Category: Briefly stated

This text describes the topic “Homoeopathy in German Pharmaceutical Law”.

In 1976, consultations began on a fundamental reorganisation of German pharmaceutical law. By and large, the state’s involvement in the pharmaceutical industry previously consisted of little more than a “registration” of drugs placed on the market under the responsibility of pharmaceutical manufacturers.

It had taken a long time for the legislature to consider its own responsibility in the field of drug supply. A trigger for this was the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s. This terrible process, in which neither the manufacturer nor the state authorities presented a particularly happy picture, gradually led to a growing awareness of the need for action – yet it still took 17 years before a fundamental reorganisation took place.

The basic approach of the new Medicines Act was to replace the mere registration with an “approval procedure” for pharmaceutical medicinal products and to link this to scientifically substantiated evidence of efficacy and side effects. The parliamentary and extra-parliamentary discussion dragged on for more than two years – in the end, the “Medicines Act 1978” (Arzneimittelgesetz) was passed. This marked a move away from a largely individual-empirical based therapy towards a drug therapy on as objective a basis as possible. All old remedies already registered at that time were subjected to a subsequent approval procedure, and many were no longer approved – often to the chagrin of doctors who had been using these remedies for a long time for “empirical medicine”. Even the pharmaceuticals marketed in the former GDR at the time of reunification were subject to such a subsequent approval procedure.

So far, so remarkable. So are all available medicines based on scientifically proven efficacy?

Not at all.

A very active parliamentary and also extra-parliamentary lobby succeeded in obtaining special rights for the “Erfahrungsheilkunde” ( experience medicine), to which apart from homeopathy anthroposophy and herbal medicine were added (how these three are connected is a story in itself). At that time it could be suggested to the parliamentarians in the context of the upcoming “innovations” that the “empirical medicine” of these directions pursues a completely different “approach” and that the principle of scientific proof, so to speak, bypasses the “peculiarities” of these directions. The parliamentary paper at that time speaks volumes and is quite interesting to read. [1]

Many parliamentarians may have been aware that the demand for proven effective drugs has nothing to do with “pluralism in science” and “a fundamentally different approach”, but represents nothing more than a self-evident basic consensus for health care. On the other hand, the representatives of the homeopathic and anthroposophical lobby will have been fully aware that the demand for scientific proof of efficacy would have meant the end for their remedies on the pharmaceutical market. Which, incidentally, was basically an admission that the homeopaths’ claims about the efficacy of their remedies and their great benefit to the patient were not substantially. So it was about something.

And so it came to a complete break with what had actually been the intention of the new law, in favour of what at that time was called “empirical medicine” and understood itself to be a kind of “separate medicine”. Special rules in the AMG established homeopathy, anthroposophy and phytotherapy (herbal medicine) as “special therapeutic directions” and granted them special rights. The proof of efficacy according to recognized scientific methods, actually the purpose and intention of the law for everything that wanted to trade as a drug, was waived on for these remedies.

In order to preserve the appearance of state regulation, it was decided that special commissions were to be set up at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (which at the time was still called differently) for the “special therapeutic directions”. For homeopathics, this is still Commission D today.

The old instrument of simple “registration” was retained for the medicinal products of these “directions”, as long as they were not to be marketed and advertised with a medical indication – as a purely administrative procedure in Division 4 of the BfArM. This department decides whether a remedy is homeopathic at all (of course the simple registration is extraordinarily “popular”) and, according to its own statements, makes this dependent on the “manufacturing process”, i.e. on the application of the principle of potentiated basic substance. In addition, safety and compliance with best practice rules during production are checked.

Those manufacturers who wish to advertise with an indication, i.e. information on areas of application, can submit an “application for approval”. The Commission D has to decide on this application. It bases its decision on “homeopathic knowledge material”, the evaluation of which is reserved for the “experts in the therapeutic direction” within Commission D. The Commission is therefore not responsible for the objective scientific evaluation of this material. On the contrary, such is suspended in favour of an “internal”, i.e. always subjective, expert assessment. In this way the “special therapeutic directions” are namely protected from the requirements of objective science, but at the same time, they also lack any possibility of invoking on this.

To clarify once again: the task of Commission D (and the commissions for the other special therapeutic directions) is not the evaluation of the approved applications of efficacy according to objective scientific criteria, as is the case for normal pharmaceuticals. No, the internal group of “experts” who have the “medical expertise in the therapeutic direction” will decide on the approval and thus the market access of homeopathic medicinal products with indications. Among themselves. In a joint consensus. According to personal perception, opinion or “experience”, according to “internal evidence” instead of intersubjective, generally valid criteria. This situation has remained unchanged since 1978 – on the homepage of Department 4 of the BfArM there is still talk of the relic of “scientific pluralism in the field of drug therapy”, which the legislation (40 years ago) had expressly provided for. Already at that time an anachronism that should not have been followed. [2]

This is the so often invoked “internal consensus” which still privileges homeopathy (and the other “special directions”) in an unacceptable way, even erecting a real protective fence around it. From the legal point of view – and in the general public’s perception – the remedies of the “special therapeutic directions” are just as much “drugs” as any pharmaceutical product that has undergone a testing and approval process that often takes years (only about eight per cent of all new developments in the pharmaceutical industry make it to approval in the first place). Homeopathy – and anthroposophy – are obviously doing their utmost to maintain this special legal regulation. This is because of their integration into the health care system and social security law depends directly on it.

There is nothing in German pharmaceutical law that is more in need of reform.

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Edit: Specified and extended on 5 July 2019

Homeopathy is occasionally referred to as “stimulus-regulation therapy”, which assumes the existence of a corresponding explanatory model. The reader (or listener) is left alone with this term – there is no precise explanation of how homeopathy could work as stimulus-regulation therapy.

What does “regulation” actually mean?

The term “stimulus-regulation therapy” contains the word “regulation”. In technology and in nature many variables (properties, parameters) are “regulated”, i.e. they are kept constant by a “control loop”.

A well-known example from technology is the regulation of room temperature. In the room there is a sensor for the temperature (“thermometer”), there is a device (“actuator”) that can change the room temperature (“heating” or “cooling unit”) and there is a circuit that uses the measured values from the thermometer to influence the actuator so that the temperature remains constant. The thermometer with built-in circuit keeps the temperature constant (static) by activating the actuators, therefore it is also called “thermostat”. When the room temperature drops, more heat is emitted from the heating. When the room temperature rises, excess heat is dissipated via the cooling unit.

There are also many parameters in our body that have to be kept constant. The range of permitted fluctuations is usually very small; excessively large deviations are not compatible with life. The principle is called “homeostasis”. Although this word is similar to the word “homeopathy”, it means something completely different. The prefix “homoeo” means – in both cases – “the same” and “-stase” describes that a state is “standing”, “static” or constant. (The word “homeopathy” actually means that a disease is to be cured with a “same” disease – and is thus wrongly chosen, because in homeopathy not the “principle of equality” applies, but the “principle of similarity” Hahnemann attached great importance to this distinction).

Some examples of homeostasis in the body are given below:

• The oxygen saturation in the blood. If the measured value drops, respiration is forced.
• Associated with this is the carbon dioxide content in the blood. If the measured value increases, respiration is forced.
• The salt content in the blood. If it rises, one gets thirsty and drinks water for dilution and the kidney excretes more salt. If it sinks, you get an appetite for saltiness and the kidney excretes more water.
• The blood sugar level. If it rises, more insulin is released. If it sinks, you get a ravenous appetite for sweets.
• The body temperature. If it sinks, the muscles begin to tremble (“freeze”) and try to generate movement heat, it rises, sweat is excreted to cool the body by evaporative cooling.

The list is of course far from complete, but these examples will suffice for your understanding.

Control loops follow the allopathic, not the homeopathic principle.

What you can see in all these examples: The control has the opposite effect on the disturbing change in order to cancel it out in this way. If the blood pressure rises, it is lowered. If the blood glucose level rises, it is lowered. If the body temperature rises, it is lowered. If the acid content in the blood rises, it is lowered. This principle corresponds to what Hahnemann contemptuously called “allopathy”. Even today it is still called “symptom suppression” by homeopaths.

The principle of homeopathy, however, is – in disregard of the wrongly chosen term “homeopathic” – to eliminate a disturbance by a similar disturbance. What should one imagine – with regard to the term “stimulus-regulation therapy”? Should, for example, an increased salt content in the blood be corrected by “even more salt” (possibly of a different type)? This would additionally burden the homeostasis, even if the amount of salt added is small. In addition, it is not necessary to “push” the control loop; the control loops are basic life functions. In the case of kidney damage, for example, the control sensor correctly measures the high salt content – it is the diseased kidney that cannot excrete the excess salt. There can be no stimulus regulation under the premise of the principle of similarity.

Hahnemann does not, however, explain homeopathy by any means via “stimulus regulation”. Hahnemann assumes that a body can never have two similar diseases at the same time. In such a case, he would have to separate from one of the two diseases: the weaker one. The aim of homeopathy is therefore to provide a diseased body with a second disease (“artificial disease”, triggered by the homeopathic remedy, which has a similar “drug picture” to the “symptom picture” of the disease). This second disease must be stronger in nature (it is supposed to drive away the original disease, which must be weaker), but weaker in symptoms (otherwise no one would want to be treated if the treatment produces more complaints than the disease). The term “stimulus regulation” does not fit into Hahnemann’s explanatory model.

Wrong labels

We observe in homeopathy that Hahnemann’s pre-scientific explanations are to be explained with modern scientific terms, “subsequently interpreted”, but this is not possible. Hahnemann’s doctrine of diseases from pre-scientific times does not know today’s terms such as “cellular pathology”, “physiology”, “biochemistry”, “biomechanics”, “microbiology”. The similarity principle of homeopathy and the homeostasis of body sizes are mutually exclusive. If one wants to regulate stimuli, one needs the “allopathy principle”. If one wants to adhere to the “homeopathy principle”, the term “stimulus regulation” remains empty.

Author: Dr. med. Wolfgang Vahle

A popular remedy – a closer look

Minor injuries with swelling (“bumps”) are often treated with arnica (e.g. in small children after they have fallen and a “bruise” forms, sometimes even prophylactically in athletes). The rapid decrease in swelling is considered to be evidence of the medicinal effect of homeopathic medication.

There are two different types of application:

1. Arnica as a herbal medicinal product, mostly administered in the form of ointments. The quantity of medicinal substances is sufficiently high so that an efficacy of the plant ingredients cannot be ruled out at all.

2. Arnica as a homeopathic remedy, mostly administered in the form of globules. The amount of medicinal substances is reduced by the dilution process during potentiation to such an extent that the effectiveness of the herbal ingredients is excluded.

From the point of view of homeopathy, both types of application contradict each other. The similarity principle of homeopathy means that medicines are applied to sick people which produce the symptoms of the disease in healthy people. When homeopaths use arnica as a homeopathic remedy for swelling, they must assume that a higher dose of arnica causes swelling.

However, this is not possible, because a higher dosage of arnica is not used to cause swelling, but to treat it. If arnica reduces swelling in higher doses, it cannot be used as a homeopathic remedy for this indication. If arnica as a homeopathic remedy is effective against swelling, it should not be used in higher doses against swelling, because arnica would lead to an increase in swelling in this case.

Both application types are mutually exclusive. Arnica cannot be a homeopathic remedy if it is used as an “allopathic remedy” (a term used by Samuel Hahnemann to derogate medicine).

In case reports it is repeatedly pointed out that swelling disappears more quickly under arnica globules therapy than without.

It has to be said that a comparison between both versions – swelling with arnica globules compared to swelling without arnica globules – is not possible without large case numbers (studies): A patient cannot be treated with the same swelling with and without arnica at the same time. The recovery time is normally only an estimated value: usually the time is not determined by a stopwatch. The assertion that swelling would disappear more slowly if you don’t take arnica is nothing more than an assumption. In surgical outpatient departments, it is regularly observed that swelling decreases rapidly at all and that there are no differences between patients – regardless of whether or not arnica globules were administered.

What happens medically with a minor injury? In the first phase, substances are released into the tissue that lead to swelling. Blood vessels can also be injured so that blood escapes (“bruise”, “haematoma”). But already after a short time other substances (e.g. “histamine”) are released which lead to a vasodilatation. More liquid is then transported away via the more distant vessels in a shorter time and the swelling decreases again.

Conclusion: Arnica as a homeopathic remedy for minor injuries is ineffective.

1. The principle of similarity – one of the essential foundations of homeopathy – cannot be effective because higher doses of arnica are not used to create swelling but to treat it.

2. The exorbitant dilution during potentizing causes all ingredients necessary for the treatment to disappear: There are no active substances in the globules.

Comparisons between treatments “with” and “without” arnica globules cannot be performed on the same patient. Thus, it is not possible to determine whether the swelling with arnica globules has decreased more compared to the swelling without arnica globules: A patient cannot be treated with and without arnica for the same swelling. Here it is important that it is one and the same swelling – otherwise no comparison can be made.

4. the high rate of regression of swellings during treatment with arnica beads is only an estimated size, which is also very strongly dependent on wishful thinking and selective perception.

It is often not known that swelling quickly disappears even without treatment with arnica globules, but this can be explained very well from a medical point of view. You can trust it.

In 1755 a devastating earthquake destroyed Lisbon, the British-French war over North America raged and on 10 April Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was born in Meissen (Triebischvorstadt) as the third child of the porcelain painter Christian Gottfried and his wife Johanna Christine Hahnemann. Of course, it was not yet foreseeable that this little innocent child would invent the greatest hoax of medicine: homeopathy. In his birthplace Meissen, little Samuel went first to the city school and then with a scholarship to the “Fürstenschule St. Afra”.

From 1775 he studied medicine in Leipzig, earning his living as a translator (for many medical texts) and language teacher. Another station of his studies was Vienna, where he stayed for a good three quarters of a year, until he got a job as librarian and personal physician with the new imperial governor of Transylvania, Baron Samuel von Brukenthal. He therefore spent the next two years in Hermannstadt (today Sibiu), where he was also admitted to the Masonic Lodge “Zu den drei Seeblättern” (The Three Lake Leaves).

In 1779 he received his doctorate at the University of Erlangen. He not only worked as a doctor, but also as a chemist, translator and writer. He also often changed his place of residence and moved through numerous North and Central German cities, whereby his medical success oscillated between practice closures and complete overworking. He also continued his chemical experiments, his greatest success probably being the “Hahnemann wine test”. With this small experiment one could see whether a wine was mixed with toxic lead sugar. The Prussian government prescribed this wine tasting to the Berlin wine merchants by law.

In 1782 Hahnemann married the daughter of the Hettstedt pharmacist, Johanna Leopoldine Henriette Küchler, who was to give him eleven children in rapid succession.

The list of Hahnemann’s family’s places of residence until 1796 is long: Gommern – Dresden – Lockwitz – Leipzig – Stötteritz – Gotha – Königslutter – Moschleben – Göttingen – Pyrmont – Wolfenbüttel – Braunschweig. On average he moved every year, which was mainly due to the economic possibilities of the individual places. However, there were also often disputes with pharmacists, since the doctor Hahnemann also hired himself out as a chemist and pharmacist and thus poached in foreign territories. Thus the “Leipzig Dispense Controversy” (see below) is also a prominent example.
His changing occupations also gave him insights into more exotic areas of his profession. In Dresden, for example, he supported the city physician, which gave him insight into the forensic medicine of the time. This is also reflected in his memorandum on arsenic poisoning.
In Stötteritz, a suburb of Leipzig, in 1790 Hahnemann translated the two-volume pharmacopoeia of the Scottish physician William Cullen and in a footnote Hahnemann reported for the first time on his own experiment with cinchona bark. This can be regarded as the first step towards the development of homeopathy.

That Hahnemann had a quite good reputation at the beginning of the 1790s is also shown by the memberships in the “Churfürstlich Mayntzische Academie nützlicher Wissenschaften” in Erfurt (1791) and in the “Gelehrtenakademie Leopoldina” (1793).

From 1792 to 1793 he was in charge of a “Recovery Institute for about 4 insane persons from wealthy houses”, which was founded by the publisher Becker in Gotha.

Three years later, after publishing his successful pharmacist encyclopedia in two volumes, he publicly formulated his theory about the healing method he had devised for the first time. This was in an article published in 1796 in “Hufeland’s Journal of Practical Medicines” entitled “Versuch über ein neues Princip zur Auffindung der Heilkräfte der Arzneysubstanzen, nebenst einigen Blicken auf die bisherigen” (“Experiment with a new principle to find the healing powers of the medicinal substances, together with some insights into the previous ones”). Here we also find for the first time the theorem that similar should be cured with something similar.

In Altona (1799) and Mölln (1800), where he moved next, he had no great luck with his undertakings. In Altona a “powder” failed, which should prevent the infection with scarlet fever and in Mölln he sold borax under the name “neues Laugensalz”. This was discovered and he had to refund the money he had earned.

Machern – Eilenburg – Schildau. Again frequent moves between 1801 and 1803. In this time one finds the first reports about homeopathic treatments in his patient journals. In his essay “Ueber die Kraft kleiner Gaben der Arzneien überhaupt und der Belladonna insbesondere” (“On the Power of Small Gifts of Medicines in General and of the Belladonna in Particular”, published in Hufeland’s Magazine), he further deepened his theory.

In 1805, when he lived in Torgau, he used the term homeopathy for the first time. This in an essay that also was published by Hufeland: “Pointer to the homeopathic use of remedies in previous practice”. Also first books appeared, like the “Heilkunde der Erfahrung” (“Medicine with Experience”), a forerunner of the “Organon der Heilkunst”, first published in 1810.

Also at this time his book “Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis sive in sano corpore observatis” was published, in English “Fragments on the safe medicinal powers or those observed on the healthy body”. Both books are interesting in so far as they describe his self- and external experiments.

In 1810 the first edition of “Organon der rationellen Heilkunde” (from the second edition on named “Organon der Heilkunst”) appeared, which is still the “Bible” of homeopaths today. Due to the presumptuous and polemical tenor of this work, some controversial discussions were ignited. One year later, the “Reine Arzneimittellehre” (Materia medica pura) was published for the first time, in which drug testing on healthy people was presented.

In 1812 Hahnemann habilitated at the University of Leipzig and began to give lectures on homeopathy. He also continued his drug experiments, mainly with his students. However, his work for homeopathy was not only met with approval at that time and soon Hahnemann was involved in extensive academic discourses.

Hahnemann also sought confrontation in other areas. Although the Leipzig pharmacists had the privilege to produce pharmaceuticals, he insisted on producing his own preparations – after which he was sued by three pharmacists. The trial ended with a settlement according to which the pharmacists retained their privilege and Hahnemann was only allowed to take action in an emergency or in rural communities. This process went down in history as the “Leipzig Dispense Controversy”.
Hahnemann, of course, wasn’t pleased of this at all and so he moved to Köthen in 1821, where the Duke of Anhalt-Köthen granted him a privilege for self-dispensing. The first edition of the “Chronic Diseases”, a not undisputed work even among homeopathy fans, also fell into the Köthen period, as Hahnemann introduced the idea of “miasms” for the first time in this work. Hahnemann here for the first time formulated the idea that potentiation should happen by shaking during the dilution steps. He hoped that this would lead to the production of preparations free of side effects.

During his time in Köthen, Hahnemann revised the organon twice. In these two editions, Hahnemann also for the first time advocated the idea that an immaterial vital force of the organism was the origin of the Simile principle. This idea, too, was not shared by all his followers. In general it remains to be said that in the 1830s the battles for direction within the homeopaths increased strongly and Hahnemann often expressed himself quite drastically about his “opponents”.

In 1830 his wife died and at the end of 1834 he met the French painter Mélanie d’Hervilly in his practice. Both fell in love with each other and their wedding in Hahnemann’s house after only a few weeks on January 18, 1835 provided a topic of conversation in Köthen society. At 34, the bride was 45 years younger than the groom. The fact that the wedding was held in a private ceremony without church blessing also cheered on the gossip.

In 1835 Hahnemann and his new wife moved to Paris, where he opened a homeopathic practice – just like in Köthen. Hahnemann worked here on the sixth edition of the Organon, which he finished in 1842. Here he introduced the Q potencies, which included dilution steps of 1:50,000.

Samuel Hahnemann died on 2 July 1843 in Paris, where he is still buried today. The sixth edition of his Organon, however, was first published by Richard Haehl in 1921 due to disputes between Mélanie Hahnemann and her husband’s students.

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Author: Michael Scholz

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Picture credits: Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann. Line engraving by L. Beyer after J. Schoppe, senior, 1831.
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Water lilies grow on a lake and their surface area increases tenfold every day. After nine days the lake is completely overgrown. How much of its surface is covered after eight days? (Solution at the end)

What does that have to do with homeopathy? Quite a lot. A central feature of homeopathic remedies is their potentiation, i.e. the multiple dilution of the initial substances. This is based on the pre-scientific idea that the more diluted a substance is, the stronger its effect. In each step, the original substance in which the selected material was dissolved is diluted with the solvent (distilled water or ethanol) in a prescribed procedure and shaken.

The abbreviation D (Latin decem = ten) for homeopathic remedies refers to the tenfold dilution at each step, the abbreviation C (Latin centum = hundred) to the hundredfold. The number behind D or C indicates the number of dilution steps. D6 – a frequently used “potency” – therefore means one part of original substance per one million parts of solvent.

If we translate this into the volume of liquids, we get a ratio of one drop (one millilitre) to seven bathtubs full to the brim (1,000 litres). This means that the solution still contains detectable amounts of the original substance. Whether these are physiologically effective, however, can rightly be doubted. D12 is now not a double dilution like D6 – and certainly not the double effectiveness -, but the one million higher dilution. Even with small differences in the numbers it is often forgotten that about D7 represents ten times the dilution of D6, D8 one hundred times.

If we now want to produce a product with the potency D12, we take a drop from one of our seven bathtubs with D6 and distribute it evenly over a further seven bathtubs with water. If this liquid is not marketed as a drop – which use alcohol as a solvent and are diluted with water again before ingestion – we then spray it with a factor of 1 to 100 (0.1 gram solution on 10 grams of globules) onto sugar globules and let them dry. Our homeopathic remedy D12 would then be ready for sale.

The problem with the term “potentiation” is that “potency” has a different meaning in colloquial language as in science than in homeopathy, namely from the Latin word potentia “power, strength, ability”. In pharmacology, for example, the potency of a substance describes its potency, substances with higher potency work in lower concentrations than those with lower potency. In homeopathy, the meaning is exactly the opposite; the higher the potency, the less the initial substance is contained – not a single molecule at D23 at the latest.

For D23, by the way, you would need a quantity of water to dilute one gram of basic substance, which corresponds to the content of the Pacific and Indian Oceans together. In practice, however, nine tenths of the solution are simply poured away before each dilution step.

Potentiation therefore does not mean that the agents with a higher dilution are more effective, more “potent”, but that, on the contrary, they contain a factor of ten (or even one hundred) less active substance from step to step and therefore, according to all scientific criteria, cannot have a pharmacological effect. (And why there is no “energy” during potentiation, read here.)

Exponential growth or exponential atrophy are processes that are difficult to grasp intuitively. We can hardly imagine doubling (2ⁿ …) or tenfold (10ⁿ …) at each individual step, or an exponential decrease as in homeopathic dilution (10ⁿ …), after each step only one tenth of the initial substance is left). We are practically always wrong about such nonlinear developments if we have to estimate the results after only a few steps. In everyday life we encounter these developments, for example, in compound interest: we always underestimate the development of a credit that bears interest annually, including the interest accrued to date, over a longer period of time: At an interest rate of 5 % in 50 years, € 1,000 will become € 11467.40. If we were to consider only the annual interest rate of € 50 without the compound interest effect, it would only be € 3,500.

Exponential is therefore a function in which there is a percentage change in each step compared with the previous position. Each change affects the following.

For example, it only takes nine days to decimate one billion euros to one euro if your assets are only one tenth of the value of the previous day every day. Such a loss in value occurs in hyperinflation, where money has less purchasing power every day.

It is just as difficult for people to imagine very large or very small numbers and quantities. For example, people like to confuse millions and billions, the latter being a thousand times larger. Example: It takes almost three years to accumulate one billion euros if you get one million euros every day. For a trillion (10 to the power of 12) one would have to multiply the period by 1,000. 3,000 years ago the biblical King David lived, so you would have to have received one million euros a day since his birth. Even larger or smaller numbers can practically no longer be grasped intuitively, also because they do not occur in our everyday perception.

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P.S.: The answer to the question at the beginning is: On the eighth day, one tenth of the water surface is covered with water lilies, on the seventh with one percent.

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More about potentiation in our Homöopedia (in German)

Author: Dr. Susanne Kretschmann (Dipl.-Psych.)

Picture of Ganossi on Pixabay

Animal homeopathy is widespread and highly praised. At Google the term achieves nearly 100,000 hits (retrieved 20.08.2019). But it is a building that was first constructed by Hahnemann’s successors. There is only a short text of his own, never published by him, in which he suggests the idea of carrying out or setting up drug tests and materia medica for animals as well. He himself did not come back to it – but his exegetes started with animal homeopathy already during his lifetime. Today, however, the services of homeopathic animal therapists can be found everywhere.

We can probably assume that Hahnemann was aware of the following problems and therefore had the insight to refrain from establishing an animal homeopathy himself, which did not prevent some of his successors from doing so. In order to prevent misunderstandings – of course homeopathy as a whole is a misguided building of ideas, here it is above all a matter of demonstrating the nonsense of the ” Add-On ” of animal homeopathy even in the homeopathic framework.

• The physiology of animals is very different from that of humans, and also within animal breeds. Many diseases in the animal kingdom occur only species-specifically at all, which presupposes an enormous differentiation with the collection of disease pictures. At Hahnemann’s time, animal-specific diseases were of course already known, but they could not yet be interpreted in terms of a different physiology.
• Therefore, a completely new basis would have been needed in addition to the homeopathic method for humans: drug testing on animals, animal-specific Materia Medica and homeopathic anamnesis on animals. Apart from the fact that this should have been done individually for each animal breed, would this have been affordable according to the requirements of the Organon? This question will have to be answered in the negative. Nevertheless – drug tests were carried out on “healthy animals”, already around the middle of the 19th century. It is hardly conceivable what misguided things were produced by that.
• How can a homeopathic anamnesis be carried out in animals, especially in completely different species, as a detailed overall picture of the physical, mental and spiritual condition of the patient, including all the smallest details of its symptoms, as required by the “Organon”, the homeopath’s “holy book”? The same applies, of course, to drug testing, which is only a reflection of the patient’s anamnesis on the basis of the most accurate recording of the smallest impairment of well-being in the test person. After all, the animal is not in a position to provide as detailed information as the method requires. Many symptoms of veterinary diseases are characterized anyway by the fact that they appear very late openly.
• The practicing animal homoeopaths – in contrast to their spiritus rector – showed so little insight into these problems that until today people were content with more than poor constructions. This is the case to the extent that drug testing as well as anamnestic surveys were and are carried out in the absence of linguistic communication through “observation” of the animal and, if necessary, questioning of the animal owner (modern expression for this: anamnesis by proxy). It is not apparent that the Organon’s methodological requirements could be met by such a “crutch”.
• Today there is a myriad of methods and publications on drug testing and anamnesis in animals. Just this slide into boundlessness and arbitrariness is a clear sign of a misguided method. And if no reference book is available for the individual case, then the analogous recourse to the repertories for human treatment must serve; if necessary, once more the so frequently invoked experience has to do it.

So it is not surprising that the study situation on the effectiveness of animal homeopathy is catastrophic – which even homeopathy organisations admit.

Whether in humans or animals, the homeopathic method is neither effective nor gentle or holistic. Homeopathy is non-treatment – with all the inherent systemic risks in the case of non-self-limiting diseases, whether in humans or animals. Moreover, the animal cannot provide for itself and is dependent for the better or for the worse on the responsibility of its owner. This can only be done by making evidence-based veterinary medicine available to the animal. Everything else is unethical, the word cruelty to animals is quite in place.

Another word on antibiotics in (mass) animal husbandry: antibiotics for non-specific reasons must be rejected. This includes, in particular, preventive and regular administration due to inadequate husbandry conditions. Antibiotics for veterinary medical reasons are to be preferred if necessary however naturally to the ” inactivity ” through homeopathic remedies. The increasing idea that the use of homeopathic remedies offers an “alternative” to antibiotic treatment in livestock is a fatal error, which has an enormous potential for danger!

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Read more about homeopathy in animals.

Read more about “Homeopathy in the cattle stable” (in German)

The Homöopedia detailed about homeopathy in animals (in German)

Picture: UE for the INH

English version will appear soon.

“We all don’t process information as carefully and reflectively as we think we do.”

Fast thinking versus slow thinking

People use two different ways of thinking. Normally we judge intuitively, without reflection and according to learned, generalized and often irrational rules that are not consciously perceived and questioned. Such intuitive rules are for example: “Loss of something is worse than an equal loss of profit” – “When one event occurs after another, it is caused by the first” – “My view on a subject corresponds to the opinion of the majority” – “chemical is bad, of natural origin is good” or also “scientific explanations are only one of several equivalent views”. This system has its advantages, it is fast and mostly effective for everyday decisions in a stable environment. It’s also called thinking fast.

System two, which is called slow thinking, is the logical and systematic thinking, the weighing of different alternatives according to rational points of view. It is slow, but leads to more reliable results, especially under uncertain conditions or when making important decisions. Economists in particular, with their model of “homo oeconomicus”, are of the (often erroneous) opinion that people always behave rationally.

The slow rational system must first be consciously activated, while the intuitive one is permanently “in operation”. This means that it not always come to fruition, even in the case of important and momentous decisions. So we do not weigh up the important arguments, but are often influenced in our intuitive way of thinking by completely unimportant criteria. Studies have shown that judges’ judgments after eating were milder than before – blood glucose had influenced the decision, not just the rational balance.

Homeopathy “feeds” fast thinking

The more central a conviction is for one’s own value system, the more powerful the intuitive level is. For example, in a consolidated belief in the effectiveness of homeopathy, it is of little use to refute individual points because they are supported by others – doubts would question one’s own self-image! Experiences, which contradict the firm belief (a remedy does not work), do not question the remedy or homeopathy as such, but are explained within the system (wrong application, wrong boundary conditions, wrong homeopath). As a rule of thumb can be considered: The less comprehensive an intuitive control system is or the less central a rule such as “chemical vs. biological” is in the value system, the less immune they are to irritations such as logical refutation. In this case, the rational debate can be set in motion by questioning intuition, by letting the rule “stumble”, so to speak: “Why should something work that does not contain any active ingredient?” Someone for whom homeopathy is not central will think about the argument and perhaps come to their own conclusions. A convinced homeopathic practitioner will change the level of argumentation and bring the supposed water memory into play.

Our judgements and behaviour are usually determined more by the intuitive level than by the rational level. The world is too complex to process every input in detail and to judge it rationally. So we use cognitive heuristics that give us quick orientation and guidance. One of these heuristics is, for example, the intuitive judgment of a text according to the connotations of the words used, i.e. the emotional meanings that the terms have subjectively. When fast reactions are required – and they are usually in everyday life (for example: Is this product interesting for me? Am I going to read this text? Does this information correspond to my opinion?) -, we usually let ourselves be guided by this first subjective impression and not by rational reflection.

How to convince homeopathy advocates?

By rational arguments rather not, because the rational thinking is largely “switched off” in the evaluation of the beloved healing method. The choice of terms when communicating with believers in alternative medicine is nevertheless important for the acceptance of the arguments. The term “not complicated” in a product description leaves a more negative feeling than the term “simple”, although both have the same meaning. We will tend not to buy the product or to accept communicated information. This effect generally occurs in negative statements, especially in written communication: the negative connotation and not the objective content is permanently remembered.

The phenomenon of reaction to connotations instead of content can be easily verified: How does an opponent of alternative medicine spontaneously perceive a text and evaluate it, which contains some of the following words, possibly already in the heading: Mindfulness – gentle – natural – subtle – quantum healing – energetic – healer? How long will she be reading? Will she buy a book advertised with such terms?

For this reason, terms should also be avoided that have already acquired their own meaning in relevant discussions and have been appropriated by one side, i.e. are stored in an intuitive rule. They automatically generate ideas that obstruct or make impossible the goal of communication – namely an objective examination of the topic and the information conveyed – from the outset. Examples of such contaminated terms are “chemical” vs. “biological”, “esoteric”, “science”, “pharmaceutical industry” or “sugar pellets”.

On the other hand, as a homoeopathic practitioner one intuitively grasps the associations of homoeopathy such as “natural”, “gentle” or “no side effects” and tends to do so emotionally quickly – often without further questioning these associations. Perhaps, however, it will be possible with previous advocates to flip the switch from fast to slow thinking and to sensitize them for new arguments against their previous faith by using the right choice of words – INH is also committed to this.

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Author: Dr. Susanne Kretschmann is a graduate psychologist specializing in cognitive and environmental psychology

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Read more:

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow; Penguin Pocketbook, 512 pages (2016)

“How homeopathy overrides common sense”

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Photo: Shutterstock 41183275 Sebastian Kaulitzki