Re: homeopathy, is it effective, research review.

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 15:22:35 GMT, John 'the Man'  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

>...The facts are that Hahnemann was extremely successful in treating
>deadly acute diseases like cholera with homeopathy.  :)

"Extremely successful"?  Hardly.  

Hahnemann's treatments were ineffective at best, and harmful at worst,
but he probably killed fewer of his patients with his treatments than
the allopathics of the day during the first of the epidemics (1830).
However, simple lay providers had better results than either Hahnemann
or allopaths.  He did subcribe to the contagion-miasmia theory with
regard to cholera earlier than many, and this was to his credit.   

After that period, traditional medicine began to achieve better
results and have far surpassed homoepathy with respect to this
disease.  Interestingly, even Hahnemann violated the homeopathic
doctrine of the "Law of Similars" (Law of Similia Similibus Curentur)
with his almost exclusive use of camphor on Asiatic Cholera.  In
short, even his "success" (using that term very generously) was in
contradiction with accepted homeopathic methodology.

This is not a good example of support for homoepathy.  Not at all.  

>If the science geeks on these ngs can be believed, then Samuel
>Hahnemann should be called a Quack rather than an intellectual giant
>who used the experimental method to develop his theories .

He was a quack with respect to cholera, but his saving grace was that
he appears to have been a less dangerous quack than the local
allopaths of the day.  He employed camphor as a primary treatment,
which we now know to be a highly toxic substance and not at all
effective in the treatment of Asiatic Cholera.

Your statement that Hahnemann came up with a "clinically effective
therapeutic method for treating deadly acute diseases like cholera"is
way off base.  Hahnemann was wrong in his approach, but simply he was
"less wrong" than the allopathic practices of the day which included a
mercury mineral, Galvanism, and turpentine enemas.