Homeopathy being about two hundred years old is a relatively new form of complementary and alternative medicine. Homeopathy is based on the principle that like cures like, which argues that if a certain substance given to a healthy individual causes the same symptoms as a disease then it will also cure that disease in ill individuals. Additionally, these illnesses are believed to be caused by nonphysical disease entities called miasms. Misasms are what homeopaths believe to be the root causes of diseases. According to homeopaths in order to be cured the underlying miasm must be cured, because merely removing symptoms will not suffice. Because miasms are not physical entities they can arise from a negative state of mind. Homeopathic remedies
…show more content…
Hahnemann had been reading a report about a treatment for malaria using cinchona bark and was skeptical, so he decided to ingest copious amounts of the bark. Supposedly, he experienced the symptoms of malaria and this caused him to believe that if something causes symptoms of a disease in a healthy person than it can also cure that disease. After this, Hahnemann tested many other substances and recorded the symptoms, and in 1805 published a list of these remedies. In 1810, he published another list of remedies as well as a book detailing his new system of medicine. In 1825, Hahnemann’s student Hans Birch Gram brought homeopathy to the United States, and a decade later the first homeopathy school in the U.S was built. Despite this, it was not until 1903 that homeopaths were actually welcomed into the American Association of Medicine, and not until 1939 that homeopathic drugs were introduced to the market (Loudon 2006). Even though homeopathic remedies were now available, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that it really began to become prominent in the US and the UK (Loudon …show more content…
I was watching a lecture given by famous stage magician and skeptic, James Randi, and at the very beginning he took out a bottle of pills and swallowed all of them at once. Later, Randi revealed that they were homeopathic sleeping pills and he was demonstrating that he could take them all without any effect. I had not really known what homeopathy was so I did some reading to see for myself whether homeopathic medicines really are just sugar pills. Through my reading I quickly stumbled upon a group called 10:23 that organizes public “mass overdoses” where people gather together and take many doses of homeopathic medicine at once. No adverse effects were reported from any of their events. This really peaked my interest because I could not believe that a practice as prevalent as homeopathy was simply ineffective sugar pills. I continued to read about homeopathy and came to the conclusion that it is in fact a pseudoscience that does not
Hahnemann had been reading a report about a treatment for malaria using cinchona bark and was skeptical, so he decided to ingest copious amounts of the bark. Supposedly, he experienced the symptoms of malaria and this caused him to believe that if something causes symptoms of a disease in a healthy person than it can also cure that disease. After this, Hahnemann tested many other substances and recorded the symptoms, and in 1805 published a list of these remedies. In 1810, he published another list of remedies as well as a book detailing his new system of medicine. In 1825, Hahnemann’s student Hans Birch Gram brought homeopathy to the United States, and a decade later the first homeopathy school in the U.S was built. Despite this, it was not until 1903 that homeopaths were actually welcomed into the American Association of Medicine, and not until 1939 that homeopathic drugs were introduced to the market (Loudon 2006). Even though homeopathic remedies were now available, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that it really began to become prominent in the US and the UK (Loudon …show more content…
I was watching a lecture given by famous stage magician and skeptic, James Randi, and at the very beginning he took out a bottle of pills and swallowed all of them at once. Later, Randi revealed that they were homeopathic sleeping pills and he was demonstrating that he could take them all without any effect. I had not really known what homeopathy was so I did some reading to see for myself whether homeopathic medicines really are just sugar pills. Through my reading I quickly stumbled upon a group called 10:23 that organizes public “mass overdoses” where people gather together and take many doses of homeopathic medicine at once. No adverse effects were reported from any of their events. This really peaked my interest because I could not believe that a practice as prevalent as homeopathy was simply ineffective sugar pills. I continued to read about homeopathy and came to the conclusion that it is in fact a pseudoscience that does not