"In homeopathy, any substance can be a remedy; even a non-substance. My favorite is “eclipsed moonlight.” I’ve been trying to find out how they collect it to prepare the remedy; no one’s talking. And then there was the homeopath who was selling homeopathic vaccines for smallpox and anthrax, which he said were made by diluting the real thing. I reported him to Homeland Security, because if he can get the real thing, so can terrorists."

Wonder if they sent him to Guantanamo Bay?

Homoeopathy is available under Britain's National Health Service.One of the London Hospitals under the University College of London Hospitals is the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital and NHS doctors are allowed to use homoeopathy as a complementary medicine to their conventional treatments.

We plainly believe in placebos If placebos work, why not use them?

The subject has proved controversial, being described as 'witchcraft on the NHS'. The Health Trusts who run the hospitals in different regions have cut funding for such treatments and the Royal London Homoeopathy Hospital has suffered a marked drop in referrals too.

Placebo's work. (Or should I say, placeboes work?) But why not a good old fashioned mustard plaster? Or eye of newt? Or a sprig of yew picked at midnight from a cemetery? Something cheap, anyway. Because if the efficacy lies in the placebo's being believed in, it's just as easy to believe in something cheap and close at hand as in something dressed up by pseudoscience and costing as much as a traditional medical treatment.

Just to be clear about how bogus homeopathy is...

Most homeopathic remedies are (said to be) made by serial dilutions in water of some active ingredient. The dilution factors, however, are so large that when you calculate the final concentration you find that a typical homeopathic dose contains NOT A SINGLE MOLECULE of the original substance.

The theory that water somehow 'remembers' the molecular conformation of the original solute has no supporting evidence -- notwithstanding a publication by Benveniste in Nature in 1988 that ended up embarrassing the reputable journal.

The placebo effect itself is a topic worthy of ongoing research into how people can fool themselves into feeling better!

'Eclipsed Moonlight' ?! Wouldn't it be easier just to use pixie dust?

Pixie dust is more likely to contain contaminants than eclipsed moonlight, according to a study done in 1889.* Eclipsed moonlight ranks with the moonlight captured from a blue moon in February as the purest of the ethereal nostrums.**



*Dodgson, Watson, and Quackenbush

**Howard, Fine, and Howard

lol, Dorian -- literally

That causing the symptoms of a disease is a way of curing , or mitigating or preventing, that disease seems a strange idea.

However, anyone who got cowpox was immune from smallpox. This observation must surely have been made when both diseases were rife in the countryside.And we know (don't we?) that some people get a mild form of a disease and survive and are thereafter immune from it.

Did our ancestors have some experience of people getting a mild form, or a related form, of a disease, showing the symptoms, and thereafter being either immune entirely or thereafter suffering less than others? If so, it would be simple guess that, if only we could always replicate the symptoms of some disease, we could cure or protect people.

That's interesting, Fred. Of course we draw all kinds of inferences, often not well supported, from our observations.

Before germ theory came along, the old Turkish remedy of catching cowpox to prevent smallpox seems like a case of a weaker 'solution' protecting against a more virulent one.

Or the theory that god(s) signal the remedy: a plant marked like a rattlesnake markings is a cure for snakebite. If the victim survives, the theory is confirmed. If not, well, the gods work in mysterious ways.


So rubbing frostbite with snow might seem homeopathic but it causes tissue damage just the same.

quote:

Originally posted by babthrower:

So rubbing frostbite with snow might seem homeopathic but it causes tissue damage just the same.

But it might take your mind off the frostbite!'Your' Dr Hall, writing about acupuncture, surmises that the effect is placebo, created by the fuss surrounding the procedure, the confidence of the practitioners and the patient, coupled with the release of endomorphins. She drily notes that you'd release endomorphins by hitting your thumb with a hammer. (This endomorphin production might apply to other remedies,too )

I take no credit for the observation about cowpox. That was made by my daughter, then aged about 11. She asked me what was meant by homoeopathy. I explained that the original idea was that you could cure someone by causing the symptoms of the disease. She promptly asked 'Like Jenner and cowpox ?' (Children learn so much these days !) which led to a discussion and this theory.We did consider the obvious possibility that the knowledge was already folk knowledge, before Jenner (or Jesty, who only got credit belatedly) investigated.

quote:

Posted by FredPuli:
That causing the symptoms of a disease is a way of curing , or mitigating or preventing, that disease seems a strange idea.

"Like Cures Like" is the pithy principle of a lot of folk medicine, no doubt since prehistoric time. Its appeal is its simplicity. Of course it doesn't usually work, but you can't have everything. Fortunately we now have science to sort out the connections -- if any -- between diseases and cures.

quote:

That was made by my daughter, then aged about 11.

Pretty sharp kid!

I suspect a lot of modern drugs cure by the placebo effect, too. Whose cold doesn't feel better with a hot lemon drink prepared from a packet you buy at the drugstore which contains an amazing array of impressive-sounding chemicals, and not one bit of lemon!

quote:

Originally posted by babthrower:

quote:

That was made by my daughter, then aged about 11.

Pretty sharp kid!

Now 21, she's been asking "What did you expect? All geniuses have their best ideas and do their best work when they are young. They go downhill after that !"

I have been toying with the idea of developing a product called "Holy Ghost Spray," which is nothing but an empty spray can guaranteed to deliver a Holy Ghost whammy at offensive individuals. I think that some in the religious community would fall for it.