A little credit to the early homeopaths, please.  Part of
the destructive syndrome of 18th century medicine was its
passion for denying patients water, food, fresh air, etc.
Hahnemann was pretty eloquent about rejecting that.

That's a HUGE part of the success that they claim (justly)
in terms of differential outcome for treating diseases like
smallpox: they weren't putting so much effort into killing
their patients.  Instead, they provided what we would call
basic supportive care.

Their problem is that they don't distinguish between "stop
killing your patients" and "treat them with woo."

+---------- D. C. Sessions <dcs@lumbercartel.com> ----------+

OK, you have made a number of
excellent points, though I may
not agree with all of them,
the reasoning is good.

Let's wrap up the points in no
particular order:

On the Dengue fever example:
Well said, yes it does seem to
go away for most people but with
the following addendums:
a). The Dengue fever frequently
ameliorates after several days
and the patient believes they
are past it, then it hits again
with a lesser or secondary
fever for another couple
of days and then the
patient recovers.   There
is also the interesting side
note that each time one
gets it, the effects
are WORSE and it hits
stronger.

b). the strongest Dengue
will cause a dangerous drop
in platelet count requring
transfusions, in others there
will be petechiae indicative
of minor bleeds.

Now Homeopathy, IF it works,
should be testing their remedy
not only on the mild cases
but also on the severe cases.
Instead, what I see are numerous
Homeopathic doctors stating
outright - if the patient
has the severe form they
should go right to the
hospital and be kept
under observation ready
for transfusions if needed.

WHY?  If Homeopathy works,
then it should stop the hemorraghic
aspects of the fever too.
Why is the research scanty?
(See Conclusions... read on).

There ARE Homeopaths, particularly
the older ones who address some of these
issues, in the era before transfusions
were available.

I again make note in passing
of the high success rate
of Homeopathic treatments
in past cholera epidemics
which, I am told, is because
the standard medical treatments
of those times was so poor.
Perhaps so but this reasoning
seems to indicate Homeopathy
somehow succeeded better than
doing nothing -> a certain well
known percentage of people
died in such epidemics and
somehow the Homeopaths
of those time bettered the odds
and THAT has nothing to do
with the ineptitude or errors
of the then standard medicine.

On the matter of the Chinese Herbs:

The Chinese, by the 1920's
had become so enamored of western
medicine that in some areas the
traditional medicine was forbidden,
even when local doctors knew
that for certain diseases
traditional medicine worked
better or the standard
medicine of the era
was ineffective.

For a good discussion, read the
interview with Dr. Tan
at this link:

http://med-vetacupuncture.org/english/articles/biomedac.html

With regards to Conan Doyle, yes, well said
we are all fooled at times, indeed so,
but you know the saying, "fool me once,
shame on you, fool me twice... "(!)

Conclusions:
First, the theoretical basis of Homeopathy
appears to rest on a "bedrock" of utter
quicksand.  The empirical or clinical
results are at the core of Homepathy.
Research continues and needs to
answer the issue of the high dilution
remedies.

Second, the anti-Homeopathists appear to accept
the operation of the Homeopathic
low dilution remedies where
real physical, tangible molecules
of something are really present.
The anti-Homeopathists
appear ready to ascribe the action
of the low dilutions  to standard
pharmacological effects
and therefore deem it worthy
of research (as you yourself
admit).  This is a HUGE
contradiction which does
avoids addressing the
Homeopathic modus operandi
which claims to regard the
WHOLE patient, in their
entirety, mental, physical, spiritual.

Neither does it challenge the
lower dose, the better the effect
theory which can be researched
by anti-Homeopathists who, curiously
seem to avoid this "opportunity"
to disprove yet another of the
Homeopathic tenets.

Third, I have persisted in
making the error, along with the
anti-Homeopaths, of reasoning
about Homeopathy based
on the concepts and typical
statistical analytic methods
of standard phamacology
of standard medicine in which
"one size of medicine" fits
all.   Yet Homeopaths claim
to individuate the remedy to
the specific patient, basing
this claim on an analysis
of the "whole" person.
This is either a specious
dead end of complete pretension
or one of the most exciting developments
in the history of medicine.
To decide, it will be necessary
for me to learn more about
this aspect of Homeopathy
which means more reading and
thinking.  Perhaps it is there
that the key can be found,
if it exists.

What exactly IS disease,
what exactly IS a cure?
Is chemotherapy a cure
when all it delivers is a "remission"
and the cancer may eventually
"return" (it never had gone, had it?!)
and kill the patient.
These are fundamental questions
of medicine, the germ theory
and many other theories which
need to re-evaluated and thought
about.

The closest thing I can thing of to it
in standard medicine is that borderline
gray area of psycho-somatic medicine,
which seemed to have had its hay day
in the 1950's when the theories
of Hans Selye dominated and
"stress" became the magic
explanation of standard medicine
for just about everything including
pyloric type ulcers.  So great
was the prejudice against the lone
researcher who believed pyloric
ulcers were caused by a bacteria,
that he was forced to take the extraordinary
step to inject himself with the bacteria
in question (h. pylorii) and demonstrate
that he then had an ulcer before
his research was finally given begruding
admission.

Fourth and last point, I have identified one of the
key experiments, which, though it does not
fully provide a total theoretical explanation
for Homeopathy, at least does take an enormous
step in that direction.  And here the fun
begins because it seems as though
NEITHER the Homeopaths, NOR the
anti-Homeopaths want to repeat Ennis'
experiments and ALL HYSTERIA
breaks loose on BOTH SIDES of the issue
when her experiment, which was published
in "Inflammation Research" was published.

Now this has me shaking my head in disbelief.
If Homeopathy works, the Homeopathists
should be repeating this experiment numerous
times.  But like "cold fusion" it appears that
it works sometimes and other times not,
for unknown reasons.  Neither side seems
to want to repeat the experiment a necessary
number of times because it has become
"controversial" so I suppose researchers would
prefer NOT to gamble with their careers
and in the meantime have to wonder
what unknown could be so great
as to cause FEAR... ON BOTH SIDES
OF THE ISSUE... at the result?

The dedicated anti-Homeopathists could
destroy one of the few physical science
possible theoretical bases for Homeopathy
and then have a good REASON for
denying funding for additional research.
Yet, BBC Horizons and ANONYMOUS scientists
were the only ones to do it.
Did they find an error in Ennis' protocol?
If they did, it remains UNPUBLISHED,
hence their "failed" repetition of her
experiment is scientifically worthless.
The ongoing "explanation" is that Homeopathy
is such obvious "nonsense" that it is not
worth wasting time on - an argument
that would have STOPPED the pyloric
ulcer researcher from making his discovery
and people would still be having part
of their stomachs cut out in surgery
for some types of ulcers.
UNACCEPTABLE.

The Homeopathists DON'T appear
to be in any rush to repeat these experiments
either?  What are they afraid of,
that it WON'T work??  Ennis
herself asked other researchers
to investigate her results.
Is the "investigation" too terrifying
for everyone?

And so I must delve deeper into this
mysterious realm but have at least
the gratification of learning the
etiology and prognoses of many
diseases and illnesses, quite common
ones which are happening all over
the planet, as we speak.  And the
bottom line is, again, that the patient
does not care about the
theories of Homeopathy or Chinese
Medicine, OR standard medicine -
they care about getting well,
of getting up from their sick beds
and resuming a normal life with
their families, which is what
real medicine of ANY modality
is all about.

Thanks
Citizen Jimserac