definition [was: New media attacks on homeopathy...

[John Harvey]

Suriya, I think you may have missed the way Irene described what this remedy is and how it has been "proved". It is a mixture of four vaccines which she supposes to nevertheless be identical, and its only "proving" has consisted of the isolated reports of cat owners unable even to read instructions on when to use the remedy. It apparently has invoked no characteristic symptoms beyond symptoms that are "flu like". And it is used regardless of individual symptomatology or even genus epidemicus. I see no homoeopathy there!

Cheers --

John
2009/7/8 suriya56 >

[John Harvey]

P.S. There has been no suggestion as yet that Irene or anybody else has prescribed this compound on the basis of its supposed proving symptoms -- only that such symptoms putatively exist. That too begs for explanation of the homoeopathy in its use!

Cheers --

John
2009/7/8 John Harvey >

[John Harvey]

Hi again, Suriya --

You're referring to the putative toxicological tests? No, I didn't miss that post; I responded to it, pointing out amongst other things that such tests were not seeking characteristic symptoms. (I might also have pointed out, but didn't, that such tests are looking to find minimal symptoms!) If Irene has ever seen the toxicology or any of the reports of symptoms of the potentised mixture, she has not, I think, listed them here and has offered not a breath of suggestion that they've served as the basis for comparison with natural symptoms. Instead, she has justified use of the mixture on the basis that its effect must be similar (though not too similar!) to any cat flu she thinks she is preventing.

I don't care what she practises, frankly; I care greatly that it not be misrepresented as having anything whatever to do with homoeoapthy, though.

Cheers!

John
2009/7/8 suriya56 >

[John Harvey]

Hi, Suriya --

Absolutely. And observations are observations, and collation is collation and truth is truth. So where are these symptoms, and why are they not used in the prescription.

Irene wants it both ways: the symptoms need not be similar, she says, because she's not using them. But the prescription she makes without using them is homoeopathic, because it has accidentally caused symptoms.

So Dr X prescribes penicillin for ear infections, because it works and therefore must be homoeopathic. The penicillin sometimes causes symptoms. Voila! Dr X is a homoeopath. This is the same logic that Irene's argument uses. Does it work?

Cheers!

John
2009/7/8 suriya56 >

[John Harvey]

Suriya, what does this have in common with the way Irene has described her prophylactic practice? It doesn't even have the same philosophical basis. Whereas Irene described her use of a mixture of flu vaccines (multivalent) as being on the basis that it was flu and the disease she wanted to protect against was also flu, you have used the now outdated law of similars!

John
2009/7/8 suriya56 >

[John Harvey]

Dear Suriya,

That manner of writing had little to do with you at all, and certainly was not intended to suggest that this was your view; sorry I didn't make that clear. I was attempting to convey a summary of the unhomoeopathic view of your practice!

Cheers --

John
2009/7/9 suriya56 >

[John Harvey]

Hi, Suriya --

As confusingly as I put it in an attempt at humour, I was actually asking a serious question here: you illustrated perfectly well the use of the law of similars in prophylaxis, but what has this method in common with Irene's use of a mixture of flu viruses, various animal species' proteins, and excipients purely on the basis of the names of the diseases the mixture is supposed to protect against when used allopathically?

Whilst your method is to find the genus epidemicus using similarity of symptoms and to protect individuals in that epidemic, Irene's method of preventing "cat flu" appears so far, from what she's said on the subject, to be to revaccinate (in potency) with this multivalent vaccine to protect cats against the very diseases the vaccine has already been given to the cats to protect them against. No use of epidemic symptoms, no use of "remedy" pathogenesis, no attempt to find a genus epidemicus (because the method takes no account of whether there happens to be an epidemic or not), but 100% success! It's truly wonderful to find this equated with your work, but I've yet to see any justification for it. Do you see the two methods as at all equivalent?

Cheers!

John
2009/7/8 John Harvey >

[John Harvey]

Hi, Liz --

This confusion between what somebody has (she thinks) used and what it is possible to capture in lactose or water and successfully potentise seems fairly common. Actually, the two are not even connected. And there is little evidence yet to suggest that sunlight, moonlight, oils, or, as Rik Shannon has pointed out, the noble gases can be potentised in water, though oils can be triturated.

Neither is there a connection between what medicine (or alleged medicine) somebody (thinks she) dispenses and whether it is prescribed homoeopathically (or even can be). I might use anything that I think will help somebody, in any fashion; that does not make my use of it homoeopathic, though, does it (or even mean that homoeopathic use of it is possible). If Chris had used a Bach flower remedy, that would not make it homoeopathic.

Homoeopathic use of sunlight, moonlight, and radio waves may never be possible in potency even if it is possible to alter lactose with nonionising radiation; carefully conducted provings in potency will be necessary in order for us to know whether it is indeed capable of having any medicinal effect. (Noble gases are most unlikely to have any effect at any attempted potency, even in mother tincture, as they cannot bind with water or lactose and so cannot be potentised.)

By the way, there's nothing insubstantial about Bach flower remedies, or about radium bromide, until, as with othe remedies, it reaches ultramolecular potencies, at around 23x, 12c, or LM4.

Cheers --

John
2009/7/16 Christine Gillen >