I well remember the words of one Pharmacist I worked with during my pre-reg. She was a mother of two kids under five, and when it came to kids, mums and the like, she knew her stuff. She was also a wee bit into the natural medicine, but not in a complete hippy way, more in the educated, professional, informed opinion way. Anyway, we were talking about medications for kiddies and pregnant mums and she said;

A few weeks ago, I found myself explaining how homeopathy works to a med school colleague. Here's how it went;

So, in homeopathy, there's two principal theories; Firstly, that like cures like, and secondly, that a little does a lot. For example, to stop vomiting, there's a herb called Nux vomica which is in most of the anti-vomiting homeopathic preparations. Nux vomica is derived from the Strychnine plant, which in typical doses acts as a laxative, a poison (that makes you vomit), and well, it kills you. But, in these preparations it's diluted; invoking both priniples of homeopathy.

The ingredients are typically listed on the pack with a strength along the lines of "Each 2mL contains 2microL of each: Higgildus pillgedum 6X, Randomus plantium 5C". The C and the X mean that the ingredient is diulted by 100- or 1000-times, respectively. On top of the initial mircoL/mL dilution.

So, roughly from these numbers, we've mixed all these herbs together, then taken about a gram of the mix and thrown it into the middle of an olympic size swimming pool. Then, we fill the swimming pool with water and alcohol, and stir. Next, we take a sample the size of a shot glass and tell the customer to spray about 0.5mL in their mouth.

Now, I'm not one hundred percent sure of the properties of this stuff, but a quick and fanciful calculation using Avagadros' number would show that there's almost no chance of any molecules (other than water or alcohol) being in that spray. Call me crazy.

Recently my mum, a teacher, related to me a story whereby one of the pupils in her primary school, was receiveing 'homeopathic' injections for ADHD. This worries me most of all. Surely the negative psychological connotations of a needle in the arm, (or bum, or whatever,) far outweigh and possible placebo effects. Who knows what's being injected into the poor kid; not him, that's for sure. What of the risks of an infection due to poor sterile technique and skin puncture and pain? Or the pain? It's so highly dubious it's not funny.