Homeopathy (also spelled Homoeopathy or Homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.[1]
Apart from the symptoms of the disease, homeopaths use aspects of the patient's physical and psychological state in recommending remedies.[2] Homeopathic reference books known as repertories are then consulted, and a remedy is selected based on the totality of symptoms. Homeopathic remedies are considered safe, with rare exceptions.[3] However, some homeopaths have been criticized for putting patients at risk with advice to avoid conventional medicine such as vaccinations,[4] anti-malarial drugs,[5] and antibiotics.[6] In many countries, the laws that govern the regulation and testing of conventional drugs do not apply to homeopathic remedies.[7]
Claims of homeopathy's efficacy beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by the collective weight of scientific and clinical evidence.[8][9][10][11][12] While some studies have positive results, systematic reviews of all the published trials fail to conclusively demonstrate efficacy.[13][14][15][16][17] Furthermore, higher quality trials tend to report less positive results,[15][18] and most positive studies have not been replicated or show methodological problems that prevent them from being considered unambiguous evidence of homeopathy's efficacy.[8][11][19][20]
Homeopathic remedies generally contain few or no pharmacologically active molecules,[21] and for such remedies to have pharmacological effect would violate fundamental principles of science.[12][22] Modern homeopaths have proposed that water has a memory that allows homeopathic preparations to work without any of the original substance; however, the physics of water are well understood, and no known mechanism permits such a memory.[22][23] The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting homeopathy's efficacy[24] and its use of remedies lacking active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be described as pseudoscience or quackery.[25][26][27][28][29]
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Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:55:42 GM
You may have heard of . homeopathy. but you are not sure what it is. Simply put, it is a system of medicine that treats a condition with highly diluted natural substances that mimic the symptoms of the condition being treated. ...
Q. If it does work, are all homepath doctors genuine? Do they have to pass any qualification?
Asked by meh - Wed Oct 22 13:30:23 2008 - - 8 Answers - 0 Comments
A. Homeopathy is based on two principals, both of which are equally ridiculous in the face of what we now know in science, hell, they were ridiculous 200 years ago, and you can find a massive amount of scientific literature from the time criticizing it. The first is the Law of Similars - Basically stating that the body will 'not permit' two illnesses with the same effects to exist at once, and therefore by inducing a very low level of a second illness with similar effects you can negate the first. This is blatantly not true. You are perfectly capable of having multiple kinds of cancers, different flu and cold viruses, even different bacterial infections - all of which produce similar responses - at the same time. The second is the law of… [cont.]
Answered by Az R - Wed Oct 22 14:13:34 2008
