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The Flu
- Thread starter NBLD
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Since I am in San Francisco, there are no shortages of Luddite, "let's wave a chicken over your head" schools of "medical" treatment; and homeopathy (and bloodletting , no doubt) is still embraced in some places. There was an article in the local paper about a general avoidance of using Tamiflu this season and plenty of those who saw homeopathy as a valid choice suggested their alternatives. I responded, in kind, and received no less than fifteen very rude personal responses (what does my poor mom have to do with anything?) from local practitioners and devotees; though -- hilariously -- no one bothered to argue with the math. Here, in part, was what I had written:
To those illiterate defenders of homeopathy in the twenty-first century? It is absolute quackery, whose supposed remedies often contain less than a molecule of any “active” ingredient and whose claims, under criticism, that "water has a memory;" or some unquantifiable “vibration,” should go the way of phrenology, medicinal leeches and bloodletting.
For those unclear on the wonky 1796(!) concept, the following: “homeopathic remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, followed by forceful striking on an elastic body, called succussion. Each dilution followed by succussion is said to increase the remedy's potency. Dilution usually continues well past the point where none of the original substance remains.
Here are a few figures for those interested. Hahnemann, homeopathy’s founder, typically recommended a ten (to the negative 60th) dose of the original substance of interest, for any treatment. In that case one would need to consume ten (to the 41st) number of pills (a billion times the mass of the Earth); or ten (to the 34th) gallons of liquid remedy (10 billion times the volume of the Earth) to consume a single molecule of the original substance . . .
Oooh, sign my up . . .
To those illiterate defenders of homeopathy in the twenty-first century? It is absolute quackery, whose supposed remedies often contain less than a molecule of any “active” ingredient and whose claims, under criticism, that "water has a memory;" or some unquantifiable “vibration,” should go the way of phrenology, medicinal leeches and bloodletting.
For those unclear on the wonky 1796(!) concept, the following: “homeopathic remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, followed by forceful striking on an elastic body, called succussion. Each dilution followed by succussion is said to increase the remedy's potency. Dilution usually continues well past the point where none of the original substance remains.
Here are a few figures for those interested. Hahnemann, homeopathy’s founder, typically recommended a ten (to the negative 60th) dose of the original substance of interest, for any treatment. In that case one would need to consume ten (to the 41st) number of pills (a billion times the mass of the Earth); or ten (to the 34th) gallons of liquid remedy (10 billion times the volume of the Earth) to consume a single molecule of the original substance . . .
Oooh, sign my up . . .
