Homeopaths seem prone to getting a few things badly wrong (evidently, if not they would not be homeopaths!). Gonorrhoea is not a viral condition as some of them seem to assume, for instance; it is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. But never mind, we should not be pedantic.
Anyway, I wasn’t going to write about gonorrhoea (but I will come back to it at the end of this blog) nor its homeopathic treatment. Today, I want to tell you a little bit about a specific homeopathic remedy with amazing qualities.
According to this website, Medorrhinum is a powerful and deep-acting medicine, often indicated for chronic ailments… For women with chronic pelvic disorders. Chronic Rheumatism. Great disturbance and irritability of nervous system. Pains intolerable, tensive; nerves quiver and tingle. Children dwarfed and stunted. Chronic catarrhal conditions in children. Nose dirty, tonsils enlarged, thick yellow mucus from nostrils; lips thickened from mouth breathing. State of collapse and Trembling all over. History of sycosis. Often restores a gonorrhoeal discharge. Intensity of all sensations. Oedema of limbs; dropsy of serous sacs. Disseminated sclerosis.
Another website advocates Medorrhinum particularly for children: One of the many uses of this remedy is in the inherited complaints of children. The physician of long and active experience meets many obstinate cases in children. The infant soon emaciates and becomes marasmic, or a child becomes asthmatic, or suffers with vicious catarrh of nose or eyelids, or has ringworm on the scalp or face, or is dwarfed… This remedy will cure, or begin the recovery.
And the US ‘National Center for Homeopathy‘ recommends Medorrhinum for all of the following conditions:
Asthma.
Clonic spasms.
Corns.
Diabetes.
Dysmenorrhea.
Epilepsy.
Eyes, inflammation of.
Favus.
Gleet.
Headache, neuralgic.
Liver, abscess of.
Masturbation.
Ovaries, pains in.
Pelvic cellulitis.
Polypi.
Priapism.
Psoriasis palmaris.
Ptosis.
Renal colic.
Rheumatism.
Sciatica.
Shoulder, pains in.
Stricture.
Urticaria.
Warts.
Do I really need to mention that none of these claims are supported by evidence?
I am sure that, by now, you are keen to learn what Medorrhinum is made from. It is prepared from the urethral discharge of a male patient suffering from gonorrhoea.
No, I kid you not!
For once, we can all consider ourselves lucky that homeopaths tend to dilute their remedies until all of the original substance has disappeared!
92 Responses to Medorrhinum: another surprising homeopathic remedy
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They’re taking the pee.
That ain’t pee, they’re taking the pus
This is 3rd day we (husband & wife) have taken 10M but all symptoms in aggravation.
not sure what you are trying to tell us
I do not know why you would be at 10 M I always start with 30X because we want to use up all the energy that can be gleaned at that potency before going to another. starting high you harm yourselves…I hope you find a real expert practitioner to get yourselves out of the problem you are in now having jumped steps that you ought to have taken.
actually the aggravation is proof that you are using the right remedy at the wrong dosage.
IKRAM HOSSAIN, you are in quite the wrong forum for finding any good advice on homeopathy.
This is a blog dedicated to eliminating any competition to a Pharma monopoly of your health, and as such will ridiculously misinform you.
There is little point in talking to these people.
if you say so, Will
You should not be repeating this high potency. This is for single doses, lasting several weeks.
Stop now, and wait for the remedy to run its course.
Homeopathy works quite differently from standard medicine. You should not attempt self-treatment without knowing what you are doing. Which you quite clearly do not.
Please consult a genuine experienced homeopath for proper advice.
“Homeopathy works quite differently from standard medicine”
Partly true: it works purely via the placebo effect
There seems to be a striking similarity in packaging between those homeopathic products and things one might find at a corner store, especially bubble gums. I mean, what kind of a (
panacea) serious medicine would ship in colored packaging, as though it is for playful use or everyday consumption? This is a travesty, to say the least…But it isn’t a travesty that you need a magnifying glass to read the inserts that come along with pharmaceuticals listing the side effects? I thought the point of medicine is supposed to cure, not cause more pathology?
Does anyone here have specific knowledge about the quality control management that Boiron applies when preparing their “remedies”? I hope it is very strict, making sure that NOTHING of the “mother tincture” is in the final product (except wishful thinking, of course).
I am sure this will “reassure ” you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzX_rT9a-o
jrkrideau, thank you for the link, although this of course is only a commercial video. I would be more interested in official guidelines that Boiron has to follow before being able to sell their stuff. From a methodological point of view, with methods like TLC, HPLC, GC/MS or even PCR (e.g. for human/animal/bacterial “mother tincture” samples), it is possible to reach quite low detection limits, but it is impossible to proove that NO active ingredient is left in the final product.
I was wondering how Boiron makes sure that the final product ist free of bacterial pathogens (in this case), e.g. caused by human error during the dilution process.
However, quite funny to see how much effort the people at Boiron in the video take to try to get a product with NO active ingredient. The use of modern biotechnological lab equipment for their Voodoo reminds me of a sophisticated, weird “Kasperletheater”.
And I am really grateful that they did not show the harvesting procedure for the “mother tincture” for Medorrhinum…
They’re inspected for quality control by US FDA (under rulles that allow FDA to look abroad); the manufacturing & safety guidelines are pulished by FDA. There’s also a WHO document on the subject.
Quite often preparation involves dilution in alcohol, which is going to stop the average bacterium dead.
Korsakoff dilution (using the original vial, emptied, rather than taking a few drops to a new vial) is not used for nosodes or sarcodes.
Also, there’s the consideration that infection rarely comes from such tiny exposure to something administered orally, and these preparations are almost always at 30c nowadays. Which is sub-molecular (you’ve seen the demonstations by the idiot skeptics) but quite reasonable ‘power’.
For something like medor, often LM – approximately 50,000c – and higher would be used in practice (it’s a technical thing) .
No need to worry.
Will LaChenal, thank you for your response. I am well aware that some alcohols can be effective for killing bacteria (depending on concentration and bacterial strain, spore formation, etc.).
Still, human errors during the dilution process could happen (regular inspections by the FDA do not prevent such errors) and since Medorrhinum is derived from a pathogen, I was wondering if regulation exist that e.g. every charge of such “remedies” made from toxic of pathogen “mother tinctures” has to be tested and verified to be void of active substances.
I also would like to add that it is not necessary to call skeptics “idiots”. I wonder why homeopathy believers like you often get so emotional when their belief system is challenged. Don´t forget, it is YOUR belief and you have no convincing, objective evidence that shows that it works. And even you will have to admit that it is very difficult to accept that something becomes more effective when it is diluted. This is completely opposite to the scientific observations (e.g. in chemistry, physics and biology) and also to the “everyday life” experience.
Without consistent proof by well designed random clinical trials, I just can´t believe that such an unlogical “voodoo” is true. If this makes me an idiot, I would like to know how you define the term.
BTW: Does anyone understand why Boiron does need these vast masses of mother tinctures for their products?
I suspect they have too many syphilitic co-workers.
Jashak, allow me to answer you with two small questions…
Assume that you are in charge of the manufacturing of this product at a laboratory working under strict quality assurance protocols. Your procedures are well-defined on documents, you are supervised by a very esteemed and trusted authority, such as the FDA. Everybody cares about the procedures your lab follows, the quality of your raw materials, and the process is closely monitored to ensure nothing goes wrong. You are called to manufacture a novel preparation for which you know two things for sure. The raw starting material is very dangerous, and the final product must not contain any of it, otherwise it’s not safe for public use, as per your safety standards.
Being the smart and hard-working person your position requires you to be, you decide not to take chances (as other manufacturers (Hyland’s) did, and they paid for it). The questions are
-What minor circumvention can you do to the procedure to ensure maximum safety of the final product.
Assuming this is a very easy question, just to make the point, the second, more pertinent question is
-Do you expect anyone from the FDA coming over to scold you for thatcircumvention?
Fellow homeopathy supporters should feel compelled to point to GMP or FDA regulations about how to properly collect urethral discharge from gonorrhoea patients for the purposes of homeopathic product manufacturing. As long as no specific quality control provision exists in the form of specific guidelines, I would start with ultra-pure water. And when dragged down to courts of law for whatever reason, there is no judge that would accept any overturning of the public safety maximization argument.
Now, as far as misinformation is concerned, I would appreciate any official “datasheet” document on medorrhinum, officially stating the starting material. Until then, gonorrhoic urethral discharge is only clearly stated in homeopathic fiction books. As far as Boiron is concerned, the products are colored bottles with sugar tablets.
Exactly!
The other thing that is totally beyond understanding is why does this website exist?! The owner of this website clearly doesn’t use homeopathic remedies.
I do. They work brilliantly, much better than allopathic medicines. It also works very well for my child since she was a baby, and for my pets.
Just because some people don’t understand it and don’t believe in it, or you don’t like it because it’s not ‘scientific enough’ for you or for whatever reason, there is no need to slag it off.
Plenty of people use homeopathy with great success, whether you like it or not.
Go and spend your time doing something useful!
Live and let live.
oh dear!
I thought homeopathy was complete unscientific nonsense, but took a course just to find out more. I tried it, and was amazed at the immediate way it worked in so many conditions. Apparently science has its limitations.
“Apparently science has its limitations.”
It couldn’t be you, could it?
“Apparently science has its limitations.”
Indeed it does. Unlike pseudoscience and antiscience, which are unburdened by limitations.
List of topics characterized as pseudoscience:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience
foolish comment, clearly you know not what you speak of.
The brilliant founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hanneman MD back in the 1700s was so adamant about quality control EVERY SINGLE PHARMACEUTICAL company on the planet since has to hold to his standards regardless whether the drug is allopathic which is conventional or homeopathic. Boiton is no exception. I’ve been dispensing their remedies for almost 40 years without problems
no idea what you are on about!
If any pharamceutical company would just stick to good old Samuel’s procedures, I guess you would have drug related issues by the dozen every week. Hahnemann gave directions on how to procede to prepare the remedies, okay.
But the essential point in any quality management is to verify that the processes installed yield the desired product with its desired properties. You would need some incoming inspection as to the purity and content of active drug in your raw materials. You should install tests and inspections along the line that the ingredients maintain their quality, that reactions take place as specified and no unwanted things occur. Finally you have to do some final inspection on the finished product before you release it to the marketplace and observe what is happening when many patients use it.
And none of this is detailed in Hahnemanns writings to a level, that would enable anyone today to safely handle really active drugs.
Anthony said:
How do you know?
Boiron & OHM Pharmacies produce Homeopathic remedies that are FDA approved.
tl;dr again:
there is something _wrong_ on the internets. I shall have to give this up, there’s little point in arguing with such people.
Once again Ernst demonstrates that he can attack a whole field without the most rudimentary knowledge of the subject (up to Dunning-kruger).
In this case, didn’t I read somewhere that he said he had practiced homeopathy years ago? No wonder he was no good at it.
So here we have straw man piled on ad hominem. And unwarrated generalisation. Perhaps he can be excused the cherry-picking, since it all looks the same to him.
That link he’s supplied (~some of them~ to herbs2000.com/homeopathy/medorrhinum.htm)
says quite clearly it’s regarded as a bacterium, “gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae”.
So not all homeopaths use the historical designation of virus. Which is hardly surprising since quite a number of late 19c. to 20c homeopaths were bacteriologists. And since the homeopathic method is to focus on the person rather than the test-tube, it scarcely matters whenever lasting cure is obtained.
But Ernst is off on a roll. Is he beginning to hallucinate in his old age, out of a habit of fulminating about things he doesn’t understand? To which I would add scientific history and etymology. And scientific methodology for that matter but that’s another topic.
Yes, you can find homoeopaths calling gonorrhea a ‘virus’. Perhaps that is what he meant to quote.
For the benefit of those who have little education, here’s https://www.etymonline.com/word/virus :
The word goes back to 14c., with modern meaning “agent that causes infectious disease” first recorded 1728 (in reference to venereal disease).
That’s a pretty overarching description; it’s generality was certainly current when homoeopathic medorrhinum was introduced.
Here we have a perfect example of modern science taking a word, redefining it, then telling the original users of the word they are wrong. Such is “science” in the hands of the ignorant.
It does correctly say in that article, “this homeopathic remedy was introduced by a New York homeopath Dr. Samuel Swan in 1842 and proved by Dr. Swan himself along with Dr. Edward Berridge in a publication in 1889”.
The modern meaning of ‘virus’ dates from 1892 when re-defined in relation to tobacco (although sub-microsopic agents were suspected beforehand) and didn’t really take off as a biological subject until the 1920s.
I think that even modern homeopaths can be excused for quoting sources, and the sources stand through a century of verification by practice. The distinction is unimportant to homeopathic prescribing.
Another fairly old writing http://www.homeoint.org/winston/medorrhinum.htm (EW Berridge MD) adds notes of which diagnoses have verified cures in practice.
(A total aside is that Swan also developed the nosode Lyssin which has recently been in the news for curing a boy, to the fury of some journalists and some idiot skeptic who wants it banned. There seems to be something of an attack on nosodes at the moment, backed by some really bad science.)
The earliest homeopathic proving (Berridge 1889) is here: http://www.homeoint.org/winston/medorrhinum.htm
Modern ‘provings’ are double-blinded; I have no idea if this proving has been repeated recently, but there is a newer nosode, medor americanum made from a nastier sttrain, which presumably has an entry in HPUS.
Opponents of homeopathy who think (or believe they ‘know’) it is rubbish, also think that provings and clinical experience are rubbish, there’s no persuading them. I suppose some idiot will reply in that vein.
There’s a whole lot of history about why & how ‘modern medicine’ sought to exclude homeopaths & homeopathy from their scientific endeavours, of which Ernst is just a recent side-note (I sometimes wonder who put him up for the job of professor, a “safe pair of hands” to prevent the chair producing anything useful).
The original reason for the antipathy was because they were taking customers away from the ‘conventional’ medics and making the cures, without killing people. Flexnor. Whole other topic.
I’d gamble that Ernst has no idea how & why medor is used in proper context. But he can look it up, he might learn something. Although, probably not.
thanks; that was most amusing.
Will, you comment:
“There’s a whole lot of history about why & how ‘modern medicine’ sought to exclude homeopaths & homeopathy from their scientific endeavors…”
There is indeed – but it was Samuel Hahnemann who abandoned the medicine of his day instead of joining the progressives who were already giving up on the emetics, bleeding, laxatives and polypharmacy to which he rightly objected.
It was Hahnemann who left medicine and invented his own system which he called ‘homeopathy’.
He has not been missed by the medical community, though his fantasies have fooled a number of gullible and vulnerable people – and that is to be deprecated.
Medicine has moved ever onward. Homeopathy has not. That’s the nub of the issue.
Pointing this out is not an ‘attack’ on anything, it’s a service to humankind.
Thank you Professor Ernst.
TELL THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND THAT. SHE STILL USES IT TODAY 2019.
@Dave
My father in law is 93 and in brilliant health, not the least intellectually. He has never met an homeopath nor seen a remedy. He likes whisky and enjoys a dram every now and then. My wive’s grandfather died in fair health and clear mind at 104 years of age. He never took a homeopathic remedy. He enjoyed whisky every day, even in his last years in the nursing home he kept a bottle that had to be replenished regularly.
My own grandfather was 92 when he passed away in good health apart from worn-out joints from hard work. He liked whisky.
Now, what do these stories tell us, Dave? That whisky causes longevity or that not using homeopathy secures prolonged health? Or both?
Sorry Richard, but there was no “medicine of his day”. Hahnemann never left medicine (there was nothing to leave), and medicine was not moving onward.
The nub of the issue is that medicine didn’t exist until the last part of the 20th century. Until then, it was just a bunch of quacks selling unproven “remedies” to line their pockets with cash.
I think you are a bit negative. There was very little medicine in Hahnemann’s day and one can see why he would reject it in favour of some silly woo. The woo might have done less damage.
I think we can say that there was some glimmerings of effective medicine starting in the early 19th C. Just the widespread use of smallpox vaccine, alone, had a tremendous effect. for example comprehensive smallpox vaccination in the French armies of Napoleon, Germ theory, when incorporated into medical practice had a noted effect.
The science historian, David Wooton, in his book, Bad Medicine, advances the thesis that by the turn of the 20th C, doctors were saving more patients than they killed.
“…by the turn of the 20th C, doctors were saving more patients than they killed.”
There’s no proof that the “doctors” had any role to play other than separating people from their money. Illnesses resolve all by themselves, every day.
“jm” is right, for once. I wonder if she realises that this is the exact reason why she can continue to make money by making suckmarks and bruising people.
@jkr
Things started to improve after Semmelweis died 1865. and also with better plumbing (apart from the lead) and sewers.
The medicine of SH’s time was based on the authority of ancient texts (replete with errors as well as superstition), the Church, and reputation.
The “phlebotomists” (of which there was a guild) maintained that homeopathy could not possibly work because it did not let the bad blood out. (Somewhere I’ve a copy of a letter to that effect.)
EE et al have carried on in much the same vein.
The herbalists were still using old books, doctrine of signatures, folk medicine, patent cures, humours and such, and were into ‘heroic medicine’ in a big way. If you survived the doctors, you would survive anything. There was an outlook based on war, with plenty of cutting & burning. How things have changed.
Pretty soon, homeopaths could treat gangrene, and so could the conventionals. Just that with the latter, after they saw you, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
It’s little known – perhaps it doesn’t fit preconceptions – that SH was very deeply opposed to superstitious nonsense. Angrily opposed. Perhaps it is known to a few that he was the first Western doctor actually to test his medicines and his theories (up to the ideas of the time), and that his whole approach was predicated on the heuristics of what works.
SBM has advanced a little from that, but not much (+2 steps, -1 step, redefinitions & wishful thinking, plus shifting the burden if proof).
And a bit later the chemists were arguing about a particular theory proposed by a dead lawyer (I suspect picked up from ancient Greek superstitious beliefs) to get them out of a bind with the physicists, and trying to brush anomalies (with hydrocarbons and such) under the carpet. It’s rather entered the consciousness of booklearners, only some of whom could follow it back to Gay-Lussac.
Some time later it was properly determined that some high dilutions had different properties from ‘just water’ (Boyd, then Brucato, then Roy etc), but according to what passes for scientific method this little problem was ignored in favour of established Authority. Plus ça change. Nothing to see here, move along. Still not commonly known, according to trollologists.
To be fair, the ability to measure has improved over the years.
The ability to observe an actual recovery didn’t change much, mind, until it was given time limits to cover up failure.
And somewhere along the line the inheritors of the ancient Greek death-cult of poisoners (of criminals and inconvenient dissidents) rather took over with their intent to monopolise human health, and push all competition out of the market.
They’re still killing a remarkable number of people (not even a tu quoque), but it’s true they’ve made a lot of scientific advance by pushing the competition aside, and moving into high finance.
I should read Dave’s book.
A genuine stopped clock case…
and now we have bought science remedies being sold to line corporate pharmaceutical companies’ pockets with cash
My pleasure.
Will LaChenal
A shill is not paid to study and write. He just writes.
Edzard has supposedly studied homeopathy. At least that is what he writes about himself. And after years of knowing homeopathy, he suddenly realizes :”Medorrhinum: another surprising homeopathic remedy.”
I am not surprised, that Edzard is surprised that there are remedies that he did not come across during his homeopathic training.
Edzard: What was the training about in the name of homeopathy?
are you trying to surpass yourself?
Edzard
You could have clarified the situation that you studied Homeopathy before Medorrhinum was introduced in 1889 and off course no one will expect you remember a study 129 years old.
Or if it was later, you should have expressed surprise at the teacher who taught you nothing in the name of homeopathy because of which you get stripped in public for no fault of yours.
rofl
I wonder if his forebears can be traced back to Transylvania?
Of course, a fantasy, such as homeopathy, is timeless, so it is impossible to always be up to date. Lost-and-found gospels will always emerge, from the past, present, even from the future.
No, Iqbal. A shill is “an accomplice of a confidence trickster or swindler who poses as a genuine customer to entice or encourage others.” Nothing to do with writing. As usual, you’re simply wrong.
Since you’re such a self-appointed expert on homeopathy, perhaps you can answer the question I put long ago to Greg and which he simply ignored. When you succuss a homeopathic dilution in order to potentize it, with what force (in Newtons) should you hit the hard surface? How many strokes should be applied and with what frequency? What volume should the container be relative to the fluid content? For that matter, how hard should the surface be? (I’m not fussed whether you define this on the Bennett, Rockwell, Vickers, Shore or Brinell scales.) And please go on to define the optimum material for the container.
You now have an opportunity to educate us, from your own training, on an aspect the fine science underpinning the magic of homeopathy. Please don’t waste it by your normal tedious copying and pasting of contentious statistics on the hazards of ‘allopathy’.
Frank Odds
You have no belief in Edzard’s training in homeopathy?
Check with him. If he cannot answer, which is for sure, check with manufacturers: Schwabe, or Helois, or Reckweg.
May be they consider you worth while to waste time upon.
I am not a manufacturer of homeopathic medicines. Only a user.
Let me help you there with the answers, fellow Iqbal. All questions have the same answer:
It doesn’t matter.
If homeopathy worked, maybe it would.
Sadly, it doesn’t.
Iqbal
For a user, you claim to have an exceptional knowledge and understanding of homeopathic mechanisms! Since you choose not to answer my questions, I followed your suggestion. Here’s how your three manufacturers address succussion…
Schwabe: https://youtu.be/-BTpa8gxz3k?t=158
Helios: https://youtu.be/ITzmHyPb9TQ?t=27 (Slightly further on, note the wonderfully precise method by which ‘one part’ is measured.)
Reckeweg: https://youtu.be/1H6JJQYE2MA?t=185 (“Even today, the Dr Reckeweg Bensheim company deliberately refuses to mechanize the potentization process, the decisive manufacturing step in homeopathy.” [they just shake without banging])
These three videos support what James already told you — “all questions have the same answer: it doesn’t matter“. How much of the lunacy of homeopathy do you have to see before your eyes before you start to get a glimmer of its fundamental stupidity? Would you choose to fly in an aeroplane manufactured to the same abysmally imprecise standards?
By the way — just a minor point, Iqbal — as a dedicated user, you spelt two of your three manufacturers incorrectly: ‘Helois’ for Helios and ‘Reckweg’ for Reckeweg. I take this as a token of the level of thought you put into your comments.
Frank Odds
“For a user, you claim to have an exceptional knowledge and understanding of homeopathic mechanisms! ”
I am doubtful you understand what you read. I do not discuss homeopathic mechanisms. I like to put here medical failures of great magnitude picked up from extremely reliable sources that you and Edzard and……………………… try to show as based upon scientific principles of Chemistry and Physics.
If the science that you use for making medicine continues to fail so badly, every time, when are doctors planning to give it up? But they cannot. They exercise zero control. It is the pharma industry and would they want to cure patients?
http://www.benzinga.com/general/biotech/17/02/9017199/curing-disease-is-bad-for-business-how-do-big-pharma-companies-continu
Pharma companies know their business model better than Goldman Sachs.
https://boingboing.net/2018/04/14/shared-microbial-destiny.html
As manufacturing mechanism goes, are you trying to tell me that the engines powering Airbus by Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce are made in exactly the same way? Or Airbus is more concerned with engine performance and price?
Are you aware that diesel cars manufactured by Volkswagen for many years used different fuel injection mechanism than diesel cars manufactured by Daimler and BMW? Fuel injection is one of the most important aspect of engine performance.
Frankly, Frank, you have zero clue about technology and reality.
Yes, we know!
No. On average, you either quote extremely unreliable sources, or misquote (or quote out of context) reliable sources.
Fellow Iqbal, you must have gotten lost at some point… It is 200C we are talking about here, not 200cc.
I don’t think you are looking for Newton. The percussion transfers energy by the mechanism of momentum, shaking the solute. I think the word you were fishing for was Joule. It’s also known that smooth stirring (vortex) results in something different.
I’m not surprised at the lack of an answer, given the tone of the question.
I know that Rustum Roy (heard of him?) did some work on this, much of his interest stemming from a back-of-an-envelope calculation that succussion was quite capable of producing cavitation & more. He went on to characterise solute structure in a way that does not merely reflect the inadequate chemical structure of the medium (material scientists, after all). I know he wrote some papers on this, but they are regrettably obscured behind various paywalls, and I couldn’t find a good online reference for you. You may care to look for yourself.
I don’t think it helps the cause of homeopathic science that these advances are published in obscurity. I’m very much against it; it contributes to the ignorance of pseudo-skeppoes and allows journalists to get away with figurative murder.
You may be aware or Prof Chaplin’s extensive archive of properties of water at the Uni of South Bank. Again, it’s fairly obscure, and he faced so much conceited opposition from conventional publishers that he had to start his own journal. Whole other story. Pseudo-skepticism is quite an industry.
No doubt, since you are interested and trying to educate yourself, you will have followed my earlier advice & found http://www.hpus.com/Draft-Guidelines-for-Manufacturing-Homeopathic-Medicines.pdf
However the relevant §28 talks only of “sufficient” activity and quantities, which seem sufficient to produce working remedies in practice.
Here is another random example from the webs http://www.txoptions.com/resources/education/regulation-of-homeopathy/
I doubt any of that will satisfy your need for a straightjacket.
I have some of my own novel approaches, but I have not published. I am against one single standard, which is limiting given the individualisation of prescription – too often one must use a compromise power of remedy, because that is all that is available. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to produce what works rather than what ticks boxes.
To this end, various manufacturers have various different methods – and where their production methods are mechanised, no doubt they have commercial quality control with precise specs.
Homeopaths will sometimes use a similarly designated remedy from different manufacturers, as they find fit.
It is not unknown for frauds and skeptics to forge remedies I’m sure you’ve seen the skeptic creeps saying they would like to mix up remedies, too arrogant for a thought for consequences. So, yes, QA to spec is important, as is safety along general guidelines, and proper diligent investigation from all parties if something is suspicious or goes wrong. Something various agencies significantly fail to do, when they feel able simply to lay blame on the unusual.
Yes there is rightly an interest in more precision and refining methods. This is ongoing, where it can proceed without academic bullying.
The use of dilutions & methods of dilution, and succussion has a long history of innovation & study within homeopathy (resulting in some internal dissent). The aim as always was to find remedies which in clinical practice could be verified as producing “rapid, gentle, and complete cure” (with emphasis on each word), when appropriately prescribed for the individual. Generally skeptics are too dense to understand the distinction between curing an individual and merely addressing a diagnosed symptom in a population, but it is an important one (especially respect of trial design).
I could go on about it (at far too great extent), but instead I just encourage you to study & learn, and to stay away from pseudo-scientists writing pseudo-skeptic propaganda on anti-homeopathy websites.
You might even join a long line of arch-skeptics (including antithetic conventional medics) who have converted to homeopathy because they observed its profound effects when applied to patients. You would certainly be using your time better.
Nobody converts to homeopathy because of the profound effects. There is a dozen of explanations about these profound effects, and “jm” put it right for this once! Illnesses resolve all by themselves every day…
I have yet to see any homeopath hail Dr. Time!
Dr Hahnemann, on the other hand, who is much younger than Dr. Time, is an iconic symbol. Which is one reason why this is a religion and not science. The sad story is that people keep devoting their lives to such a delusion.
Dr. Time shouldn’t be so condescending, although that’s, of course, the only hope of homeopathy’s patients.
@ Will LaChenal
Thanks for the response. You’re clearly aware, possibly with some level of embarassment, that the lack of standardization of preparative methods in homeopathy (see my response to Iqbal Krishna, above) means that, after more than 200 years, homeopathy remains an unscientific mish-mash of approximations, special pleadings and anecdotes.
I’m not interested in “a back-of-an-envelope calculation that succussion was quite capable of producing cavitation & more”. Of your lengthy Draft Guidelines document (when will it become agreed guidelines?) you consider “the relevant §28 talks only of “sufficient” activity and quantities, which seem sufficient to produce working remedies in practice.” Have you never heard of begging the question?
The degree of standardization in manufacture of homeopathic products can be seen in this FDA document, which led to last year’s recall of homeopathic teething tablets. The measured quantity of belladonna alkaloids per tablet varied from “Below Limit of Quantification” (unstated but less than 0.1 ng from the data) to 1100 ng: greater than 10,000-fold variation!
You state “The aim as always was to find remedies which in clinical practice could be verified as producing “rapid, gentle, and complete cure” (with emphasis on each word), when appropriately prescribed for the individual.” So how is “rapid, gentle, and complete cure” measured and verified? It’s never been evidenced in scientifically designed clinical trials.
You imply I am the pseudo-scientist! You seem blissfully unaware of your own credentials as evidenced by the pseudo-scientific guff you spout.
“I just encourage you to study & learn, and to stay away from pseudo-scientists writing pseudo-skeptic propaganda on anti-homeopathy websites.” Typical Courtier’s reply. I am perfectly capable of recognizing pseudo-science when I encounter it.
“You might even join a long line of arch-skeptics (including antithetic conventional medics) who have converted to homeopathy because they observed its profound effects when applied to patients. You would certainly be using your time better.” Please provide robust evidence of “its profound effects when applied to patients”. As a professional scientist I do not merely “observe” things: I design experiments aimed to disprove my pet hypotheses. You should try this approach some time. It has paid handsome dividends in most areas of human experience since the 19th century.
And what you call “academic bullying” is the scientific method. It’s the one thing you definitely owe many of your daily conveniences to, however ungrateful you may be about it.
Homeopaths (and proponents of other forms of pseudo-medicine) are very fond of claiming they treat the “whole individual” rather than just symptoms. On this blog, Edzard Ernst has addressed this notion many times, e.g. here, here and here.
I never yet heard of someone perfectly healthy visiting a homeopath for “whole individual” treatment. And every homeopathic website I ever looked at boasts mainly about of the symptoms they can treat, with “whole individual” effects mentioned more en passant as an added benefit. But since you accuse skeptics of being too dense to understand this fine distinction, I looked, once again, at the website world of homeopathy and found a couple of things that interested me.
This website, run by a London homeopath, has a paragraph worth quoting in full [numbers in square brackets relate to my comments after the quote]…
“What kinds of health problems can homeopathy help?
Homeopathy is very effective in the treatment of acute illnesses, including viral conditions, such as colds, influenza and ear infections, and bacterial infections. It can be a real alternative to anti-biotics. [1] It is also suitable for on-going or “chronic” conditions, such as asthma, eczema and arthritis. When a person has on-going health problems, whether minor or more serious, the whole person is taken into account in the choice of remedies. [2] Because of this holistic, individualised approach to improving health and well-being, homeopathic treatment can benefit everyone, even if their symptoms do not have a clear diagnosis. [3]”
[1] This statement directly contradicts information from the British Homeopathic Association, which states as follows. “Homeopathy is not very good for treating bacterial infections directly, apart from cystitis that often responds to a number of medicines, including Berberis or Cantharis. Generally speaking homeopathic medicines are not strong enough to eliminate invaders to the body. However, we can certainly treat the low, washed-out feeling that you get when you have a bacterial infection. This is an ideal situation to use homeopathy alongside conventional therapies.” Errm, pardon me, but the “low, washed-out feeling” you get with a bacterial infection vanishes when the infection goes, so the antibiotics do a perfectly good job there on their own.
[2] So a person with a specific, acute symptom does NOT require “whole individual” treatment?
[3] Symptoms without a clear diagnosis probably represent a complicated medical situation that any proper doctor worth her salt would submit to extensive further investigation until clear, possibly multiple, diagnoses are made. It’s certainly not appropriate territory for further action from a medically unqualified homeopath.
Your remark I put in the blockquote above is grossly insulting to an orthodox medical practitioner. It implies, e.g., that a proper doctor would only treat the flesh wounds of a self-harming patient, without considering the possible mental illness and social factors that induced self-harming behaviour in the first place. That a proper doctor would prescribe drugs for a patient with tuberculosis without investigating the possibility that other members of their family also have TB. That proper doctors are so thoroughly stupid they have never understood and will never understand every patient has their own individual social, sexual and psychological problems as well as their presenting disease. Boy, you sure live on a different planet from mine.
So true. Idiots defrauding ignorant and gullible people with make-believe medicine such as homeopathy are indeed an insult to those who are doing their best to fight disease and injury for real.
Frank Odds
“…..It means (implies), e.g., that an orthodox doctor would only treat the flesh wounds of a self-harming patient, without considering the possible mental illness and social factors that induced self-harming behaviour in the first place. That an orthodox doctor would prescribe drugs for a patient with tuberculosis without investigating the possibility that other members of their family also have TB. That orthodox doctors are so thoroughly stupid they have never understood and will never understand every patient has their own individual social, sexual and psychological problems as well as their presenting disease. ”
I could not have expressed it better. This is the real picture of scientific medical world.
…and that is what we call a grandiose delusion!
Iqbal, the convention when you put something in quotes is that you are directly quoting exactly what someone said or wrote. “Implies” has a meaning different from “means”, yet you chose to paraphrase what I wrote to shade my words with your own spin. This tells us something important about your level of honesty.
Unfortunately, Iqbal is not being intentionally dishonest (not in his own eyes, at least). It is just that…at that level of delusion, his mind is playing tricks….on us!
Unfortunately, there is something wrong off the internets too.
An interesting observation is that HPUS avoids using units
Not always. The currency unit used here is also of interest.
Ah! True… They never miss that one!
Why aren’t there any intelligent homeopaths? That would be fun.
Just out of curiosity, what plant or bacteria does Medorrhinum come from? I have been looking for its origins and cannot find anything on it.
This is a Gonorrhea nosode – that means the mother tincture is some discharge of an ill person’s genitalia. (Sorry, I am not a medic, so cannot be more accurate)
accurate enough
Can medorrhinum help with herpes????? I hope so.
I am in 60s and have been using homeopathic remedies since my 33rd birthday. Ever since, I have never taken any other type of medication.
Thank God, I have not in the intervening period visited any MD or hospital.
Absolutely! Me too,! And my kids as well, they are more healthy than other children which are being poisoned by traditional medicine which is extremely dengerlus amd harmful. All those big pharma is trying to kill people and make them addicted their whole life, visiting pharmacy every day! People, be cafeful!
whatever therapy you opt for, it clearly has not freed you of paranoia.
Val said:
That really doesn’t require any comment – it’s stupidity stands proud.
Let’s be real, they definitely are trying to get people addicted to their drugs, as it will increase their profit. I think that is fairly obvious, they work for their shareholders. That’s not to say “big pharma’s” drugs aren’t effective and can’t help people. However, I can guarantee you they don’t want to kill their consumers.
You do realize that big pharmaceutical companies have to come up with new medicine every month to year and have a huuuuugeee list of side effects that they have to list. They just came up with a add on for antidepressants because the antidepressants don’t work enough…come on now… there’s a new level of virus every year and a new vaccine because the first one wasn’t enough… homeopathy has cases of cured ailments that traditional doctors claim has no cure… and homeopathy doesn’t treat a single part of the person thus it doesn’t just cure the ailment it heals the whole individual. That’s why you consult and the homeopath treats all aspects of your being. All physical ailments start from some sort of suppression..if you suppress something in your body it is expressed in a different way everything you suppress it. Maybe do some actual research 🤔
I think you should thank “luck”, not homeopathy or god.
I have the only natural medecine clinic in Guyana. I treat patients using homeopathy and not TCM or Acupuncture. In one year i am now one of the most popular Doctors in this country
I tteat about 60 to 80 patients per day. The whole country is talking about me and i am doing very well with eight employees. If Homeopathy did not work all these people will not be flocking my clinic from 6 a.m. people feel better and they spread the word. Homeopathy WORKS. THANK YOU.
have you heard of the APPEAL TO POPULARITY?
its a logical fallacy.
Sorry to hear that. Your customers deserve proper medicine, not sugar pellets.
Oh yay proper medicine? You mean suppressants and consequence pills? Or sideffect vaccines? Things you have been conditioned and “taught” that it will fix something but is actually hiding symptoms and creating another issue via bodily expression? Homeopathy helps your body do what it’s meant to do but instead of masking it boosts the healing ability. It’s not about instant results it’s about patience which more than half the population lack. I am re learning to be patient with my body and researching myself how to be self sufficient and take care of my body how I’m meant to. If I have to go and take care of something in the hospital then I guess I have to but if I can heal on my own I’m going to try that first. Instead of asking people to prove something because I know that’s probably what you’ll ask next.. maybe go research on your own and open your mind to alternatives..
@Shodan Persaud
If you post such boastful claims on this blog, you should make very sure they stand up to scrutiny.
Are you this Shodan (Nick) Persaud, 63, an overseas-based Guyanese who returned to Guyana and made his plans a reality [in March, 2018] when he opened his herbal clinic last Thursday at Essex Street, New Amsterdam. And who “told reporters that it was always a dream of his to become a doctor? “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor but I was never science biased. At a very late stage in my life after living eighteen years in America and twelve in Canada then I started studying for natural medicine at age fifty-eight. That’s when I got my doctorate”, he proudly stated.”
So you’re not a genuine medical doctor at all. Even worse, your claim to “treat patients using homeopathy and not TCM or Acupuncture” sounds false since the Kaieteur News report describes your business as a “herbal clinic”. So we either have to believe the coincidence that two people, each called Shodan Persaud, returned to Guyana 1 year ago. Each set up a ‘natural medicine clinic’ but one treats clients with herbal medicine and the other with homeopathy. Or something else entirely?
It is rare to find such blatant (and unnecessary) economies of truth in a comment on this blog. The whole thing is perhaps best summed up in the updated profile picture on the Facebook home page of one Shodan Persaud from New Amsterdam, Guyana.
@ Frank,
I think he is promoting himself and trying to get clients. Lot of boasting. 😀
This is utter RUBBISH! As a 64 yr old who has used homeopathic remedies for over FORTY years, it is a DAMN same asshats want to negativize the field?
https://edzardernst.com/2012/12/ad-hominem-attacks-are-signs-of-victories-of-reason-over-unreason/
Stamping and shouting your biased and inconsequential personal anecdotes will only get you laughed at on here, Het Heru. You are entitled to your own opinions. That they are shown to be incorrect by evidence and science is your problem, not ours.
Threat to humanity from its own fellow humans (so called) is not yet over
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Despite all technological advancement and human development, threat to humanity from dreadful diseases and their highly painful treatment through dangerous medicines having enormous life-killing side effects seems not to be over soon. As such, it is high time to reconsider on urgent basis the alternatives for the dreadful treatment of hepatitis, cancer etc, which are being treated using high potency poisoning antibiotic, highly toxic chemotherapy, fatal surgery and radiations for aged patients or for those who couldn’t bear its painful side effects. Mostly, this kind of treatment is going on for ages without much success because of vested interests of medicine companies and other stake holders who are running huge businesses on the death of patients. So much so, sometimes even a well to do person can’t afford the cost of such treatments. On one side, besides the patients, whole family and relatives of the patients have to go through a situation of huge panic while observing the painful moments of patients, on the other side the huge expenditure of treatment almost would put them in a state of real trauma. The huge profitable businesses of all stake holders in this regard may be one of the biggest hurdle to extend serious global efforts to look for alternative low cost and less fatal treatments. Despite the painful facts, the businesses of medicine industries are turning into top most profitable businesses in the world. Earning money on deaths and miseries of patients is totally unethical and highly condemn able inhuman activity and needs to be stopped at the earliest for the best interest of humanity. There are too many claims of successes of these otherwise fatal treatments, but reality is totally way far from these tally claims. I am real time witness of drastic failure of such treatments and falsehood of such huge claims which are mostly motivated and propagated by personal interests of mafia.
thanks for this impressive demonstration that homeopathy is ineffective against paranoia.