Forget coronavirus, homoeopathy cant cure anything. Its a placebo, at best – ThePrint

Text Size:A- A+

Bengaluru: When cases of coronavirus, the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people in China, were first reported in India, the AYUSH Ministry advised citizens to use homoeopathy to prevent infection.

A system of alternative medicine, homoeopathy courts deep popularity in India, so much so that many are known to believe that its an Indian system. According to the government, its the second most popular form of medicine in the country with as much as 10 per cent of the population relying on it.

It claims to treat diseases for which allopathy, or Western medicine, currently offers no cure from diabetes and psoriasis to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

Among followers, it is seen as a form of natural therapy, invoking a sense of Eastern mysticism with its promise of painless treatment.

However, homoeopathy is neither all-natural, nor Indian. Its not even Eastern it was created in 1796 by a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann, who reportedly coined the term allopathy as a pejorative for modern medicine.

One of the two basic tenets of the system is like cures like that is, if something causes acidity, the same thing will also ease it.

The other is the law of minimum dosage Taking a core ingredient and diluting it to such an extent that there isnt even a single molecule of the original substance left.

Despite its popularity, the system remains controversial. Most health experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), to the US Department of Health and Human Services and Britains National Health Service cite research and express scepticism. They discourage its use as an alternative to conventional medicine for life-threatening diseases, and see it as a harmless placebo at best and a purveyor of potentially lethal concoctions at worst.

Several countries like Britain and France do not allow government funding in the field, while Australia conducted a thorough review and declared it pseudoscience. Spain has proposed banning it for being dangerous.

Even so, there is no dearth of people who testify to its potential as a cure for a laundry list of conditions. In India, its the subject of a degree course that allows students to become registered practitioners and is overseen by a dedicated government department.

This contradiction is precisely the reason why the AYUSH Ministrys coronavirus advisory seemed to set the cat among the pigeons, leading several people to question the unproven advice in the face of a health crisis. But backers of the system were equally vocal.

So, what does a layperson make of it?

Also Read: Homoeopathy for coronavirus: Is AYUSH commitment to alt meds healthy or promoting quackery?

Hahnemann, the homoeopathy creator, believed there were only three kinds of illnesses, syphilis, psychosis (or fig-wart disease), and the itch (where the skin itches), which he thought were symptomatic of other diseases like cancer, deafness and epilepsy.

This theory is contentious even within homoeopathic communities today.

Hahnemanns basic premise rejects the theory that a disease or infection is through an outside cause and states that every illness is from within ones own body.

The homoeopathic premise of like cures like derives from an experiment Hahnemann conducted where he reportedly ingested large amounts of cinchona bark (it contains quinine, used to treat malaria even today). Hahnemann is believed to have concluded that the symptoms produced by overconsumption mirrored those for malaria, and thus the bark could treat the disease.

While its often believed to be plant-based and natural, the core ingredients involved in homoeopathic remedies can be animal- or plant-based, mineral or synthetic, designated with Latin or Latin-sounding names.

The creation of remedies involves diluting the core ingredient to such an extent with water, alcohol or sugar that there isnt even a single molecule of the original substance left.

Arsenic oxide, known as arsenicum album in homoeopathy, was what the AYUSH Ministry prescribed for coronavirus prevention. It has traditionally been used by homoeopaths as treatment for conditions such as digestive disorders, allergies and even anxiety and insomnia.

Other core ingredients include natrum muriaticum (sodium chloride or common salt), the poisonous belladonna flower, opium, and even products from a diseased person, like blood, urine, faeces, pus and mucus discharge.

Some preparations use captured ingredients such as x-rays and sunlight. Sol or sunlight is particularly common, and is obtained by exposing lactose (natural sugar occurring in milk) to the Sun.

To reduce the effects of radiation therapy, alcohol exposed to x-rays is used (which isnt natural). Often, insoluble substances like granite are ground to pieces with lactose and then diluted. For example, it was reported last year that a British homoeopath, who also caters to the royal family, was offering a remedy devised from pieces of the Berlin Wall as a cure for depression and asthma.

The dilution takes place in a form of logarithmic scales (where each step is a multiple of the previous one). The two used most commonly are X potency, where each scale represents a dilution by a factor of 10, and centesimal (C), by a factor of 100.

A 2X (unit of potency) scale would mean that a substance is diluted one part in 9, and then one part of the resulting solution again diluted in 9 parts of the solvent.

For example, one millilitre of a core ingredient first diluted in 9 millilitres of water, and one part of the resulting solution again diluted in 9 millilitres of water.

So, a 10X potency would repeat the process 10 times, and a 15X, 15 times.

This is the same for C, but by a factor of 100: One part diluted with 99 parts.

Common potencies used are 30X or 300C, but beyond 12C or 24X, there is no presence of even a single molecule of the core substance.

Homoeopathy believes that the more diluted a remedy is, the more potent it is. A potency of 100X, for example, is considered to be higher than 10X a fact chemists see as counterintuitive.

This is based on the controversial notion that water has memory and retains information about the substances it comes in contact with (and thus cures the body).

The final solution is poured over sugar tablets and left to evaporate.

Homoeopathic remedies are thus as good as harmless to the human body, but only when mixed correctly. There have been cases of arsenic poisoning in India because of poorly concocted homoeopathic remedies.

Homoeopathy was widely adopted in the 1800s as modern medicine was just evolving and included several painful practices. New diseases were infecting the human population, and medical science hadnt caught up yet.

Homoeopathy held the promise of painless treatment and gained popularity.

Homoeopathic schools opened in the US and Europe throughout the late 19th century, spurred by ineffective treatments for outbreaks like cholera, which killed hundreds of thousands of people at the time.

Medical practitioners investigated the system for assessing efficacy, and this is thought to have encouraged rigour in modern medicine as well.

However, leading homoeopaths rapidly started abandoning the practice in the mid-20th century as modern medicine showed real results. The last homoeopathic school in the US was shut down in 1920.

Later, Nazi interest in homoeopathy led to its resurgence in public consciousness in the 1930s and 40s but they abandoned the system quickly too.

It then gained favour with the New Age Movement, a Western phenomenon that spawned a variety of spiritual and religious beliefs in the 70s, and incorporated natural remedies for the mind, body, and spirit as their central tenet for health.

The movement has been known to adopt pseudoscientific beliefs such as astrology as a reaction against institutional establishment structures, and is credited with the rising popularity of homoeopathy today.

In India, homoeopathy was introduced in the early 19th century and was quickly adopted across the country, via Bengal.

The Calcutta Homoeopathic Medical College, the first Indian homoeopathic institute, was established in 1881.

In 1973, the Union government recognised homoeopathy as one of the national systems of medicine and set up the Central Council of Homoeopathy (CCH, now overseen by AYUSH Ministry) to regulate its education and practice.