The above really tickled me. If you understand what Homeopathy claims to be then you will get it.
But Homeopathy is just Herbal Medicine … right?
Nope, not at all, it is something that is completely and utterly bizarre.
It is not some ancient medicine, but instead is based on a series of strange ideas developed in the 1790s by a German doctor called Samuel Hahnemann. The claim is that “like cures like”. If for example you have trouble sleeping, then the Homeopathy remedy for this is highly diluted caffeine.
When I say “Highly diluted”, I really do mean that. To create this remedy you add 1 part of caffeine to 100 parts of water. Take one drop of that and add that drop to 100 parts of water. Repeat this process 20 times and you then have a 20 C remedy.
It has been so diluted that it is highly probable that not one single molecule of the original remains.
It gets even more bizarre
Go to a Homeopathy manufacturer and you will find that some of the highly diluted remedies is truly weird …
- roadkill
- Rabid dog saliva
- A stone circle
- Plutonium
- Light from Venus
- Water … yes, highly diluted water.
- Communion Host … (Jesus lite, or diet Jesus perhaps?)
… and the cherry on the cake …
- Bullshit … the remedy excrementum tauri is bullshit. Literally.
Who cares … it works … right?
Nope, it does not, there is no evidence that it does anything at all. Don’t take my word on it.
The official UK NHS stance is that it is total nonsense and does not work.
In the US, the FDA also cracks down on it.
If indeed it did actually work then that homeopathy cartoon at the top should be the funniest cartoon ever created … but … well that bit of gentle mockery is itself funny, and the reason the joke works is that it rather obviously does not work.
People are of course free to take this stuff, but they do also have the right to not be deceived.
Those that claim it works are wrong.
They might indeed be truly sincere in the belief that it does work, and claim that they have lots of patients that confirm it works. The problem with that stance is that when you conduct robust double-blind clinical trials, each and every time the evidence is clear – it simply does not do anything.
Outside of the alternative medicine community, scientists have long considered homeopathy a sham[6] or a pseudoscience,[7][8][9][10] and the mainstream medical community regards it as quackery.[9] There is an overall absence of sound statistical evidence of therapeutic efficacy, which is consistent with the lack of any biologically plausible pharmacological agent or mechanism.[11]
Homeopathy – Further Reading
- Wikipedia
- NHS – Homeopathy