<P> With the term allopathy (meaning "other than the disease"), Hahnemann intended to point out how physicians with conventional training employed therapeutic approaches that, in his view, merely treated symptoms and failed to address the disharmony produced by the underlying disease . Homeopaths saw such symptomatic treatments as "opposites treating opposites" and believed these conventional methods were harmful to patients . </P> <P> Practitioners of alternative medicine have used the term "allopathic medicine" to refer to the practice of conventional medicine in both Europe and the United States since the 19th century . The term allopathic was used throughout the 19th century as a derogatory term for the practitioners of heroic medicine, a precursor to modern medicine that did not rely on evidence . </P> <P> James Whorton discusses this historical pejorative usage: </P> <P> One form of verbal warfare used in retaliation by irregulars was the word "allopathy ."... "Allopathy" and "allopathic" were liberally employed as pejoratives by all irregular physicians of the nineteenth century, and the terms were considered highly offensive by those at whom they were directed . The generally uncomplaining acceptance of (the term) "allopathic medicine" by today's physicians is an indication of both a lack of awareness of the term's historical use and the recent thawing of relations between irregulars and allopaths . </P>

Conventional medicine is also known as western medicine