Horizon last night discussed Homeopathy, a centuries old form of medicine that is created by diluting a substance a huge amount of times and then administered to the patient. True homeopathic levels of dilution dilute the substance ridiculously high numbers of times, to the extent that an equivalent level of dilution would be for 1 drop of the substance to be added to all the water in all the oceans on the planet.

Homeopathics claim that with this level of dilution, the resulting medicine does actually work, curing a huge range of illnesses and conditions, that in many cases cannot be treated with conventional medicine. The trouble is, according to science, at such an extreme level of dilution, the resulting "medicine" will no longer contain even a single molecule of the original substance, therefore rendering it little more than plain water.

The debate continues to this day - does Homeopathy work ? Vast numbers of people do benefit from taking homeopathic medicines, but science still maintains that they are nothing but plain water. Does water have a "memory" as some have suggested, or is homeopathy simply a form of Placebo ? ( where the act of taking a pill makes the patient better because they think that the pill will help them ).

Horizon actually carried out an experiment to test whether Homeopathic water had an effect on living cells, but the results came up negative. In the end there is still no hard evidence to prove that Homeopathy works - and science maintains to this day that Homeopathic remedies are nothing more than plain water.

Well I haven't tried Homeopathy and cannot speak from empirical evidence. But the idea that you take a 'medicine' in such a drastically reduced form surely means that the effect is placebo and nothing else.

:?:

Hello I love a good debate :mrgreen:
I n NewZealand as I am assuming elsewhere Homeopathy is becoming comon practise . I personally only ever use doctors whoe practise both mainstream medicine and Homeopathy , 2 of my doctors have left there practise ( one after 30 years as a cardiologist) because of the health system and it's limiting abilities .
A few months ago I had a nasty reaction to some insect bites . I used the pharmacutical medicine that was supposedly none drowsing and found that I had difficulty concentrating at work and it didn't do a thing for the reaction . I then took 2 drops of a homeopathic liquid none as ludlum under my tounge and within half an hour was back to normal . Also my youngest son has burst his eardrum several times after talkink it through with the doctor we decided that anti biotics where un neccesary and just reducing his dairy product consumption should ease the problem , and it did . The placebo effect can not account for either of these 2 cases.
I beleive that homeopathy works but it should be combined with mainstream medical practice and practitioners should have a university degree in medicine as a legal pre requisite.
*Disclaimer I am not a physician please do not use my advice as medical advise as I probably didn't even spell the name of the stuff I took properly :mrgreen: oh and it definately didn't taste like water ......