In the Hippocratic conception, medicine is a synthesis of technique, philosophy and humanism, but in essence it is nothing more than the expression of the living being to counter predestination. Its foundation is the dose–response relationship that a living organism expresses when perturbed by an external agent. In practice, however, this interpretation is defined by the knowledge, thought, economic means, politics and religious sentiment of the community to which the organism belongs. Homeopathy, too, does not escape these considerations. It is a child of the vitalistic philosophy of the time when it was formulated by a giant of human history, Samuel Hahnemann. At that time, knowledge did not allow for the biological definition of disease, but simply the acceptance or rejection of the Hippocratic view of the symptom as an attempt at self-healing.