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Part of the "Become Informed" Series, by WHP
Last month I wrote about how such small doses can cure. I explained how the medicines become stronger as they are diluted and succussed (vigorously shaken). I gave the latest scientific explanation (enhanced water crystals). This month I want to continue the discussion about the reality of homeopathy.
Not being a trained scientist, but having a curious mind I stumbled into homeopathy out of curiosity. Scientists are supposed to have it, but they are usually trained to be curious within reason -- sounds reasonable until you hit something unreasonable like a medicine being effective even though there are no molecules to do the work.
My first encounter with homeopathy was positive, it seemed to work on my acute back ache . My next encounter with it was with my farm animals - I couldn't afford the veterinarian and medicine bills that can rack up with a farm animal. Enter a thought stage left -- I wondered if homeopathy would work for animals - problem, no books around re homeopathy for animals (This was in1979).
So, armed with curiosity and a book on homeopathy for people (Boericke's Materia Medica) I tried out remedies on the animals using the people symptoms by analogy. The medicines worked. I remember helping animals with itchy skin, abscesses, worms, stalled deliveries, wounds, and more.
Luckily it wasn't until a year later at the National Center for Homeopathy's summer school that I found out about no molecules, etc. Too late, I had seen the medicine work, and believe me the sheep, goats, chickens, dogs, and cats didn't have a clue about the molecules and I never told them. If anyone ever wants to tell you homeopathy is a placebo, or that you have to believe in it, help their dog's arthritis, or get that cat's skin itch under control.
There are many books on treating cats, dogs, cattle, horses, goats, and even pigs -- I have Amish and Mennonite customers whose families have been farmers forever, and they now not only treat themselves, but their farm animals, and they are ready to tell stories of cures at the slightest provocation.
If your skeptic friends don't happen to have an animal to help them with their placebo problem, tell them about homeopathy's value in safely treating babies. There are probably a dozen modern books on pregnancy, childbirth, infants, children under 1 year of age, etc. The authors of the modern books have been successfully treating babies with homeopathy for years (easily a combined 100 years). If they were not helping their patients and/or were doing harm, they would be out of business long ago, and the babies would still be howling.Wrong remedy - Another angle on the question of placebo. When the first homeopathic remedy is given, the expectations of success would logically be at their highest, and thus most vulnerable to the placebo effect. That is, if placeboes were the answer then surely the highest expectations would be on the first dose, and there would be lower expectations on subsequent remedies. But that's simply not the case -- When you hit the right remedy, whether it's the first one or the 10th try, the body starts working to heal as sure as an apple will fall down from a tree not up.
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