# Homeopathy: what's added? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2013, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214 "2013-04-20T13:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/21 "2013-04-21T22:58:00Z")
And the kicker is that the more she ate, the more awake she became because it became less diluted. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/22 "2013-04-22T00:48:31Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > They may “contain much higher amounts” of alcohol than other drugs… I’m seeing a market for a 40% alcohol by volume homeopathic hangover cure. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/23 "2013-04-22T01:27:14Z")
[A favorite homeopathy poster.](http://imgur.com//a/F1hRK) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/24 "2013-04-22T02:41:31Z")
An interesting possibility arises from the homeopathic theory of vibrations. If a small dose of arsenic can transmit its effects into a large amount of water via vibrations, shouldn’t a small dose of water be able to transmit its effects into a large amount of arsenic? I say we test this. Let’s add a tablespoon of water to a gallon of arsenic and shake it up so the arsenic absorbs the effects of the water. According to homeopathic science, the arsenic should now be as safe to drink as water is. So let’s see some homeopathy advocates drink a cup of it. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/25 "2013-04-22T04:52:29Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > So… you put substance A in water and dilute until there are likely no molecules of A left in the water. The “essence” of A has been transferred to the water. > > Then you apply the water to sugar pills and let it dry up until there is no water left. The essence of A has now been transferred to the sugar. > > And then you take the sugar pill to cure something that a straight dose of A would have caused. > > Got it. Thanks. Not exactly, no. Basically, AIUI, if you want to make a sleeping pill you do it like this. 1. Take caffeine, which normally keeps people awake. 2)Soak it in alcohol for several weeks, after which the alcohol takes on properties that are opposite to caffeine. 1. Take a sample of the anti-caffeine alcohol, add it to a fresh distilled water, alcohol, or water/alcohol mix. 2. Leave to soak for a few weeks, so that the anti-caffeine can replicate through the solution. 3. concentrate the solution by a process of evaporartion and rehydration. 4. repeat steps 3-6 several times. At the end of the process, all the keep-you-awake caffeine has been removed, but the nice send-you-to-sleep anti caffeine is concentrated. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/26 "2013-04-22T07:48:47Z")
And then you drink a glass of this anti-caffeine alcohol and sure enough you fall asleep. ---
**Author:** ![listedmia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@listedmia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/listedmia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/27 "2013-04-22T10:45:52Z")
Some of the homeopathic “remedies” I have seen in the store have a “probiotic base” or contain some sort of harmless bacilli. I have never purchased one, but I imagine if they have any effect at all, it’s the inactive ingredients, not the super diluted homepathic stuff, that is actually doing something. These are remedies for intestinal problems and yeast infections where a lack of normal bacteria might be part of the problem. I am not a doctor and have a high school education science-wise so take that with a grain of salt. I am not recommending that anybody buy homeopathic products. ---
**Author:** ![AGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/28 "2013-04-22T11:24:43Z")
Wow, this is the first I’ve heard of this “water memory” idea… it’s freaking insane. My first thought was that it must have originated from Medieval alchemy, not a [late 20th Century physician](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Benveniste). ---
**Author:** ![JBDivmstr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/29 "2013-04-22T12:53:50Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > [A favorite homeopathy poster.](http://imgur.com//a/F1hRK) Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! That’s hilarious! Thanks, **Jackmannii**! 😃 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/30 "2013-04-22T13:50:10Z")
> [@AGuy](#): > > Wow, this is the first I’ve heard of this “water memory” idea… it’s freaking insane. My first thought was that it must have originated from Medieval alchemy, not a [late 20th Century physician](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Benveniste). Homeopathy started with ancient Greek doctors, but different forms of woo calling themselves homeopathy have been (re)invented in the last couple of centuries. [Bach flowers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_flower_remedies) are a different kind of “homeopathic remedies”; I’ve been having fun explaining the (un)reasoning behind them to people who thought that “homeopathic” means “from natural sources” and that “Bach flower remedies” were a more-scientific version of good old herbal teas. And I love your link, **Jackmannii**. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/31 "2013-04-22T14:06:37Z")
> [@AGuy](#): > > Wow, this is the first I’ve heard of this “water memory” idea… it’s freaking insane. My first thought was that it must have originated from Medieval alchemy, not a [late 20th Century physician](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Benveniste). It’s a medical retcon. The original idea was that giving people micro-doses of a poison gave them immunity to illnesses with symptoms similar to that kind of poisoning. Not a horribly idiotic idea (not when compared to some of the competing therapies…) When it was pointed out that a C50 or C100 dilution could in fact contain not a molecule of the poison, the notion of “vibrations” and “water memory” had to be cobbled up to maintain the nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/32 "2013-04-22T17:10:09Z")
Like most crazy ideas, there’s a kernel of sanity inside homeopathic theory. This is how your immune system works - you’re exposed to a disease and your body produces agents that attack that disease. This is why vaccinations work: you can be exposed to a safe portion of a disease agent and your body will produce immune agents against that disease. (Ironically, a lot of homeopathy advocates are probably also anti-vaccination nuts.) Then some quacks took this idea and ran with it. They decided you could expand immunity to symptoms rather than just causative agents. If a disease caused a fever and your body produced an immunity to that disease, they now figured you were also immune to fever. And if you were immune to fever, that meant you were immune to the things which caused fever, like diseases. This is, of course, nonsense. If you get a disease that causes certain symptoms, you might end up immune to that specific disease. But you are not immune to a different disease that causes the same symptoms. The quacks also decided you didn’t have to have the full symptoms to develop an immunity. Like a vaccine you just had to be exposed to a small amount of a substance that could cause that symptom if given in large quantity. To use Peter Morris’ example, if somebody was suffering from insomnia, you just gave them a minute amount of caffeine - not enough to give them insomnia but just enough to trigger their anti-insomnia immunity. Of course this raises the question of why you needed to be given any caffeine at all - if you were suffering from insomnia shouldn’t your anti-insomnia immunity already have been triggered? In their defense, this was actually a step forward from the medical practices of the day when it was first proposed. Medicine used to be based on the heroic principle - the idea was that a treatment had to make you suffer in order to work. A cure was supposed to treat the patient like a battlefield and overpower the disease. Homeopaths at least rejected that notion and didn’t insist on cures that made you feel worse than the disease. ---
**Author:** ![thicksantorum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@thicksantorum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thicksantorum)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/33 "2013-04-22T18:19:42Z")
The _really_ ironic bit is that homeopaths will rant about “allopathic” medicine not being holistic, while advocating a system based entirely on symptoms, which is about as far from “holistic” as you can get. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/34 "2013-04-22T18:33:40Z")
The Amazing Randi gives talks on Homeopathy, and at the beginning he eats an entire box of homeopathic sleeping pills, after reading out loud the overdose warning on the side. [TED talk](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=amazing%20randi%20homeopathy%20&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDwQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fjames_randi.html&ei=P4F1UdXyOrO42QWmn4CYDQ&usg=AFQjCNHpdq1gTSx-hREOHObMsM6VRu0usg&bvm=bv.45512109,d.b2I) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/35 "2013-04-22T19:01:13Z")
Heh. Can someone disprove what might be a folk tale. I’ve been told that homeopathy had a resurgence into it’s current form at the same time that standard medicine was still bleeding people, balancing humors, dosing people with mercury, and burning them with caustic counter-irritants. So that, yes, they’d do nothing, but that was better than some of the other things that might have been done to you instead. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/36 "2013-04-22T21:20:01Z")
Hey, my local pharmacy has a full rack of homeopathic “medicines”-its 100% harmless…also worthless. Should pharmacies be allowed to sell this junk?:mad: ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/37 "2013-04-22T22:41:27Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > The Amazing Randi gives talks on Homeopathy, and at the beginning he eats an entire box of homeopathic sleeping pills, after reading out loud the overdose warning on the side. > > [TED talk](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=amazing%20randi%20homeopathy%20&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDwQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fjames_randi.html&ei=P4F1UdXyOrO42QWmn4CYDQ&usg=AFQjCNHpdq1gTSx-hREOHObMsM6VRu0usg&bvm=bv.45512109,d.b2I) He gave a lecture on homeopathy at my school. He didn’t eat any pills, but it was very educational. 🙂 Love the poster,\*\* Jackmannii.\*\* 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/38 "2013-04-22T22:53:49Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Can someone disprove what might be a folk tale. I’ve been told that homeopathy had a resurgence into it’s current form at the same time that standard medicine was still bleeding people, balancing humors, dosing people with mercury, and burning them with caustic counter-irritants. So that, yes, they’d do nothing, but that was better than some of the other things that might have been done to you instead. Yes, that’s the heroic medical treatment I mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/39 "2013-04-22T23:05:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “Genuine” homeopathy is indeed based on the (ludicrous) premise that the more you dilute something, the more potent it gets. But because homeopathy, among all forms of woo, has a special place in the US medicine regulatory scheme, a lot of other kinds of woo that aren’t based on dilution label themselves as homeopathy, with the hope that this will prevent inconveniences like the government forbidding them from poisoning people. As I understand it, that dates from the 19th Century, when homeopathy was actually **safer** than allopathic medicine, in that homeopaths’ patients were not harmed by the remedy and were spared to die of the disease. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214/40 "2013-04-23T02:13:50Z")
Homeopathy was a good idea back when the alternative was leeches. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homeopathy-whats-added/656214.md?page=1)