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Letters to the Editor
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Homoeopathy
Built on an unsound foundation
From Dr R. J. Schmidt, MRPharmS
Lee Kayne (PJ, 5 August, p160) made reference to a press release on
the subject of homoeopathy for malaria prophylaxis but failed to elaborate.
He was, in fact, alluding to a Health Protection Agency announcement
that stated: “There is no scientific proof that homeopathic remedies
are effective in either preventing or treating malaria. In addition,
the Faculty of Homeopathy does not promote the use of homeopathic remedies
for disease prevention and note that their use in malaria prevention
is unlikely to be acceptable to insurance providers.”
This reopens a debate
I was trying to encourage almost a year ago (PJ,
17 September 2005, p336) when I questioned why homoeopathic doses of
quinine are not used to treat malaria. In responding, Lawrence Collin
(PJ, 1 October 2005, p407 PDF (160K)) asserted that homoeopathic
doses of china officinalis and sulfite [sic] of quinine are used to treat
malaria.
Several
websites refer to the use of china officinalis — better known to
pharmacists as Cinchona officinalis — in homoeopathy. Indeed, Kent’s
Homoeopathic Repertory to
which Lawrence Collin referred, is available online. There, one can find
a monograph on china
officinalis which lists about 3,800 conditions/circumstances
where it might be prescribed. These range from absent-mindedness to windy
and
stormy weather, and cover nearly every bodily function. Little wonder
that Chin sulph and Quin sulph “are two of the top 14 or so remedies
listed”. But this is not documentary evidence of efficacy.
On another site we
can read the following: “It
is sad to think how many people die unnecessarily from malaria. I think
about the explorations of Henry Morton Stanley, the Belgian colonist
King Leopold. In spite of huge doses of quinine — or because of
it — his porters died by the thousands from malaria. This was nearly
a century after Hahnemann proved the effectiveness against malaria of
homeopathic dilution of china. And now we face medication-resistant malaria
cases. I predict that china in homeopathic doses will have a great comeback
in treating malaria.”
The interesting point here is that modern day homoeopaths seem to overlook
the historical fact, which they themselves quote, that Hahnemann developed
his “let like be treated with like” paradigm when trying
to discover the mechanism by which allopathic doses of quinine exert
their effect on the symptoms of “the ague”, ie, malaria.
I cannot claim to have read extensively on the subject, but as far as
I can tell, the use of homoeopathic doses of quinine/cinchona in the
treatment of the ague is based, not on actual observations of efficacy
in patients, but on theoretical grounds based on the “proving” of
the remedy in healthy individuals (ie, on wishful thinking).
The implicit admission by the Faculty of Homeopathy, that homoeopathy
is not effective in either treating or preventing malaria, is highly
significant because it is an acknowledgment that Hahnemann’s house
of homoeopathy has been built on an unsound foundation. That is not to
say that homoeopathy has no place in medical practice. However, we should
now accept that any health benefit that accrues from potentisation by
dilution can be explained only in terms of the psychology (“mystique”)
of healing — at least, that is, until a properly conducted keystone
clinical trial of homoeopathic quinine/cinchona in patients with malaria
demonstrates that an alternative explanation has to be sought. A Nobel
Prize would surely follow.
Richard J. Schmidt
Barnoldswick,
Lancashire
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal