot of people that find homeopathy better than allopathy because people tend to go back to things that provide them with the cure. Effectiveness of allopathy and homeopathy is a never-ending discussion but it’s clear that both these fields have a solution to the diseases depending upon its nature. Which one is better according to you?

References:

http://ijpr.sbmu.ac.ir/article_328.html

https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-homeopathy

https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/nafeesanaeem5/allopathy-and-homeopathy