homeopathy and toxicology

[Giambattista]

As I understand it, homeopathy claims to take the 'essence' of a substance in order to imprint some sort of benefit when ingested. Criticism includes the claim that some homeopathic remedies have been distilled of any remaining medication. Some of the homeopathic remedies are considered to be poisonous, so it may be a good thing homeopathic preperations they have been filtered and diluted until they are devoid of poison or anything other than water.

Toxicology, a real science, says that the dose makes the poison. Iodine is poisonous but in a tiny dose, it is beneficial. Scientists are starting to recognize that dichotomy in many poisonous substances.

My point here is that while homeopathy is wrong, it is operationally similar to a science that is right. It should be paramount to address this distinction when discussing homeopathy. Homeopathic doses tend to be too small to make any difference, but toxicologists have determined that small doses of otherwise poisonous substances can be beneficial.

[MRC_Hans]

Initially, homeopathy was about small doses, but that was 200 years ago. The "high potency" preparations used now are diluted to a level where it is unlikely that there is even a single molecule left of the active substance. The claim is that the special process during each dilution step, a sort of vigorous shaking called succussion, somehow not only transfers, but enhances the power of the original substance.

But the basic doctrine of homeopathy is "the law of similars".

To even try to understand this, one must first know that basic homeopathy does not recognize infectious agents or other things to be the primary cause of disease. A "Vital Force" (VF) is assumed to govern the well-being and to cope with infections and other things (the VF does, for a number of reasons, not equal the immune system). According to basic homeopathy, any disease is due to a disturbance of the VF, and - and here comes a central dogma- the only manifestation of a disease is in the symptoms it causes.

Next comes "the law of similars"; it is assumed that "like cures like". If the patient is given a medicine that would cause the same symptoms as the disease if given to a healthy person, the symptoms from the medicine are assumed to take over and suppress, permanently, the symptoms from the disease, and hence, according to the above doctrine, the disease. Now the patient only suffers from the effect of the medicine, and once this wears off, the patient is cured.

The crunch between scientific medicine and homeopathy is not that similars might on occasion cure, but the calling it a universal law.

Hans

[Giambattista]

Thanks for explaining the supposed mechanism behind homeopathy. My post was not intended to suggest that homeopaths had somehow gleaned some universal truth about medicine that they did not understand but somehow managed to tap into. But I also expect homoepaths to point to the emerging toxicology research as a means to deceive the public into thinking that 'science is proving that homeopathy is right' - sort of like how 'scientific creationists' laud every new discovery as another inevitable byproduct of science's ultimate culmination in 'proving the existence of god', whether scientists embrace that goal or not.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Giambattista
But I also expect homoepaths to point to the emerging toxicology research as a means to deceive the public into thinking that 'science is proving that homeopathy is right'....
Oh, TELL me about it. There's no end to the science these guys will twist around to try to claim justification for their brand of woo-woo. Let's see....

:rolleyes: Grinding and shaking the remedies imparts energy (either potential or kinetic, I've heard both)
:rolleyes: Water has a memory (Benveniste of blessed memory)
:rolleyes: Invocation of some work which suggested that in very dilute solutions, solutes tend to clump
:rolleyes: Something dubbed a "biophoton"
:rolleyes: Chaos theory
:rolleyes: Brownian motion
:rolleyes: My personal favourite, and the one getting the most column inches in Homeopathy at the moment, it works by macroscopic quantum entanglement, sort of the same way as quantum mechanics works at the subatomic level.

I've probably missed a few, you want to have a look at Bob Park's article, Alternative Medicine and the Laws of Physics (http://www.csicop.org/si/9709/park.html).

Anyway, it's all just Sympathetic Magic, and anyone who doubts that needs to look at the web site they say has the most "scientific" provings (http://www.hominf.org/proving.htm).

Rolfe.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Giambattista
Toxicology, a real science, says that the dose makes the poison. Iodine is poisonous but in a tiny dose, it is beneficial. Scientists are starting to recognize that dichotomy in many poisonous substances.


Once again, this is a case where there are few choices. Homeopathy and allopathy are an old (150 + years) taxonomy of therapies into "likes" and "unlikes." Given that there are probably hundreds of thousands of medical conditions and treatments, and any one of them can be declared as a "like" or an "unlike," the probability that something can be fit into the "like" category is as near one as makes no difference.

This does not, however, mean that pouring a cup of Espresso into the ocean is going to make all the fish fall asleep.

[SteveGrenard]

The concept is much older than some may realize. It was articulated by the 16th Century scientist Paracelsus:

All things are poison and nothing is without poison. It is the dose that makes a thing poisonous.

A variation on this theme by Paracelsus is that everything is a poison, and the difference between a poison and a remedy is the dose.

[BTox]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The concept is much older than some may realize. It was articulated by the 16th Century scientist Paracelsus:



A variation on this theme by Paracelsus is that everything is a poison, and the difference between a poison and a remedy is the dose.

Very true. But this isn't what homeopathy is about. Paracelsus articulates the basis of dose response, which is meaningless to homeopaths.

[SteveGrenard]

BTox writes:


Very true. But this isn't what homeopathy is about. Paracelsus articulates the basis of dose response, which is meaningless tohomeopaths.


Can you show me where I said this statement has any reference to homeopaths? You dont have too far to scroll back. Thank you. (I am really tired
of being misquoted or being the subject of misattribution. I thought that only one person did this but apparently it is more
common here than I thought).

[BTox]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
BTox writes:





Can you show me where I said this statement has any reference to homeopaths? You dont have too far to scroll back. Thank you. (I am really tired
of being misquoted or being the subject of misattribution. I thought that only one person did this but apparently it is more
common here than I thought).

Um... isn't this entire thread about homeopathy? If you wish to change the topic you need to be more specific...

[SteveGrenard]

It meandered as threads often do to toxic substances and doses. Hence, the reference to Paracelsus. I did not relate that comment to homeopath's preferences or lack thereof for dose/response data.

[Rolfe]

I never thought I'd be sticking up for Steve (and make the most of it, because it's probably a one-off), but his post with the Paracelsus quote was perfectly rational.

In fact, it is often considered that Hahnemann got his "similia similibus" idea from reading Paracelsus, and the first known example of that Latin tag being used is as a marginal note in a copy of Paracelsus (source, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations), so there is a connection to homoeopathy there.

The comment about the dose making the poison in fact makes perfect sense in the context of this thread, and I certainly don't see it as a pro-homoeopathy point - nor do I think Steve meant it in that way.

Rolfe.