William M. Rader

Just as organized religion has been beset throughout history by countless heresies, sects and splinter groups, so too has organized medicine. Ever since the ancient Greeks began to make a science out of healing human ills, there have been medical mavericks to challenge the established practices of their day. Today, a 160-year-old splinter group known as homeopathy—one of the first to challenge medical orthodoxy in America—is enjoying a rebirth of popularity, only a few years after observers had predicted its almost certain demise. Homeopathy (pronounced hoe-mee-AH-puh-thee) originated in Europe in the early 1800s and quickly spread to the United States. It centered around the idea of treating disease by administering highly diluted preparations of substances that cause the same symptoms the patient is experiencing. For …