User:Friarslantern/MySandbox

THIS IS MY SANDBOX!

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Homeopathy (also homœopathy or homoeopathy; from the Greek, ὅμοιος, hómoios, "similar" + πάθος, páthos, "suffering" or "disease") is a form of alternative medicine with metaphysical underpinnings, first elaborated in the eighteenth century, widely popular in the nineteenth century, decreasingly popular in the twentieth century, and still maintaining a following today, though among just a small minority. It has been widely and vigorously criticized by scientists as baseless and ineffective.

Homeopathy is based on a vitalist philosophy, which sees the underlying causes of sickness as imbalances in a hypothetical vital force. The remedies are formulated to "treat like with like": substances are chosen which, in large quantities, would cause symptoms similar to those of a presenting illness, but are then administered in extremely diluted form. In fact, in many common homeopathic dilutions no molecules of the original substance are likely to remain, a fact which is central to criticism of the tradition by physical and biological scientists.

Homeopathy was first conceived in the late 18th century by German physician Samuel Hahnemann, who noted some similarity of the symptoms created by giving undiluted cinchona bark extract to healthy individuals, to those of malaria (which the bark was conventionally used to treat). Hahnemann concluded that, to be effective, a drug must produce the same sorts of symptoms in healthy individuals as those experienced by the patient with the illness that the drug is supposed to treat. From this reasoning, a series of substances were selected whose administration created symptoms in patients similar to those they were suffering from. The original substance is then repeatedly diluted, and, at each stage of the dilution, the solution is shaken. Finished homeopathic remedies contain few or even no molecules of the original substance, but homeopaths contend that the shaking causes an imprint (or "memory") of the diluted substance upon the vehicle (the diluting water or alcohol itself). Proponents of homeopathy claim that homeopathic treatments can harmonize and re-balance a theorized vital force in the body, thus restoring health.

Claims for the medical efficacy of homeopathic treatments, however, have been roundly rejected as unsupported by the collected weight of scientific and clinical studies. Homeopathic philosophy has been characterized as strikingly at odds with the laws of chemistry and physics, since it postulates that extreme dilution actually makes drugs more powerful (by enhancing, homeopaths believe, their "spirit-like medicinal powers" ). Scientists have asserted that there is no evidence of water or alcohol retaining any sort of imprint of a substance that was once dissolved in it, and that any positive effects of homeopathic treatments must be due simply to the placebo effect. Furthermore, some health advocates have accused homeopathic practitioners of giving false hope to patients who might otherwise seek conventional treatments that have withstood testing by the scientific method. Many have pointed to meta-analyses which &mdash; they contend &mdash; confirm the fact that any benefits of the medicine are due to the placebo effect; they have criticized apparently positive studies of homeopathy as being flawed in design. These findings, they say &mdash; along with the common practice of homeopaths to proscribe their patients from receiving conventional medical treatments for a given malady while being treated for it with homeopathy &mdash; argue for labeling homeopathy as a brand of quackery  whose use might ultimately even endanger the patient's health.

Friarslantern 20:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

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