Why doesn't homeopathy work on poisons?

[EHocking]

My meaning was: what is the homeopathic theory regarding poisons?...

Wrong.

Just as its central doctrine is.

 

[McHrozni]

Homeopaths usually prefer lactose to sucrose or glucose. Most of those sugar pills are actually lactose.

I am not completely sure why they prefer lactose. I conjecture that it is because lactose is not as soluble in water as sucrose or lactose. So the pills keep longer.

Yeah ok, but how come they have a better profit margin than selling bottled tap water at ~1,000,000 times the price of unbottled tap water?

McHrozni

 

[elgarak]

My meaning was: what is the homeopathic theory regarding poisons?

Cpl Ferro

I seem to recall that homeopaths at some time indeed believed that high potencies of certain substances should be poisonous, with the dangerousness of the poison going up with higher potencies, in short that homeopathy should be able to produce the most lethal poisons imaginable.

Of course, they never tested this (since they're in the business of healing people), though it should be a very easy test to do.

In truth, the whole theory of homeopathy doesn't reflect reality at all, so the homeopathic poisons don't work, either (as said numerous times here).

 

[Darwin123]

Yeah ok, but how come they have a better profit margin than selling bottled tap water at ~1,000,000 times the price of unbottled tap water?

McHrozni

If the homeopath remedy provider is 'honest', then you are paying for the labor. Even if the remedy does nothing at all, the person 'potentiating' the remedy has to at least use up his time.

Potentiation involves both serial dilution and serial impact. You have to hit the bottle against something soft. 'Hitting the bottle' can be tiring. Then there is the advertising -oops- teaching. The person has to be 'trained' as a homeopath, which means memorizing a whole bunch of chemicals to dilute. Whether or not it does anything, the six weeks of training is costing.

The truth is that homeopathy doesn't work. However, people spend a lot on things that don't work. 'Real' medicine is costly and risky.

 

[elgarak]

If the homeopath remedy provider is 'honest', then you are paying for the labor. Even if the remedy does nothing at all, the person 'potentiating' the remedy has to at least use up his time.

Potentiation involves both serial dilution and serial impact. You have to hit the bottle against something soft. 'Hitting the bottle' can be tiring. Then there is the advertising -oops- teaching. The person has to be 'trained' as a homeopath, which means memorizing a whole bunch of chemicals to dilute. Whether or not it does anything, the six weeks of training is costing.

The truth is that homeopathy doesn't work. However, people spend a lot on things that don't work. 'Real' medicine is costly and risky.

I would be a bit more careful in wording. Note that I said "theory of homeopathy" is wrong. I would also only say that homeopathic remedies are without effective components.

I wouldn't per se claim that "homeopathy doesn't work". See, the procedure is such that a person visits a homeopath, usually for multiple sessions, with rather intensive talks (usually longer and more involved than you would get from a standard general practitioning doctor). Getting homeopathic remedies is just one part of this process. Such a process does seem to be somewhat successful on conditions with a strong psychosomatic component, via the placebo effect, if the patient is gulliblesusceptible enough. I say seem, since it's difficult to double-blind test the whole process (while easy enough to test remedies against each other).

Most homeopaths here in Germany are also not only homeopaths. They usually are offering a variety of alternative health treatments, which they chose depending on the patient. The more responsible ones do seem to realize that they work via placebo, and know that they just have to tickle the patient the right way (of course never publicly admitting as such). A lot of them also know to recognize conditions that need to be treated scientifically, and send people to a doctor if needed.