When Samuel Hahnemann translated Cullen’s ‘Treatise on Materia Medica’ in 1790, he learnt of Cullen’s explanation of the actions of Peruvian (or China) bark, Cinchona officinalis, a malaria treatment. Hahnemann disagreed with it and decided to conduct experiments of his own. He thus ingested high doses of Cinchona and noticed that subsequently he developed several of the symptoms that are characteristic of malaria. This is how Hahnemann later described his experience:
I took for several days, as an experiment, four drams of good china daily. My feet and finger tips, etc., at first became cold; I became languid and drowsy; my pulse became hard and quick; an intolerable anxiety and trembling (but without rigor); trembling in all limbs; then pulsation in the head, redness in the cheeks, thirst; briefly, all those symptoms which to me are typical of intermittent fever, such as the stupefaction of the senses, a kind of rigidity of all joints, but above all the numb, disagreeable sensation which seems to have its seat in the periosteum over all the bones of the body – all made their appearance. This paroxysm lasted for two or three hours every time, and recurred when I repeated the dose and not otherwise. I discontinued the medicine and I was once more in good health.
Hahnemann described what de facto was the 1st homeopathic proving. Despite the fact that Hahnemann misinterpreted the event, provings thus became the very basis of homeopathy. At Hahnemann’s time, it was highly uncommon for doctors to test their medicines in this way. So, one might wonder: where did the idea come from? Is it his very own innovation, or did he get the idea from someone else?
In 1777, Hahnemann had studied medicine in Vienna. The medical school was at the time strongly influenced by Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772) He was the innovator of a new way of medical thinking and is honoured for this legacy to the present day in Vienna.
Van Swieten’s aim was to put medicine on new scientific foundations based on objective clinical observation, botanical and chemical research, and the introduction of new, powerful remedies.
One of the pupils of this school was Anton Störck (1731-1803). He became the director of Austrian public health and medical education, appointed by Empress Maria Theresia. Störck was the first medical scientist to systematically test the effects of medicines, including poisonous plants (e.g., hemlock, henbane, meadow saffron).
In numerous cases, Störck used himself as a subject in his experiments to determine adverse effects and tolerable dose levels. One of his pupils was Joseph Quarin who fully adopted his teacher’s concepts. He later rose to considerable prominence in the Viennese medical establishment.
Hahnemann’s clinical teacher at Vienna was Joseph Quarin. Hahnemann’s idea of ‘homeopathic provings’ are thus to a significant extent influenced by Störck’s innovation.
59 Responses to Who gave Hahnemann the idea of ‘provings’?
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A question… The supposed symptoms described in homeopathic provings could in most cases easily be detected, measured and quantified with the diagnostic tools of modern medicine.
Have homeopaths systematically gone through the all the provings and checked them? Or do they just assume that they were 100% correctly identified and recorded, and are 100% applicable to all people?
Just asking for a friend…
“Have homeopaths systematically gone through the all the provings and checked them?” No
Shock, surprise…
The principle of Like Cures Like has been around since at least Hippocrates. Paracelsus mentions it. Dr H. was the first to systematically develop it for healing.
Proving symptoms are checked routinely by homeopaths who use them to identify patients that need a remedy. Symptoms for a remedy that are frequently seen to be cured are those that become most strongly identified with the remedy. There is a rating system in the homeopathic repertories for the remedies in each rubric 1 through 4. If a symptoms only seen in the proving but has not been rated by a practitioner as having been cured in a patient, only has a rating of one. When homeopathic Materia Medicas are written they focus on the predominately noted symptoms.
So even a proving done without the controls that are desirable because of lack of resources and provers, is useful because the results become solidified over time with successful treatments of patients.
Its a self-regulating system with feedback.
I know that “skeptics” dont like direct experience but a proving is a repeatable experiment that anyone can do. One can check a proving by doing it oneself.
the trouble is that you seem to be the only one who believes that. did you ever consider that you might be wrong?
The only one? I have seen estimates of between 200 and 800 million people use homeopathy as their primary medicine. Have you considered doing a proving and discovering that you are wrong?
“between 200 and 800 million people use homeopathy as their primary medicine”
any evidence for this bizarre statement?
It’s not hard to figure out why millions of people have turned their backs on SBM, poor results…. that’s why.
People dying, people getting more ill, high prices, chronic illness, lack of care from physicians, lack of trust with big pharma, insurance premiums, crazy high fees, few real answers …. need I go on ? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not over a billion people in the next decade…. unless something changes for the better with SBM.
@RG
As always, you take a path well-worn by you and others of your, uh, beliefs.
Instead of addressing the question and providing evidence (as requested about a million times—how dumb are we to keep asking?), you go on a misguided and unrequested rant about the evils of S- and EBM.
In magic—which pretty much sums up your belief system—I think they call this misdirection. A good tactic when you are trying to fool the kids. Less so when you are entertaining us adults.
Now, be a good troll and go back to bed. We’ll leave the nightlight on so the monsters don’t get you.
You are being untruthful, or at least seriously deluded.
I’ve never heard of a homeopath who kept proper records of treatment successes and failures, and I also never heard of any homeopath providing feedback to the materia medica or the other homeopathic fairy tale book, the repertory, as a result of their experiences with homeopathic preparations.
And to my knowledge, no ‘remedy’ has ever been withdrawn from either list for lack of efficacy – quite contrary to real medicines.
RichardR, You have never heard of them because you have never looked for them. Go sit in on a busy homeopathy clinic. Go to Mumbai and sit in on the clinics of the homeopathic medical school or of Dr Farokh Master as I have, or any of the myriad of other well-trained homeopathic medical doctors around the world. They keep meticulous records including allopathic test results of all their patients. Or go read the textbooks. I have software with 800+ books of homeopathic information many of which are therepeutic; thousands of cases listed.
You live in a bubble, with a complete lack of understanding of the wider world of homeopathy.
It would be ridiculous to withdraw a remedy. If the indications (ie the constellation of mental, emotional and physical symptoms that it is known to cause and cure) are seen in practice, it will be used efficaciously, otherwise not. No homeopathic remedy has to ever be withdrawn for reasons of safety or lack of efficacy. That is the benefit of working from a universal principle as homeopathy does. Whereas allopathy uses ad hoc therapeutics which have to be revised frequently as the fads change and the latest “wonder” drugs are deemed ineffective or dangerous after experimenting deleteriously on the sick population.
@Roger
Stop looking for a complex answer when it is quite simple. Homeopathy is not even PLAUSIBLE.
Did that ever occur to you? I suspect not as it appears you are so hell-bent on wrapping yourself up in a convoluted, confusing and complex mess of nonsense that you miss the obvious.
I recommend you take a mental shower and cleanse yourself of the implausible. Then, take another look. You may be surprised what you see.
Ron Jette, would you be surprised to know that EVERYONE, including me felt that homeopathy was totally implausible when they first heard of it? I recommend you stop living in your head or in that dark place that you sit on and get out and experience. Biodynamic farmers are using homeopathy on their crops. Not sure how you would explain that “placebo” effect. Maybe there are some aspects of the world that have not been explained in biochemistry & physics textbooks. But then I suppose you believe that you are nothing beyond a bunch of chemical reactions – a meat machine.
@Roger says: “Biodynamic farmers are using homeopathy on their crops.”
You mean they water them? Great idea! Those guys are so on top of things! Leaders in their fields, so to speak.
Biodynamic farmers also bury a cow horn full of dung in the corner of the field, as well as a lot of other crazy things invented by Rudolf Steiner (who also invented Steiner Schools and anthroposophic medicine; he seems to have been a bright man who was full of ideas but not very rigorous when it came to testing them). They do, however, pay careful attention to the condition of their crops, which is always going to be a good idea.
In effect, you claim that homeopathy, by (your) definition, CAN NEVER BE WRONG.
I see that I’ll have to revise my opinion about you in the light of what you say. You are not merely deluded, you are a fool. And a dangerous fool, at that.
I sincerely hope that you don’t treat or advise people with regard to health issues, because if you do, you are seriously endangering their health and even their lives with your boundless arrogance and your blind belief in a proven useless and obsolete form of quackery.
Then again, perhaps you are just a troll, saying very, very stupid things on purpose just to provoke strong responses. In that case: congratulations, well done, you yanked my chain.
The homeopathic principle cannot be wrong; its just a principle of healing. Like Cures Like. CON-MED even uses it accidentally to beneficial effect sometimes.
As for trolling you are the one insulting me all the time. I have said that you are arrogant for your unwillingness to experience homeopathy or homeopathic provings.
And the practice of homeopathy is extremely safe. Make a mistake and give the wrong remedy and little or nothing happens. Give the right remedy and it heals deeply even for serious long-standing chronic diseases and serious acutes. The same cannot be said for giving the wrong drug in CON-MED.
I cast my vote on this little gem for the ignoble prize of:
The most simple minded sentence uttered by an advocate of homeopathy.
I am sorry to tell you, but the principle of ‘like cures like’ IS wrong. There is not a single peer-reviewed scientific paper demonstrating this ‘principle’ that you claim is universal(*).
‘Like cures like’ is nothing more than sympathetic magic, and anyone still believing in it is either very badly informed or a fool. And as countless attempts to properly inform you have obviously failed, you must be one of the latter.
Please pay attention for once. Personal experience with sickness and health is utterly useless to determine medicinal effects. And if you really believe that whatever happens to a healthy person during a ‘proving’ says anything about what it does in case of sickness, you should seriously have your head checked, because a ‘proving’ is even more useless than personal experience(**).
Then again, people believe the most outrageously stupid things, e.g. that the earth is flat, and believing in homeopathy could be considered a comparatively minor folly.
But as many homeopaths are as arrogant as they are deluded and medically incompetent, they are a public health hazard. They claim to diagnose and treat all sorts of conditions, whereas in reality, they do nothing of the sort; they simply rely on nature taking its course, with most patients eventually getting better on their own. Too bad for those people with actual, serious conditions, because they pay the price for believing the likes of you, as they will not receive the best (or sometimes even any) treatment.
*: And no, even vaccination doesn’t fit the bill, as it prevents, not cures, disease.
**: And oh, I experienced homeopathy close up. A homeopath convinced a close friend of my parents that his ‘lack of energy’ could be cured just fine with homeopathic sugar crumbs, and that his feeling worse after starting the treatment was completely normal — it was a sign that the ‘remedy’ was working! He just had to ‘reach the lowest point’ in order to ‘climb back to health’.
He reached the lowest point all right — six feet under, to be exact. It’s just the climbing back part that he hasn’t managed so far.
Cause of death: congestive heart failure, caused by a leaky heart valve — something that could have been fixed easily, had the man consulted a real doctor instead of an arrogant, stupid quack right at the beginning. And maybe the worst thing: this homeopath even denied that she had done anything wrong…
@RichardR
First of all, I am sorry that you lost a family friend because of a homeopathic quack. Unconscionable.
I can feel the outrage in your message. I feel that very same thing every time I read a story like yours.
It boggles my mind when I see people buying into this nonsense. It’s not like you have to be a scientist to figure it out. Most of the time, you need no more than a little common sense. Unfortunately, people like and including Roger, seem to have the homeopathic version of common sense. It’s been so diluted, not a molecule of it is left.
@Ron Jette
Well, there is actually more to this horrible story: the arrogant quack lady in question killed several more people (Dutch language). On the upside, she was convicted to five months imprisonment, a very rare occurrence in our rather quackery-tolerant society. AFAICT, there were two main reasons for her jail sentence:
– The fact that she actively dissuaded her victims from visiting a real doctor (I can still hear the man parroting her words – a SCAM cliché in its own right: “They’re only out to poison, cut and burn you.”)
– The fact that she did not once concede that she did anything wrong.
Our Roger here sounds just as arrogant and full of himself: he always knows best, and he won’t even address the silliest and most egregious examples of homeopathic foolishness, such as this ‘proving supervisor’ who says that he experienced strong symptoms from the remedy even though he did not take it.
This utter lack of critical thinking and extreme self-assuredness (not to say: arrogance) with regard to their favourite SCAM makes these people a danger to society. In my opinion, the main reasons why there seem to be relatively few victims are threefold:
– Most people who consult a quack don’t have a serious condition, and will get better on their own.
– Most people still have enough common sense to turn to a real doctor if they suspect that there might be something really wrong.
– And those with a serious condition who first turn to a quack usually end up consulting a real doctor in the end. These doctors then often have to deal with the consequences of a belated diagnose – consequences that are not attributed to the preceding quack treatment, but to a perceived (lack of) effectiveness of regular medicine.
I often wonder how often this happens, i.e. that a SCAM treatment not only precedes a bad outcome in regular medicine, but can also be considered causative in that outcome. Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple way to research this question.
@RichardR
According to the article (translated by Mr. Google), the homeopath (psychopath?) who went to prison was described by the man’s daughter as someone who “behaves like God and (whose) clients are brainwashed.”
Interestingly, the public prosecutor asked for only community service—what was he thinking!?—and a suspended sentence.
The story implies that getting five months in prison was unusual. And, for practicing quackery, that may be true. But she killed someone! Surely she deserves a harsher penalty than that.
You write: “And those with a serious condition who first turn to a quack usually end up consulting a real doctor in the end. These doctors then often have to deal with the consequences of a belated diagnose – consequences that are not attributed to the preceding quack treatment, but to a perceived (lack of) effectiveness of regular medicine.”
So, not only do these clowns bad-mouth real medicine, but real doctors have to clean up their messes. They should all go to jail.
Half right, as homeopathic remedies have no effect they never have to be withdrawn due to side effects.
the basic facts are these:
– homeopathy is highly implausible
– provings are totally illogical and has no scientific basis
– with provings there is no way to determine between the effects of the substance and any any other substrate the person is taking or just incidental symptoms we all get from day to day
– for homeopathy to be right vast chunks of chemistry and physics would have to be totally wrong
– it is illogical and highly implausible that the more you dilute a substance the stronger it gets
– it defies logic and science that very high dilutions containing none of the original substance could have any clinical effect
– it requires some kind of miracle for water to have a memory of the wanted substance while simultaneously forgetting all the sewage and other unwanted substances it has been in contact with
– very high dilutions e.g. C200 require dilutions greater than all the atoms in the known universe – this defies common sense as well as science and makes homeopathy a laughing stock
– homeopathy treats only symptoms as it does not recognize disease systems so a cough could receive the same remedy whether caused by a virus or cancer
– oscillococcinum is a remedy based on a mididentification of an artefact as a bacterium as the cause of a viral condition (flu) yet it is still peddled as a prophylaxis and remedy for flu – nothing ever gets withdrawn or corrected in homeopathy.
– in 200 years there have been no advances in homeopathy apart from the addition of ever more ridiculous remedies such as Berlin Wall, computer monitor extract and light of Saturn. The underlying idiocy remains unchanged.
@rk thornton
I used to be skeptical until I was introduced to Computer Monitor Extract (brand name: CoMoEx).
So, now you are telling me I can’t even count on that!?
This is devastating!
I’m going back to my Energy-Deflecting Golfer Pendant(TM).
And maybe a rebirthing ceremony.
he basic facts are these:
– homeopathy is highly implausible
>>Highly implausible if you think we are all nothing but a bag of chemicals and chemical reactions, and there are no other UNKNOWN mechanisms in the Universe.
– provings are totally illogical and has no scientific basis
>>This is your supposition since you have never done one. They are a repeatable experiment that you could do. You would be able have similar experiences to those who did the provings.
– with provings there is no way to determine between the effects of the substance and any any other substrate the person is taking or just incidental symptoms we all get from day to day
>>A personal case history of the individual prover is done before the proving so that only new symptoms and changed symptoms can included in the resulting materia medica. When homeopaths use the remedy in practice the important and most useful symptoms are identified by what the remedy cures.
– for homeopathy to be right vast chunks of chemistry and physics would have to be totally wrong
>>No. It just means there is some mechanism in the Universe that we dont understand yet.
– it is illogical and highly implausible that the more you dilute a substance the stronger it gets
>> 200 years of experience by homeopaths and their patients and provers around the world show that it is true. Experience it yourself. Its not operating on classical chemical principles that you understand.
– it defies logic and science that very high dilutions containing none of the original substance could have any clinical effect
>>See the answer above
– it requires some kind of miracle for water to have a memory of the wanted substance while simultaneously forgetting all the sewage and other unwanted substances it has been in contact with
>>Memory of water is just one possible explanation, by no means the only theoretical explanation. Bottom line is we dont yet know how it works. You start with a concentration of the substance being used. The “energy” of only that substance is increased as the dillution continues.
– very high dilutions e.g. C200 require dilutions greater than all the atoms in the known universe – this defies common sense as well as science and makes homeopathy a laughing stock
>>See answers above. Your math is irrelevant. Its some unknown energy that is increasing with dilution of the substance.
– homeopathy treats only symptoms as it does not recognize disease systems so a cough could receive the same remedy whether caused by a virus or cancer
>>So? If it works, does it matter? Conventional medicine cant cure either very effectively even if they pretend to know mechanisms, which are mostly suppositions.
– oscillococcinum is a remedy based on a mididentification of an artefact as a bacterium as the cause of a viral condition (flu) yet it is still peddled as a prophylaxis and remedy for flu – nothing ever gets withdrawn or corrected in homeopathy.
>>So? It doesnt matter what the source of a remedy is. If it causes a symptom picture in a healthy person it will cure that symptom picture in a sick person.
– in 200 years there have been no advances in homeopathy apart from the addition of ever more ridiculous remedies such as Berlin Wall, computer monitor extract and light of Saturn. The underlying idiocy remains unchanged.
>>So? Why change what works? CON-MED keeps changing due to failure and keeps on failing. And your underlying ignorance (born of being unwilling to experience homeopathy) remains unchanged.
Well Roger, your intense dedication would be quite commendable if not for the fact that you unknow[sic] what you are talking about and that so many make money off gullible and desperate patients by telling them they can use your beloved UNKNOWN to heal their often serious illnesses.
I suggest you come back when you know something more to tell us about the UNKNOWN. Until then I prefer to use the KNOWN.
Only the mechanism is unknown. The good results are known. I prefer to use the knnown effective homoepathy as opposed the known dangerous suppressive ineffective (for serious chronic disease especially) CON-MED.
“The good results are known.”
in this case, please show us the evidence.
Curious how these “good” results disappear when subjected to properly-designed trial isn’t it, Roger? The reason for this, along with homeopathy’s mechanism of action, is another thing which homeopaths don’t understand.
Conventional science tells us that homeopathy is utterly implausible, that it is not possible for it to have any theraputic effect and that all this is supported by evidence from clinical trials. The better conducted the trial, the worse homeopathy performs with respect to placebo. We also know, because the science and maths tells us so, that the evidence with least credibility is the observational anecdote.
Homeopaths tell us that they see it work, even though nobody else does, therefore science is wrong and there must be something wrong with the trials because they know that they’re right because they’ve seen it with their own eyes.
Homeopaths believe that the least credible form of evidence is actually the most credible. They believe that homeopathy disproves the laws of maths and statistics.
This is quite breathtaking hubris but, given the warped thought-processes of homeopaths, entirely in keeping with everything else they do and think.
@Lenny wrote: “Homeopaths believe that the least credible form of evidence is actually the most credible. They believe that homeopathy disproves the laws of maths and statistics.”
And basic physics—you know, the kind that even I understand.
This thread asks: “Who gave Hahnemann the idea of ‘provings’?”
Answer: No one.
Hahnemann never proved anything, nor did he claim to have done so.
That’s all been in the imagination of his acolytes and has been lost in translation and misunderstanding how science was conducted in his time. Avogadro published on his number during Hahnemann’s lifetime, but Hahnemann might not have read about it, or understood if he had. We do not know.
Hahnemann tested potential remedies on himself and other healthy (male) associates. This method continues today, but the German word pruefung used by Hahnemann (meaning ‘testing’ or ‘examination’) has been translated into English as ‘proving’. Both languages derive their words from the Latin probare, to test, but whilst in modern English usage ‘probability’ means ‘likelihood’ – ‘proving’ today caries a connotation of certainty which Hahnemann did not intend.
The British Homeopathic Association states: “Hahnemann deduced that an illness could be treated with a very small amount of a substance that, in larger quantities, could cause that illness. These experiments were called proving and led him to observe and describe the basic principles of homeopathic medicine.”
The tests were not called ‘proving’ by Hahnemann – they were tests as best as Hahnemann could do them with the limited understanding of his time.
Today, some may be misled into thinking there is an element of scientific truth in the procedure of “proving” that is not merited (OED: to prove – to demonstrate the truth or existence of something by evidence).
Any claims that Hahnemann ‘proved’ anything are deliberately misleading.
The German for ‘to prove’ is beweisen, and that is not the word Hahnemann used.
There is no reason why homeopathic writings in English should not refer to the investigations as ‘testing’, ‘experiments’ or even ‘research’, as the German pruefung translates but invariably homeopaths use the terms ‘proof’, ‘proving’ and ‘provers’ with the misleading certainty that implies. Which is, no doubt, their intention. Integrity has left their consulting rooms.
Moreover, as Anthony Campbell has pointed out: “Hahnemann’s method of conducting his proving, though extremely meticulous and painstaking, did nothing to eliminate the effects of suggestion. The subjects knew what medicines they were taking and what effects they might experience.”
Sigh.
Can we all move on please, stop sending children up chimneys, cease searching for unicorns and treat patients with the respect they deserve instead of taking advantage of them.
I think it is curious that all the papers that support homeopathy are ignored and those that dont support it are included, by those that wish to design a meta-study to discredit homeopathy. Must be a coincidence, I guess. The “better conducted” the trial is (according to skeptics) the less it conforms to the principles of homeopathy, so the “scientific” study is not studying homeopathy at all.
Using the limited mechanistic paradigm that all skeptics understand, homeopathy seems to contradict the _known_ laws of physics, chemistry and biology. But how many of you would concede that you are nothing more than a bunch of chemicals? That all of your being-ness and sentience can be explained by chemical reactions? That you are nothing but a meat machine?
But using an energetic paradigm where homeopathy is operating on some as yet unknown energy principle it does not violate any known laws. If you start with a strong energy signature in a substance with weak background noise of the solvent, and every time you dilute it further, which strengthens the signal (as homeopaths experience when treating patients), then the resulting extremely dilute solution will still have a very strong signal to noise ratio.
As we read every day in the scientific journals the vast _majority_ of the universe is dark energy & matter that we cant measure directly. I think we have to be a little humble about what we know and dont know.
The best way to measure homeopathy now, is to experience it directly, which I am still challenging you to do.
this is comparable to a pharma industry saying:
we have no evidence for our product. just try it and you will see for yourself.
SBM adherents
“we have no evidence for our product. just try it and you will see for yourself ”
Well, since you bring up the subject;
The hits just keep on coming, today’s Pharma bombshell de jour;
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson-risperdal-verdict/jury-says-jj-must-pay-8-billion-in-case-over-male-breast-growth-linked-to-risperdal-idUSKBN1WN2HK
“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson must pay $8 billion in punitive damages to a man who previously won $680,000 over his claims that it failed to warn that young men using its antipsychotic drug Risperdal could grow breasts, a Philadelphia jury said on Tuesday.”
The case will be back in court again, and the $8B award lowered down, but the fact will remain that J&J failed to warn… and they will pay.
This is our wonderful Pharma corporations…. greed greed greed …. disease disease disease
you really have not understood anything, and I doubt you ever will.
I understand that Pharma meds are hurting people more than they help, this I understand very well.
You fail to understand this.
I have tried several times to have a reasonable exchange with you and each time I quit because I found it impossible. you are a troll, and I will no longer feed trolls. cherio
@Edzard
@Roger
TROLL:
Transmitter/Receiver Of Lethiferous Lies or Toxic Rhetoric Of Loathsome Liar
Your choice.
[Big Pharma caught cheating]
Homeopaths lie, cheat, and endanger people’s health 100% of the time. So what is your point?
RR
I make no cases for homeopathy. I use a couple for myself because I find they work for me, for whatever reason (Reflexology and Paida Lajin). I’ve stated the same here previously.
I do believe that in some cases, the body will heal itself. I also believe that those who practice using small amounts of natural substances, as in natural herbs, plants, and botanical knowledge and in some cases minerals can stimulate the healing process. I’m pretty sure that most here would agree that plant based medicine has been proved valid.
Mostly I subscribe to healing techniques that do no harm. You understate the damage being done by Pharma meds. In my experience, and that of my family and friends. We have found that Pharma meds do harm. The headlines in the news validate this every week.
Beyond that, I subscribe to eliminating environmental toxins, and eating a diet that promotes health rather than disease.
If needed, I will use science based medicine for acute medical problems, blood analysis, and diagnosis of skeletal problems.
Guess what ?? … it works for me, and you can’t refute that.
@RG states “I’m pretty sure that most here would agree that plant based medicine has been proved valid.”
Actually, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t. Sweeping generalizations (are you just hoping we’ll validate your bizarre thinking?) aren’t helping your cause.
If you listen really closely, you’ll hear me slowly shaking my head and wondering how some people get through life without walking into walls. (Some people, I mean.) Can you hear it?
@RG
Slapping in the face usually snaps people right out of doing (and saying) stupid things. Obviously you need more treatment still. A lot more.
No problem Richard, that’s a deal.
I’ll keep slapping myself, and you keep taking your pills.
@RG
You picked up this: “Johnson & Johnson must pay $8 billion in punitive damages to a man who previously won $680,000 over his claims that it failed to warn that young men using its antipsychotic drug Risperdal could grow breasts, a Philadelphia jury said on Tuesday.”
So one person, out of thousands or millions treated with risperdal figures he can use the US legal system to make a buck or two from J&J. Notice that his complaint wasn’t about the side effect, but that J&J failed to warn him of it. I’d have said his doctor was more to blame than J&J, but a big corporation is worth more bucks than a mere doctor, so you find yourself a smart lawyer and sue.
From this sort of one-off press report (almost a daily occurrence at some level) you reinforce your view that “Pharma meds are hurting people more than they help.” That’s a claim, by the way: where’s your evidence?
@RG
You use a couple of what for yourself? Reflexology and paida lajin are not homeopathy. Do you mean you use a couple of so-called alternative medicines for yourself? You find they work for you. Well, that’s nice to know, but for the purposes of this blog it would be even nicer to know: what diseases? how is ‘work’ defined and measured? How can you be sure that, if other folk with the same conditions tried the same remedies they would experience the same curative effects?
Well, blow me down! A news item to eclipse all other news items! Even people like homeopaths realize that most diseases resolve spontaneously. Homeopathic medicines are said to cause the body to heal itself. (“Like cures like” is supposed to trigger the body’s natural defences.)
That depends what you mean by “plant-based medicine”. If you mean that some plants contain substances that have medicinal activity and can cure some diseases then, yes. There’s a whole branch of science called pharmacognosy that is based on isolating pharmacologically active compounds from plants and refining them (if necessary) to optimize their medicinal properties. Thanks to decades of pharmacognosy we now use compounds originally discovered in plants in almost all branches of medicine. If you throw in micro-organisms as drug sources then nature has provided probably around half of the drugs used in medicine today.
That’s quite different from herbalism, which carries a risk of serious side effects from the impurities contained in whole plants and the variability of plants from batch to batch.
News headlines are not the most reliable source of information on any subject, but it is not news that Pharma meds do harm. You have to determine whether or not they do any good as well. Then you can establish the ratio of benefit to risk for any given med in any given clinical condition.
RG, I think you mean well, but like most opponents of medicine your knowledge and understanding of the things you’re talking about are too shallow to comprehend the stuff properly. (I have not yet succeeded in finding a way of saying this that’s not patronizing or insulting.)
@ Frank Odds
Frank, nice try, the gynecomastia is effecting lots of paitients. The case will involve many more than one in a million you speak of.
https://www.risperdalgynecomastialawsuitcenter.com/risperdal-male-breasts-warning.asp
You might be right about the doctors failing, as much as J&J, does that make it any better ? Like I have said many times here, and I’ll keep repeating it. Doctors are licensed to kill… along with Pharma.
My son has been on Risperdal drug, among others. His weight went up from about 150 lbs to over 300 lbs currently. Was weight gain anticipated ? … yes. The gynecomastia side effect evidently was underplayed. The reason is because the gynecomastia does not go away after the patient stops consuming the drug… in many cases. Hence, a life altering side effect is more severe, and should be treated as such.
So the problem for Pharma again is they have hoodwinked the public into thinking a drug is less dangerous than they promote.
BTW-
If you doubt how serious the prescription medication problem is…..
https://www.rehabspot.com/opioids/opioid-epidemic/
About 40% of Opioid overdose deaths involve a prescription Opioid.
In the US alone, people dying in by the tens of thousand each year.
Ron Jette
Ron said;
“@RG states “I’m pretty sure that most here would agree that plant based medicine has been proved valid.”
Actually, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t. Sweeping generalizations (are you just hoping we’ll validate your bizarre thinking?) aren’t helping your cause.”
You had better have another look, you are WRONG !
@RG
To put a finer point on it and so there is no confusion in your mind, let me be clear: Some plant-based medicine has been proven valid, yes.
But because of your history of sweeping generalizations and your penchant for all things woo, when you said “plant-based medicine,” I took that to mean all plant-based medicine or, especially in your case, woo plant-based medicine (herbs and, knowing you, maybe spices).
All clear now? Didn’t I already ask you to go back to bed? Good trolls should be in bed by now. Don’t make me come up there, young man!
Peace out.
@ Frank Odds
“That’s quite different from herbalism, which carries a risk of serious side effects from the impurities contained in whole plants and the variability of plants from batch to batch”
Lest you boast more of manufacturing standards from prescription meds
Today’s Pharma bomb de jour;
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gsk-heartburn-zantac/gsk-recalls-popular-heartburn-drug-zantac-globally-after-cancer-scare-idUSKBN1WN1SL
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/popular-heartburn-drug-ranitidine-recalled-what-you-need-to-know-and-do-2019092817911
The hits just keep on coming from these deadly corporations. Law suits will probably begin in a few months. No doctor to blame in this.
@RG
Direct from the FDA and not from mass media who sell more from scares: “The FDA is evaluating whether the low levels of NDMA in ranitidine pose a risk to patients. FDA will post that information when it is available … Although NDMA may cause harm in large amounts, the levels the FDA is finding in ranitidine from preliminary tests barely exceed amounts you might expect to find in common foods.”
So the recalls and withdrawals, and the likely changes in manufacturing that will follow represent the ethical pharmaceutical industry and its regulator doing their jobs to protect the public in a situation where actual risk and harms have not been demonstrated. As usual, the reality is light years away from your “deadly corporations” characterization. If only the deadly herbalist industry had similar regular checks then maybe we wouldn’t be confronted with headlines like Deaths due to tainted herbal medicine under-recorded
@ Frank Odds
Fair enough Frank, time will tell.
That said, I don’t trust the FDA. The fox is guarding the hen house.
@Roger
I commend you on your rational, cleverly worded, evidence-based and irrefutable arguments, Roger. I finally tried homeopathy and I have to admit, I do feel better.
I just had a glass of water and closely monitored my reaction. I am no longer thirsty.
I admit defeat.
Edzard, Lenny, rk thornton, RichardR, forget the science, what most refer to as reality and your so-called RCTs. I know I’ve doubted homeopathy in the past but I encourage you to to try this. It’s amazing.
A successful homeopathic proving of water – that sounds promising indeed! And how stupid of us ‘sceptics’ not to think of this before…
Myriads of thirsty people can now be effectively treated and have their suffering relieved!
And oh, inspired by your thorough research and irrefutable conclusion, I delved a bit deeper into the homeopathic wisdom with regard to ‘water’, and found this absolute gem:
https://www.homeopathycenter.org/drowning
These clever homeopaths actually thought of the opposite condition too, i.e. too much water – so that can be effectively treated as well. Nobody needs to drown any more!
Thank you Roger for opening our eyes! And thank you Ron, for having the nerve and the honesty to admit that we were wrong all along! Too bad the Nobel prizes for this year have just been awarded. But next year, the Nobels for medicine, chemistry AND physics will surely go to homeopaths! After all, it doesn’t happen every year that the major fields of science are all completely proven wrong at the same time…
Ron
At your instruction, I have tried this test with water. I accidentally inhaled some as I was doing so and found myself coughing and spluttering as if I was drowning, but I did not drown. We must record these symptoms as part of a proving.
I did the same the other day, but I spilled some water. I quickly tried to wipe the floor and had a bad lumbago.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT SYMPTOM FOR OUR COLLECTIVE PROVING.
Funny, I had a similar experience but, I am glad to report, mine ended happily.
I spilled some water on the floor and, when I wiped it up, the floor was clean! I could hardly believe it!
Another win for homeopathy.
A bit of water on the shopping mall floor tiles almost caused me to slip and fall. So we’d better record this symptom as ‘loss of control’, ‘vertigo’ and ‘falling sensation’ – while mentioning, of course, that this symptom is related to shopping malls.
Hey people, this ‘proving’ thing is actually quite fun! And there’s of course the wonderful feeling that we’re collectively working on the betterment of mankind, health-wise!
Bad lumbago from mopping up some water? I think that Edzard had been proving not just any water but heavy water.