All Homeopaths refer to "the Law of Infinitesimal" and the "Law of Similars" as grounds for using minute substances and for believing that like heals like, but these are not natural laws of science. If they are laws at all, they are metaphysical laws, i.e.beliefs about the nature of reality that would be impossible to test by empirical means. Hahnemann's ideas did originate in experience.
That he drew metaphysical conclusions from empirical events does not, however, make his ideas empirically testable. The law of infinitesimal seems to have been partly derived from his notion that any remedy would cause the patient to get worse before getting better and that one could minimise this negative effect by significantly reducing the size of the dose. Most critics of homeopathy balk at this "law" because it leads to remedies that have been so diluted as to have hardly a single molecule of the substance one starts with.
Working on the principle of similarities, Hahnemann created remedies for various disorders that had symptoms similar to those of the substances his provers had taken. However, "methods of proving are highly personalised and of individual relevance to the homeopath or experimenter." In other words, one hundred homeopaths preparing a remedy for one patient might well come up with one hundred different remedies.
Hahnemann may be praised for empirically testing his medicines, but his method of testing is obviously flawed. He wasn't actually testing the medicines for effectiveness on sick people but for their effects on healthy people.
In any case, he had to rely upon the subjective evaluations of his provers, all of who were his disciples or family members and all of whom were interrogated by the master himself. (Later investigators would use more controlled methods of proving.) But even if his data was tainted by the possibility of him suggesting symptoms to his provers or their reporting symptoms to impress or gain the approval of the master, it is a belief in magic that connects this list of symptoms with the cure of a disease with similar symptoms. In logic, this kind of leap of reasoning is called a non sequitur: It does not follow from the fact that drug A produces symptoms similar to disease B that taking A will relieve the symptoms of B. However, homeopaths take “Customer Satisfaction” with A as evidence that A works.
Today's homeopaths should know that because of the complexity of each individual human body, fifty different people might react in fifty different ways to the same substance. This makes doing clinical trials on potential medicines a procedure that should rarely claim dramatic results on the basis of one set of trials. Finding a statistically significant difference, positive or negative, between an experimental (drug therapy) group and a control group in one trial of a drug should usually be taken with a grain of salt. So should not finding anything statistically significant. It is not uncommon for twenty trials of a drug to result in several with positive, several with negative, and several with mixed or inconclusive results.
Before attempting to explain why so many people believe homeopathy works, let me first defend the claim that homeopathic remedies are ineffective. There have been many reviews of various studies of the effectiveness of homeopathic treatments and not one of these reviews concludes that there is good evidence for any homeopathic remedy (HR) being effective. Homeopaths have had over 200 years to demonstrate their wares and have failed to do so, as yet.
Yes, there are single studies that have found statistically significant differences between groups treated with an HR and control groups, but none of these have been replicated or they have been marred by methodological faults. Two hundred years and we're still waiting for proof! Having an open mind is one thing and I do on the vast majority of Alternative Healthcare practices; waiting forever for evidence is more akin to wishful thinking.
Nevertheless, homeopathy will always have its advocates, despite the lack of proof that its remedies are effective. Why? One reason is the prevalence of a misunderstanding of the causes of disease and how the human body deals with disease. Hahnemann was able to attract followers because he appeared to be a healer compared to those who were cutting veins or using poisonous purgatives to balance humors. More of his patients may have survived and recovered not because he healed them but because he didn't infect them or kill them by draining out needed blood or weaken them with strong poisons.
Hahnemann's medicines were essentially nothing more than common liquids and were unlikely to cause harm in themselves. He didn't have to have too many patients survive and get better to look impressive compared to his competitors. If there is any positive effect on health it is not due to the homeopathic remedy, which is inert, but to the body's own natural curative mechanisms or to the belief of the patient (the placebo effect) or to the effect the manner of the homeopath has on the patient.
Stress can enhance and even cause illness. If a practitioner has a calming effect on the patient, that alone might result in a significant change in the feeling of wellbeing of the patient. And that feeling might well translate into beneficial physiological effects. The homeopathic method involves spending a lot of time with each patient to get a complete list of symptoms. It's possible this has a significant calming effect on some patients. This effect could enhance the body's own healing mechanisms in some cases.
My main concerns are with regard to the possible harm that may ensue from classical homeopathy. It is not likely to come from its remedies, which are probably safe but ineffective, though this is changing, as homeopathy becomes indiscernible from herbalism in some places. One potential danger is in the encouragement to self-diagnosis and treatment. Another danger lurks in not getting proper treatment by a conventional medical doctor in those cases where the patient could be helped by such treatment, such as for cancer or bladder, or yeast infection.
Homeopathy might work in the sense of helping some people feel better some of the time. Homeopathy does not work, however, in the sense of explaining pathologies or their cures in a way which not only conforms with the data but which promises to lead us to a greater understanding of the nature of health and disease.
*Note: Since homeopathic preparations are very diluted mixtures of natural substances, they are completely safe and without undesirable side effects.
