From: David Lubkin (lubkin@unreasonable.com)
Date: Wed Aug 04 1999 - 19:47:34 MDT
On 8/4/99, at 8:14 AM, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>Please document this claim [[ that homeopathy worked better than
allopathy during epidemics in 19th and early 20th century ]]
In Austria during the 1831 cholera epidemic, homeopathic patients
had a mortality rate between 2.4 and 21.1% while over 50% of those
under allopathic care died.
In Cincinatti during the 1849 cholera epidemic only 3% of the 1116
homeopathic patients died while 48-60% of those under allopathic
care died.
Death rates during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 for homeopathic
patients were approx. 1/3 that of allopathic patients.
Details and additional citations appear in Harris Coulter's _Divided Legacy:
History Of The Schism In Medical Thought_, Volume III and Thomas
Bradford's _Logic of Figures_.
>> The AMA was formed by allopathic physicians, who were concerned
>> about their loss of patients to homeopaths.
>
>Probably true. That says nothing about the effectiveness of
>homeopathy, just the greed of doctors.
They were motivated because they had lost patients who had seen the
differential death rates for themselves. The patients voted with their
feet and their wallets. (A fine anarcho-capitalist activity.)
>> and its effectiveness in treating conditions that allopathic
>> medicine can only provide symptomatic relief for.
>An empty claim that no one has proved, despite decades of
>attempts.
Check the research citations.
>Homeopathic remedies have been tested
>and failed every double-blind trial ever done for them.
Not according to dozens of double-blind trials cited in my references.
And they inherently understate its efficacy because you cannot
easily pull together a true test group since homeopathy provides
such an individualized course of treatment. For the sake of the study
they had to use the same remedy for patients who would have gotten
something different were they not in the study.
>The homeopathic community continues to use Hahnemann's books
>as a bible despite decades of progress by medical science.
:
While Hahnemann's work has not been abandoned, homeopaths did
not stop there. Research continues apace. Don't judge the field
by what you see at Health Foods 'R Us.
Worldwide, a large percentage of homeopathic practitioners are
licensed physicians who combine homeopathy with allopathic
treatment. India by itself has over 100,000. They know chemistry,
physics, physiology, pharmacology, *and* homeopathy, and don't
find them inconsistent.
You're welcome to look at the studies and declare them flawed. Or to
say the subject doesn't interest you, and skip the postings (as I do
when people discuss the Omega Point). But just blindly declaring that
the whole topic is "pseudo-scientific drivel" or "quackery" is absurd.
-- David Lubkin.
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