Classical? Practical? Does it matter?
Jumping off from a page on my website*, here is a little deeper look at the two most common types of homeopathic practice
This article began its life as a review of a book called “Practical Homeopathy.” When I picked Vinton McCabe’s book off my shelf, sitting next to it was Colin Griffith’s book with a very similar title. That got me thinking and then digging a little deeper. Whoa! There is no shortage of books with this title. In fact, the earliest book I could find was written in 1882 (actually, before that, because that date is from the 14th edition downloaded on my computer).
Here are the “Practical Homeopathy” books I found:
Practical Homeopathy For the People by J. S. Douglas (the 14th edition I have downloaded on my computer shows the date of 1882)
Practical Homoeopathic Therapeutics by W. A. Dewey, 1901
Practical Guide to Homeopathic Treatment Designed and Arranged for the Use of Families, Prescribers of Limited Experience and Students of Homeopathy, by Myron H. Adams, 1913
Practical Homoeopathy: A Complete Guide to Home Treatment by Beth MacEoin, 1994
Practical Homeopathy: A Comprehensive Guide to Homeopathic Remedies and Their Acute Uses by Vinton McCabe, 2000
Practical Homeopathy: A Beginner’s Guide to Natural Remedies for Use in the Home by Sylvia Treacher, 2000
The Practical Handbook of Homoeopathy: The How, When, Why & Which of Home Prescribing, Colin Griffith, 2008 & 2012 & 2017**
Practical Handbook of Veterinary Homeopathy, Wendy Thacher Jensen, 2015
Practical Homeopathy for General Practitioners by Eduard Kostyuck, 2019
Easy Practical Homoeopathy: Guide Book for Clinical Practice, Shiv Dua,
Then, there are a few more with slightly different takes:
Therapeutic Key; or, Practical Guide for the Homeopathic Treatment of Acute Diseases, I. D. Johnson, 1872
LM Potencies: a selection of articles giving a practical guide to their use, Robert Barker, 1997
Homeopathy: the Practical Guide for the 21st Century by Beth MacEoin, 2006
The Home Prescriber: the Practical Guide to Modern Homeopathy, Marcus Fernandez, 2021
Homeopathy at Home: A Practical Guide to Natural Healing for the Whole Family, Jana Mostert, 2026
The one thing all these books have in common is assisting people in finding a good remedy to help them (or their pets) feel better.
Let’s define “practical” (Oxford University Press 2021) to see if we can figure out why all these books share that word in their titles:
of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas
(of an idea, plan or method) likely to succeed or be effective in real circumstances; feasible
suitable for a particular purpose
(of a person) sensible and realistic in their approach to a situation or problem
(of a person) skilled at manual tasks
A quick recap of the history of homeopathy
(See also, The Organon of the Medical Art.)
In the late 18th century, Samuel Hahnemann was experimenting with cinchona bark (quinine) and observed it produced malaria-like symptoms in healthy people, leading to the core principle of homeopathy: “like cures like,” also known as similia similibus curantur. In plain English, this means that substances which can cause symptoms in healthy individuals can then treat similar symptoms in the unwell.
Following this, Dr. Hahnemann began diluting the substances in order to lessen the strong symptoms which were often toxic in full doses — “law of the minimum dose.” Additionally, he began succussing (banging) the dilutions which he found actually made the remedies stronger — “law of infinitesimals,” also called “potentization.”
Voilà! Homeopathy in a tiny nutshell: like cures like in a minimum dose of potentized substances.
From its inception, people tried to stop the mere existence of homeopathy. Remember, these were the days of bloodletting and mercury treatments and other quite horrific means of “cure” and this new, gentle, safe and effective homeopathy was quite a threat to allopathic practitioners who, in turn, worked hard to shut homeopathy down.
Wilhelm Ameke’s History of Homeopathy: Its Origin & Its Conflicts (2007) writes about censorship in the 1800s: “One very favourite weapon of the opponents of homeopathy was the censorship of press.” In present day, homeopaths may now be free to publish their thoughts and ideas on remedies and methodology but the field has been washed in decades of being called “quacks” and having good and valid research disregarded. On the surface, this actually makes sense. When making remedies, they are diluted and succussed and when done more than a 12C, (see also, X? C? Homeopathic potency briefly explained) no original molecules remain. You see, science has yet to catch up with homeopathy, hence the witch hunt.
Conflict in homeopathic history does not always involve “the other side.” Sometimes homeopaths themselves get into a bickering match. Some classical homeopaths look down on practical homeopaths; some practical homeopaths look down on classical homeopaths. This is a little reminiscent of Dr. Seuss’s “The Sneetches” where those in one group (“with stars upon thars”) think themselves superior to Plain-Belly Sneetches (those without the stars). Chaos ensues and in the end, only Sylvester McMonkey McBean (the man with the machine to put on and remove the stars) wins. This is a child’s introduction to the idea that if you’re not in the “right” club, you don’t count.
It’s not just homeopathy where this infighting occurs. I have heard from herbalists of similar in-fighting complaints. Perhaps it’s because herbs, like homeopathy, are not new. People maybe are trying to claim something for themselves which actually belong to all? Herbs and homeopathy aren’t patentable. Herbalism and homeopathic materia medicae are common knowledge, passed down through the ages and new people are introduced to these marvelous modalities through casual word-of-mouth.
Harkening back to Digging Deeper: Remedy Repetition and the word in the title of that long list of books above, it is my opinion that the idea of “practical” homeopathy results from a backlash to the harsh and “barbaric” early methods of what we refer to now as “classical” homeopathy. Accordingly, there was one way to practice “pure” homeopathy. Period. If you diverged from that path, you were labeled a wrong ‘un.
Plenty of practical-minded homeopaths from the very earliest days of homeopathy, however, came up with alternate methods which were (most likely) equal to, or, even superior to, the original classical homeopathy. It’s not like they came up with new remedies; they simply came up with new ways of using the existing remedies: how often to use them or combining them or using them in higher potencies, for instance.
Siegfried Letzel (2006), in his article “History of the German Homeopathic Hospitals” refers to the quarrel among the “pure” and the “free” homeopaths; (he also uses the term “half-homeopaths”) in the early 1800s:
About the years until 1839 it is known that the therapeutic practice included also blood-letting, clysters [enemas] and also physiotherapeutic measures. Homeopathic remedies usually were prescribed as 30 C and low potencies. Not infrequently, more than five (but also more than ten) remedies were applied, but the case records don’t show, whether simultaneously or successively.
The article carries on with interesting hospital dramas and the progression/regression (depending on one’s point of view) of homeopathic practice in multiple homeopathic hospitals.
It seems to me there was a little push-back on homeopathic methods right out of the gate.
Turns out, I have a few of these above-listed “practical homeopathy” books on my shelves. Let’s look at the prefaces to see if we can get an idea of why these books have been written.
J. S. Douglas writes in his 1882 edition of Practical Homoeopathy: For the People (Third motive):
…others, who have a higher regard for their own pockets than for their professional reputation of the interests of the public.
Douglas was speaking of a homeopath who was bottling his own remedies without naming the specific remedies included — a true “keeper of the secrets.” He goes on to say:
I do not aim to make accomplished physicians of the public, nor expect that every case of disease can be safely treated domestically. But I do know, from numerous examples of domestic practice, that a long catalogue of acute and serious diseases, as well as lighter disorders, will be treated much more safely and successfully by families, by following the directions here given, than they are treated by the best drugging physicians.
Keep in mind how the “drugging physicians” he refers to were treating people, as mentioned above.
He wraps up thusly in the penultimate paragraph of his preface:
In short, my one great object in this issue of medicines, with appropriate directions, is to make known and extend the blessings of Homoeopathic remedies properly applied, by bringing the community to a practical acquaintance with them, and inducing them to witness their beneficent effects under their own administration and experience. I hope that very many who have never used Homoeopathic remedies will be induced to make the trial.
From the early days of homeopathy, homeopaths were sharing the homeopathic love!
Carrying on with the prefaces, Dewey (1901), too, is interested in making homeopathy more accessible:
Should this volume in any way tend to the furtherance of homoeopathic prescribing and lessen the growing tendency to neglect our therapeutics for easier but less satisfactory methods, the writer will consider that the time occupied in its compilation was not spent in vain.
Modern “practical homeopathy” books are generally aimed at acute and first aid situations, but, again, for use in the home.
Colin Griffith (2012**):
People want to know about home practice; they want to participate in their own healing; they want to understand what and why and when to take responsibility.… Once a home prescriber has tasted the sweet satisfaction of success in dealing with a cold or a headache or a menstrual cramp, she will want to do more. Homoeopathy is moreish. Once you’ve got the bug, it doesn’t let go.
Vernon McCabe (2000), (likening homeopaths to the Sneetches, actually):
Homeopaths tend to be an odd breed of people as well. Often it seems that they do not play well with others.… Given all the oddities of homeopaths and the homeopathic community — and these oddities as well as the failure of homeopaths to ever be able to gather in support of one another…
He continues in his long and interesting preface…
But the question of whether or not homeopathy could ever be thought of as being practical or not never really occurred to me until it was thrust on me in a classroom setting.…
A woman asked, ‘Is any of this practical?’
The question rather stunned me in that the issue of practicality never really seemed important to me one way or the other.…
Is homeopathy practical? And can it ever be considered practical? I guess the answer is yes— and no.…
So, back to practicality. How do we take something as philosophical as homeopathy and make it practical? How do we take what Hahnemann has written and put it into practice in our lives, on a day-to-day basis?
I think that we start with the admission that homeopathy is impractical in its nature.…
… but it is not only practical but feasible for an average person to learn enough homeopathy to know what to do for the little emergencies that arise in all our homes.… That’s what puts the practical in Practical Homeopathy.…
When I am in pain, I do not want a practical medicine; I want a miraculous medicine. I want a form of medicine in whose core philosophy is the notion that healing is always possible and is, in fact, an innate part of my nature.
That medicine for me is homeopathy. A most practical medicine.
I think McCabe sums things up quite nicely — homeopathy in its “pure” form is a daunting prospect. It’s not easy to enter the world of classical homeopathy. It takes a lot of study and time and effort to learn these methods and, just as importantly, this way of thinking.
I’m with Douglas and Dewey — I want the good word of homeopathy spread far and wide! I want to sing the praises of homeopaths doing good things, whether they be classical or practical or using a mishmash of theories or a parent at home who is helping their unwell child feel a little better all with those inexpensive, generally safe, little, white pellets!
Now, let’s look at what classical homeopathy is — a term that is a little newer than one might expect.
George Vithoulkas’ International Academy of Classical Homeopathy says on its “Definition of Classical Homeopathy” page:
Classical Homeopathy is a term introduced by Prof. George … in 1978. It describes a precise and disciplined approach to homeopathic practice, based on the original teachings of Samuel Hahnemann, the Founder of Homeopathy. These teachings were later refined through the clinical insights of James Tyler Kent and further developed, systematized, and clarified by George Vithoulkas.
Vithoulkas’ books were a big part of the curriculum in my first school. I would imagine that most “classical” homeopathic schools use his books.
Let me be clear, I am a big fan of purely classical homeopathic methods. I have been trained in those methods and I have full respect for them. Having said that, I do not always follow the “pure” path. Why? Because I find practical methods (generally speaking) faster and more satisfying for my clients.
As I was writing this article, I was listening to a lecture by a classically trained homeopath who has recently begun using some combination remedies in specific circumstances. He said he was taught in homeopathy school that “it was not okay, and it was bad, and it was not homeopathy” to use combination remedies. He said he finally tried a couple and saw “pretty good results.” He went on to say that when a homeopath gives just one remedy at a time and that one remedy doesn’t complete the job, how many times will your client return to you to give you another chance? When practical methods are applied to homeopathy, the chance of quickly providing some level of relief to a suffering person increases. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, it takes a special person/client to stick it out through purely classical methods.
Let’s get back to the obscure Sneetches reference I made earlier.
Comedian George Carlin critiqued the elite and powerful who he said worked against the ordinary people and famously said, “it’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
Homeopathy is, indeed, a big club with Hahnemannian homeopaths and Kentian homeopaths and Boenninghausen method homeopaths and Boger method homeopaths and practical homeopaths and classically practical homeopaths and sensation method homeopaths and clinical homeopaths and complex homeopaths and biochemic/cell/tissue salt homeopaths and detox therapy homeopaths and lay homeopaths and pluralistic homeopaths and home prescribing homeopaths and constitutional prescribing homeopaths and LM/Q potency homeopaths and therapeutic homeopaths and medical homeopaths and homeopaths using only protocols and miasmatic homeopaths and veterinarian homeopaths and dental homeopaths and polarity analysis homeopaths and high potency homeopaths and polycrest-only homeopaths and agro homeopaths and those who practice this method and that method… it truly is a big club and if it isn’t an all-inclusive club, that is just a darned shame.
All homeopathy relies on the basic principle of “like cures like.” How a homeopath arrives at the “right” remedy for the person sitting in front of them is pretty irrelevant.
Hours-long consultations can be spent digging into every aspect of a person followed by days being spent finding the one right remedy that works absolutely beautifully for that person but that does not mean the person will feel any better at the end of the day than if the homeopath applied practical methods and immediately found a different remedy to relieve their current suffering. One of my early teachers of homeopathy used to say often, “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” Note: I understand and appreciate the classical homeopathy argument that these impure methods of homeopathy “upset the case” and the belief that remedies can hinder, antidote or alter the others’ effects in unknown ways and that using multiple remedies at once lacks empirical foundation (though Hahnemann himself tolerated dual-remedy experiments in specific complex cases (Team Homeopathy 360, 2017). I have to say that I have not seen that. I haven’t seen it with my clients and I haven’t seen it with myself and I haven’t seen it with my pets. I haven’t even read about it being the case in actuality. I only know of this “upsetting the case” in a philosophical/theoretical sense.
Conversely, 3 hours of consultation followed by days of searching the materia medica can also have lousy results just as a quickly found protocol can also miss the mark by a long way. There is no one right way to practice homeopathy. There is only what works for the homeopath and the client. As Vinton McCabe said, “Therefore, right from the first meeting, the practitioner and patient meet as equals and teammates and not as expert and victim” (2000).
Let’s now look at the founder of homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann.
Dr Hahnemann stated in the Organon:
§1: The physician’s highest and only calling is to make the sick healthy, to cure, as it is called.
Dr. Hahnemann treated all social classes and he used a sliding scale of fees. He was going to make the sick healthy. Period.
His final resting place in Paris refers to him as the “Benefactor of Mankind.” He fulfilled his first aphorism. He believed homeopathy was for the people.
§2: The highest ideal of cure is the rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health; that is, the lifting and annihilation of the disease in its entire extent in the shortest, most reliable, and least disadvantageous way, according to clearly realizable [in-seeable] principles.
§17: The only thing the physician has to do to remove the entire disease is take away the entire symptom complex.… When the disease is annihilated, health is restored. This is the highest, the only goal of the physician who knows the meaning of his calling which is to help, not to engage in learned-sounding prattle.
Aphorism 17 certainly fits the OED definition of “practical” mentioned above: of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas.
Though he does go on with many aphorisms describing exactly how to do this, he does not say that 2-hour interviews are necessary. There are no guarantees that a 3 hour in-depth consultation will result in any better alleviation of symptoms than a well-trodden therapeutic remedy or protocol.
Homeopathic remedies began with Dr. Hahnemann in the early 1800s and he himself proved and documented around 100 substances. (See also The Original Drug Testing.)
When the first Practical Homeopathy book was published in the late 1800s, there were ~400 remedies (according to Constantin Hering’s 10-volume Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica published in the 1870s-1880s).
As of 2020, we have 8,661 remedies according to The Aurum Project. Yet, one could argue that good results could be obtained by using just those original couple of hundred remedies. This, too, could be described as “practical homeopathy” — keeping it simple and not even delving into the 8,000 other new remedies.
To borrow and distort George Carlin’s 2005 stand-up routine: It’s a big club and we’re all welcome!
Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath
#wellnessawaits
*”Classical? Practical” website page
**It looks like this one was updated with a slightly different subtitle - I’m not certain which version of the title came first and the Kindle edition shows yet another pub date.
Reference list
Ameke, W., 2007. History of Homeopathy, Its Origin & Its Conflicts. B Jain Pub Pvt Limited.
BBC, 2026. Learning English - The English We Speak - Wrong ‘un [online]. Bbc.co.uk.
Griffith, C., 2012. The Practical Handbook of Homeopathy. Kindle. Watkins Media Limited.
Hering, K., 1883. The Homoeopathic Domestic Physican. B. Jain Publishers.
International Academy of Classical Homeopathy, 2026. Definition Classical Homeopathy - International Academy of Classical Homeopathy | Official website [online]. International Academy of Classical Homeopathy | Official website.
Letzel, S., 2006. History of the German Homeopathic Hospitals - Siegfried Letzel [online]. Hpathy.com.
Mccabe, V., 2000. Practical homeopathy : a comprehensive guide to homeopathic remedies and their acute uses. New York: St Martin’s Griffin.
Morrell, P., 2026. ON HAHNEMANN’S WORKLOADS AND CONSULTATION TIMES IN HIS PARIS PRACTICE - Peter Morrell [online]. Homeoint.org.
New York School of Homeopathy, 2016. New York School of Homeopathy | What is Homeopathy? [online]. Nyhomeopathy.com.
Oxford University Press, 2021. Oxford Dictionary of English. 14.1.1.47 ed. Oxford University Press accessed through mobisystems.com app.
Patil, B. K., 2025. The Life and Legacy of Samuel Hahnemann: Founder of Homoeopathy and His Medical Philosophy - Bhagyashri K. Patil [online]. Hpathy.com.
Team Homeopathy 360, 2017. THE CASE FOR DUAL REMEDIES - homeopathy360 [online]. homeopathy360.
The Aurum Project, 2020. Total number of homeopathic remedies available worldwide: 7,700 [online]. The Aurum Project Incorporated.
Vithoulkas, G., 2026. Definition Classical Homeopathy - International Academy of Classical Homeopathy | Official website [online]. International Academy of Classical Homeopathy | Official website.