Homeopath: Psora can progress to syphilis

[MRC_Hans]

Seems this ancient belief from Hahnemann's time is still alive and well in homeopathic circles. Here

Any comments from the resident homeopaths?

We now know that syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, carried by a micro-organism. It can only be contracted by exposure to infection, and it can be cured by antibiotics.

How can the archaic notion that a psora can progress to syphilis still exist among homeopaths?

Hans

 

[neutrino_cannon]

I could say something about correlation between the two, particularly on the basis of the facts that scabies may be sexually transmitted and the sores secondarily infected, and that syphilis is notorious for resembling other infections so that it would look like the two are one and the same, but it is very clear to me that any rigorous medical experimentation would quickly discredit this belief.

Oh, my bad, it already has.

I have, in fact, no clue as to whence this misconception originates, and I frankly find reading Catullus and Stephen Jay Gould far more interesting. That is to say, I don't really care. There's far too much actual beauty and science in the world, at least for me, to bother with the minutiae of such matters.

What does interest me is how a spirochete, whose genome, incidentally, has been sequenced, might be mistaken, even informally, for the eggs of a mite. I'm pretty sure that they look different under a microscope, and surely any effective medical practitioner specializing in STI's would be able to tell the difference between licorice and golf balls.

Oh, mea culpa iterum, I forgot that homeopaths aren't effective medical practitioners.

I'll just chalk this up, along with the Tuskegee study and the strange obsession with blaming this disease on other countries, as another example of humanity's occasional inability to react rationally to this disease.

Of course, we all know that you don't need tertiary syphilis to act irrationally.

 

[Deetee]

The last hundred years of scientific advances in the field of medicine have passed some people by completely - and the sad thing is, although they know it deep down, they pretend it hasn't happened

 

[Zep]

I wonder what homeopaths do to treat themselves when THEY get a dose of the clap?

 

[CFLarsen]

I wonder what homeopaths do to treat themselves when THEY get a dose of the clap?

Good question.

If they only treat themselves with homeopathic remedies (I hesistate to call it "medicine"), aren't they a health hazard?

If they use "allopathic" (that means "It is tested, proven and works") medicine, aren't they a bunch of hypocrites?

Which is it? Health hazards or hypocrites?

 

[Zep]

As I understand it, many countries have legal requirements to record all instances of STDs, among others - notifiable diseases. And there are severe penalties applying for NOT recording them.

[Searches with Google...]

Example: Australian list of Notifiable Diseases Lo and behold, syph is on it. And notifiable diseases are tracked to ensure that they are being dealt with promptly and successfully, for obvious reasons.

So if a homeopath thinks they have the clap, they MUST go to a real doctor and have it diagnosed "allopathically" - they can't do it themselves (unless they are a real doctor). And given the (lack of) success rate of homeopathy versus antibiotics in treating STDs, how are they treating themselves in such cases?

PS. And I wonder what the penalties are, legally and conscience-wise, for a homeopath NOT reporting a case of STD because they reject allopathic medicine. Or, in using homeopathy, failing to treat an STD and thus allowing it to be passed on to the patient's partner(s).

 

[neutrino_cannon]

Good question.

If they only treat themselves with homeopathic remedies (I hesistate to call it "medicine"), aren't they a health hazard?

If they use "allopathic" (that means "It is tested, proven and works") medicine, aren't they a bunch of hypocrites?

Which is it? Health hazards or hypocrites?

If one is as ugly as you are, it's irrelevant as far as catching syphilis is concerned.

This subject is related, tangentially, to the fate of Pamela Anderson, yes?

Ah, but to get back on track, the current fad (or fraud, however you like it) is to use quackery as a "complementary treatment" to allopathy. Therefore, homeopaths, by your dichotomy, are both health hazards and hypocrites.

But then, we knew that already didn't we?

 

[Deetee]

This subject is related, tangentially, to the fate of Pamela Anderson, yes?

?????

 

[neutrino_cannon]

Who has opted for homeopathic treatment of Hepatitis C.

 

[CFLarsen]

As I understand it, many countries have legal requirements to record all instances of STDs, among others - notifiable diseases. And there are severe penalties applying for NOT recording them.

[Searches with Google...]

Example: Australian list of Notifiable Diseases Lo and behold, syph is on it. And notifiable diseases are tracked to ensure that they are being dealt with promptly and successfully, for obvious reasons.

So if a homeopath thinks they have the clap, they MUST go to a real doctor and have it diagnosed "allopathically" - they can't do it themselves (unless they are a real doctor). And given the (lack of) success rate of homeopathy versus antibiotics in treating STDs, how are they treating themselves in such cases?

PS. And I wonder what the penalties are, legally and conscience-wise, for a homeopath NOT reporting a case of STD because they reject allopathic medicine. Or, in using homeopathy, failing to treat an STD and thus allowing it to be passed on to the patient's partner(s).

I've asked Ole Hartling, doctor, chairman of the Danish Council of Ethics and Skeptica member, what the rules are in Denmark.

This is an important point. People from other countries, check out your own rules!

 

[Barbrae]

Seems this ancient belief from Hahnemann's time is still alive and well in homeopathic circles. Here

Any comments from the resident homeopaths?

We now know that syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, carried by a micro-organism. It can only be contracted by exposure to infection, and it can be cured by antibiotics.

How can the archaic notion that a psora can progress to syphilis still exist among homeopaths?

Hans

Hans, that's not what is meant by the syphillitic miasm, and psoras internal itch doesn't refer to HC's yeast infections and the sycotic miasm isn't a mispelling to mean psycotic. The miasms are a totally different arena, you've got things wrong.

 

[PixyMisa]

Re: Re: Homeopath: Psora can progress to syphilis

Hans, that's not what is meant by the syphillitic miasm, and psoras internal itch doesn't refer to HC's yeast infections and the sycotic miasm isn't a mispelling to mean psycotic. The miasms are a totally different arena, you've got things wrong.

Well, that cleared things up. Thanks Barbrae!

 

[Mojo]

PS. And I wonder what the penalties are, legally and conscience-wise, for a homeopath NOT reporting a case of STD because they reject allopathic medicine. Or, in using homeopathy, failing to treat an STD and thus allowing it to be passed on to the patient's partner(s).

In the UK (and probably most other countries) they might be able to get away with it using human rights legislation. They could claim that their religious freedom was being infringed by forcing them to visit a proper doctor.

Of course, to try this on they'd have to admit that homeopathy is a religion.

 

[Deetee]

Re: Re: Homeopath: Psora can progress to syphilis

Hans, that's not what is meant by the syphillitic miasm, and psoras internal itch doesn't refer to HC's yeast infections and the sycotic miasm isn't a mispelling to mean psycotic. The miasms are a totally different arena, you've got things wrong.

Thank god!

Do you mind just explaining that all to my wife?

 

[CFLarsen]

Re: Re: Homeopath: Psora can progress to syphilis

Hans, that's not what is meant by the syphillitic miasm, and psoras internal itch doesn't refer to HC's yeast infections and the sycotic miasm isn't a mispelling to mean psycotic. The miasms are a totally different arena, you've got things wrong.

What??

Please explain.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Re: Re: Homeopath: Psora can progress to syphilis

Hans, that's not what is meant by the syphillitic miasm, and psoras internal itch doesn't refer to HC's yeast infections and the sycotic miasm isn't a mispelling to mean psycotic. The miasms are a totally different arena, you've got things wrong.

From the link above, post by Leela (my emphasis):

To my mind, the depth of disease signifies the amount of suppression that has taken place over time in an individual case leading to disease moving "deeper".
Another connotation (in parallel with the above) is the miasmatic understanding of how deep the miasmatic progression has taken pathological espression of disease. Eg: From Psora towards sycosis to syphillis.

Edited to add:

More from Leela (still my emhasis):

A truly and predominantly psoric miasmatic constitution (which in today's workd is rare, but you can find thenm in rural areas untouched by suppressive treatments), includes family history that is also predominanly psoric - and will not progress towards anything except effects of psora if left untreated.
Which means a skin conditions are not suppressed, acute infections resolve by themselves, and the susceptibility remains healthy to fight all other external stimuli at the psoric level.
BUt even a robust psoric miasmatic constitution can be disrupted into sycosis or syphillis by wrong treatment - SUPPRESSIVE - both allopathic and homeopathic.
The a general "feel good" feeling can be very decepetive - so one has to be careful when evaluating a case who has been "feeling good" on a remedy that does not cover the misamatic expression.

the answer to your question would then be:
Yes, with suppressive treatement, it would depend on what is the past history, family history and hence the inherited miasmatic traits. The outcome, is an expression of bringing up latent misamatic tendencies:
Most cases move in that direction - Psora - Sycosis - syphillis.
SOme cases may move to Psora - Tubercular - syphilis
Some may move from Psora to Syhillis directly.

Please explain how I got it wrong.

Hans

 

[Chris Haynes]

I've asked Ole Hartling, doctor, chairman of the Danish Council of Ethics and Skeptica member, what the rules are in Denmark.

This is an important point. People from other countries, check out your own rules!

Our county's health department has a monthly newsletter with a list of the occurances of selected diseases each month (it also has an occasional "Zebra Hoofprints" note, which is usually an interetsing read as they go through the steps to diagnose something odd):
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/epilog/vol4501.htm

Hmmm... syphilis and gonorrhea are making emerging again.

As far as my comments on yeast infections, syphilis and gonorrhea are concerned... the questions I posed were never really addressed. Right now I am pretty sure that if going strictly by the Organon... a homeopath would not be able to determine which is which, much less treat the "internal itching".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

We don't have to use the syphilis example to ask the same question. There are any number of infectious diseases, (not to mention cancers or diabetes or Graves disease and so on), that are just not going to go away without treatment. Instead they either have dormant or latent phases such as syphilis, or they take a long time to kill you such as active TB, or, they become chronic infections such as a bone infection.

None of these serious infections are going to go away with anything other than antibiotics, (or anti-virals or other drugs like pesticides for scabies). I would have to believe if faced with such an infection, a person not using modern medicine would almost always give in and go to a doctor.

Clearly there have been exceptions. There have been many news stories of parents allowing their children to die because they had some belief, usually religious, that medicine was not needed.

The bottom line here is we can have these long discussions with people that have bought into some belief system like homeopathy only because they haven't faced the dilemma yet of a serious disease. There may be anecdotal reports out there the homeopaths cite as evidence their treatments will work. And there may be a rare case of some spontaneous tumor regression attributed to whatever cure, be it prayer or peach pits. But when faced with a serious infection or other disease, these guys will not find a cure in their folk medicines.

I had a friend in high school whose parents were both chiropractors. The parents believed strongly in no medicines so the kids weren't vaccinated and all that. But one day my friend came to school with a broken arm in a cast. Low and behold, they had been to a regular doctor. And fortunately for my friend he had gotten pain meds and not a neck manipulation for pain.

Reality has a way of making its presence known.

 

[Rolfe]

We don't have to use the syphilis example to ask the same question.

Yes, but I think Hans was making a different and perhaps more subtle point. Homoeopaths such as Leela go on till the cows come home about this weird homoeopathic theory of "miasms", which seem to take their names mainly from STDs but which may or may not equate to these diseases when you actually get down to it. (And how that essential plank of homoeopathic theory stands up when veterinary surgeons get hold of it I don't know, because syphilis for example is a purely human disease, it doesn't affect animals.)

Barb jumped in to tell Hans that he was wrong and these terms don't equate to the corresponding infections. However, she never explained what she thinks they do relate to, so that wasn't really much help. And as Hans has elaborated, Leela seems to think that they do so equate.

So, Barb, any chance you might come back and explain what Leela really means, and/or what you understand by the theory of miasms? Come on, educate us.

Rolfe.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Rolfe: Exactly.

Leela (it is on purpose that I refuse to use the Dr part) very clearly claims that psora progress to syphilis, at least if I understand any English (I admit it is not my native language).

Now, Barbrae, you might explain why Leela says something else, or you might state that you disagree with Leela.

What Leela means, I can ask her about.

Hans