Homoeopathy is the teaching founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, which selects the remedy for an ailment according to the principle of similarity.
The word "homoeopathy" appeared for the first time in 1807 in the "Hufeland Journal", in an article published by Hahnemann (homoion = same, similar; pathos = suffering, illness, feeling) and means "same suffering". The illness and the remedy, according to Hahnemann, are connected in the sameness of the suffering, in the sameness of the pathological symptoms which they give rise to.
Within medicine as a whole, homoeopathy can be defined as a regulation therapy . Its goal is the controlling of the body's own regulation by means of a medicine which is suited to each individual patient in his own manner of reaction.
In order to unambiguously define the medicinal methodology of homoeopathy and thus to delimit it with regard to other therapeutic procedures, the following definition was developed by the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Homöopathische Medizin (Austrian Society for Homoeopathic Medicine):
Homoeopathy is a medical form of therapy with individual medicines which are are tested on healthy people and are prescribed in potentiated form according to the principle of similarity.

The criteria contained in the definition
- medical
- medicinal
- individual medicines
- tested on healthy individuals
- potentiated
- the principle of similarity
should be taken into account at the same time.