The difference between Isopathy, Homeopathy, Antipathy and Allopathy

There are four basic types of prescribing, at least according to Hahnemann in his Organon (Hahnemann founded Homeopathy and wrote a how-to manual called the Organon): isopathy, homeopathy, hntipathy (also called enantiopathy) and allopathy. Two of these systems have to do with the kinds of symptoms a substance creates - which means you need to know the effects of the substance on the human body. For the other two, you don’t actually need to know the effects on the human body (although giving an untested substance is always dicey!). Instead, you prescribe based on a theory or causative agent.

Isopathy: Isopathy is prescribing based on the causative agent. This is the same as a lot of allergy treatment these days: allergic to peanuts? Take a very low dose of peanuts. Homeopaths are practicing Isopathy (although they won’t necessarily say that) if they give you a diluted form of your prescription medication, or a diluted form of a virus that is supposedly creating all your symptoms. In other words, they treat you with a diluted form of what is causing the problem. If you want to read more about this in the Organon

Homeopathy: You prescribe something that creates similar sufferings to what you are experiencing. I think of it as a trigger. Think of exercise. Exercise creates MASSIVE amounts of inflammation in the body. The body responds by saying “oh ——- I need to increase my antioxidant capacity!”. Then you manufacture antioxidants. The exercise triggered antioxidant production by increasing the inflammation in the body. This is called a hormetic affect. In homeopathy, we give a slight stressor, and the body responds by increasing its own defensive mechanisms, which brings you back to balance. But note that this means we have to know exactly what effects a substance has on the body for this to work. If you have nails that chip and dry skin, we need to give you something that creates dry skin and chipped nails. We can’t just guess which remedies might do that, we have to know for sure. So this means we need to study remedies carefully before using them in homeopathy. In isopathy, because you prescribe only on the causative agent, you actually don’t need to study the remedy ahead of time.

Antipathy: A professional prescribes a substance that creates the opposite to what you are feeling. In medicine, you can often (not always) recognize these by the “anti’s”: Anti-inflammatory, Anti-spasmodic, etc. Opium is the best example I know. When you take opium, you feel too little. If you feel too much (i.e. you’re in pain), you take opium and you feel better because it took away that pain. This is only ever based on one symptom at a time, because how could you match opposites to a whole bunch of symptoms? What’s the opposite of pain and constipation and vertigo??? However, like homeopathy, you need to know what effects the substance has on the body. For information on this in the Organon, see aphorisms 7, 23, 58-62.

Allopathy: Allopathy is like isopathy in that the prescription is not based on the drug’s effects on the body. Allo means “other” in Greek and it’s essentially that last bucket that everything else falls into. From a prescription standpoint, these are the prescriptions that are based on theories, not on a relationship to the type of symptoms the substance causes. So milk thistle for detoxing the liver, diuretics to decrease blood pressure, etc. These are the prescriptions that have great sounding “reasons” behind them (reasons, theories, all the same in this case). Now I’m not saying these don’t work nor that the reasons aren’t justified, but when it comes to defining a prescription by the philosophy behind it, these prescriptions fall into the allopathic bucket.

Now, some of the more astute homeopathy students out there may say “But Hahnemann says there is only Homeopathy and Allopathy in aphorism 52”. And yes that’s true. However, the difference is that he is talking about full systems of medicine. There are four types of prescriptions, but two types of medical systems. Think about it - have you ever met an Isopath? Or an Antipath? No, because it would be entirely unrealistic. You cannot treat with a diluted causative agent in every case of disease - many diseases have unknown or multiple causes. How would you treat arthritis, or shoulder pain, or IBS - where the “cause” is often stress related. Similarly, you could never treat every disease with its opposite. Many of the conventional and natural treatments out there are based on opposites as said above, but not all of them. Think about conventional care: Anti-inflammatories for pain, but chemotherapy for cancer. How could you treat cancer with an opposite? And how would you treat vertigo with an opposite? You can’t. Therefore, the only two options for a full system of medicine are homeopathy, where you only ever prescribe homeopathically (except for lifestyle), or allopathy, where you do a little isopathy, a little antipathy, even a little homeopathy (Ritalin for ADHD is homeopathic!) all mixed together.