The campaign against spring fever, and a better alternative
Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:22 am
I'm going to attempt the impossible here: to finally clarify the obvious for the impervious: why the campaign to incorporate complexes and unproven medicines into homoeopathy will never succeed and what else can be done instead to satisfy the belligerents insisting upon it. And I'm going to attempt it via the brief analogy of the repeated calls for institution of a campaign of mass inoculation against spring fever.
It's my contention that before we institute such a campaign of mass inoculation, several questions need answering:
(1) Are there preferable alternatives to doing it?
(2) If there are no preferable alternatives, does it become absolutely necessary?
(3) If not absolutely necessary, is it more desirable than not?
(4) If it is more desirable than not, is it possible?
Anybody familiar with the histories of homoeopathy, vaccinations, and public health will be able to offer ready answers to these questions.
First: are there preferable alternatives to preventive inoculation? Yes: treatment by homoeopathy; education in hygiene; probably some public-health measures.
But suppose that there were no effective alternative preventive measures or safe treatments; then...
Second: does it then become necessary?
Given that it's possible for most people to access fresh fruit and vegetables, boil water, get out into the sun, and avoid kissing others at the wrong time, it's possible to regard the supposed lack of alternatives as specious. We can conquer spring fever in other ways; we can live with it; with a little care, we can get over it. We can live with it. A vaccine is not absolutely necessary.
But suppose that we didn't know how to prevent its transmission and knew without a doubt that this epidemic would become a pandemic and take on a fatal form; then...
Third: is it more desirable than not?
Spring fever can have certain sequelae; amongst them, exhaustion, chronic fatigue, and exacerbation of dust-mite allergies. It is also transmissible in one form or another for a long period. On the other hand, the sequelae of the vaccine are unknown, and similar vaccines, such as those against HPV, have already caused a great number of deaths, and there is no evidence that the vaccine will offer lasting protection. On balance, no. In any case...
Fourth: is it possible?
There is not yet any vaccine developed against spring fever, and the development of one is not possible: the condition is not dependent upon any particular bodily state except aliveness.
Now look in the same light at the proposal to institute a campaign of mass indoctrination in a redefinition of homomeopathy.
Is it possible?
Of course, we already understand that it's not possible to change what homoeopathy is simply be wishing to do so. A rock is a rock, and wishing that a clothesline might also be a rock does not make it so.
But suppose it were possible to mount a campaign to defend any and all use of potentised substances, single or polypharmaceutical, as consistent with homoeopathy.
Would it be desirable?
First, who would we have defending what? Would this bring about the united defence of the law of similars? Clearly not: it would bring about only what we already have: the attempt to defend anything and everything because it is called homoeopathy.
Second, how likely is any parliament to offer support to such broad use of medicines, whether restricted to ultramaterial potencies or including the low potencies? The point is not merely that in Hahnemann's consistent view we would be defending the indefensible, but rather that we would be telling our legislators that we as individual practitioners are unable to distinguish between homoeopathy and the prescription of apparently magical medicine any old how. Parliamentarians may not be readers of this list, but they're not necessarily ignorant of the word homoeopathy, especially when legislation is before them concerning it.
Third, the attempt to blur the line between homoeopathy and the magic promoted here with monotonous regularity is defamation not only of homoeopathy but also of its practitioners -- strangely, the same defamation practised, deliberately and in ignorance, by homoeopathy's opponents -- and no real homoeopaths will ever tolerate your saying about them that they don't recognise the difference between homoeopathy and everything else, though of course one is always welcome to continue saying it about oneself.
But even were it possible and desirable:
Is it necessary?
The world has come to recognise that something is going on here: that people use small doses of something (even doses too small to count at all) capable of causing symptoms similar to those of the patient. This much is universally recognised by anybody who has heard of homoeopathy. What necessity has been given to take away an understanding so hardwon over two centuries?
None.
What are the alternatives?
Given the lack of possibility, necessity, and desirability of the change that this campaign seeks, it would be easy to imagine that its proponents would give it up if they had any sense.
I think that the trouble here is that the anti-homoeopathic crowd on this list has backed itself into a corner. On the one hand, its several constituents don't want to declare their hand on this list too plainly as pro allopathic (compounds, prescriptions without a basis in adequate provings, etc.); on the other hand, however inadvertently, they have already done so.
That leaves them continually defending a position that they claim not to support, on the basis that, although they know better than to confuse homoeopathy with medicines with an "X" on them, nobody else does.
The good news is that there are only about three people on this list whose experience of the public's understanding is that it understands homoeopathy to be something completely other than it is -- something practised any old how with ultramolecular doses without regard to the law of similars. Nobody else seems to trip over the masses of ignorance that these few do. They're obviously living in very unfortunate neighbourhoods.
It may be that if they asked for help in cleaning it up -- in how to explain homoeopathy better to the ignorant -- instead of proposing to increase these piles of ignorance by their own efforts, they'd receive more support in their efforts than the support of a couple of self-confessed polypharmacists. But... they're in a corner.
So, having established that neither a possibility, nor a necessity, nor the desirability exists of this proposed mass-ignorance campaign as to what homoeopathy is, let us look at the alternatives.
• First possibility -- agree to use words the way they're defined: Shannon, Luise, and Irene, the three who most waste this list's time in campaigning for mass disinformation, could agree that homoeopathy is the ideal way of practising medicine when it's possible and that other means can always be used when we deem them necessary regardless that they fall under other categories than homoeopathy, and commence promoting homoeopathy rather than mongrelopathy.
That would be the ideal resolution of the matter. I take it, though, that this will not occur, as the three of you have too much conjectural medicine at stake in your own lives to let go of the tantalising mirage of enclosure of conjecture in the homoeopathic method.
• Second possibility -- create a new supercategory: the three of you could invent a new term to cover all those practices that you want to fall under one term. If you'd like suggestions, mine is potency medicine, and I'll perhaps use that term for this collection of practices for the remainder of this discussion. For reasons that I think I've made clear above, it would be undesirable for homoeopaths to be identified as practising mere potency medicine; it would as well unnecessarily limit them, as neither high nor low potencies are always necessary in homoeopathic practice, as Hahnemann could tell you. Primarily, though, it would have the disadvantage of identifying homoeopaths as not valuing the law of similars over any desperate alternative basis for prescription.
I won't include as a third possibility the laughable idea that the three of you are going to persuade the rest of us to throw in our lot with those (if they truly exist beyond you three!) who would identify in the name of homoeopathy, for literary and legislative protection, any old practice that begins with potentising substances.
It's as clear to me as it is mystifying to you that the majority on this list in fact understand that homoeopathy is practised on the basis of symptom similarity -- and therefore on the basis of provings -- and therefore on the basis of selection between single substances.
I won't even start on the most obvious weakness of all in the argument that compound remedies may be homoeopathic to the patient: the logical implication that all one ever need prescribe is a compound of the potencies of everything -- which for some unaccountable reason none of you has ever proposed. And the reason I won't start on it is that any idiot can, and no doubt would, think up the lovely conjecture that the potency compounds marketed by allopathic "homoeopathic" manufacturers are specially selected to work together rather than against each other -- and other such codswallop. The fallaciousness in ad hoc explanations such as that doesn't warrant dwelling upon, though I've no doubt that such conjecture find in you three a large capacity for convenient belief.
One further suggestion
I do have one further suggestion, and that is that you create your own "potency medicine" discussion list. In that place, you can argue for any definition you prefer of any word that you find inconveniently restrictive either to yourselves or to the patients and potential patients you have yet to educate or to your entire country -- whatever mass of people you believe share your view of homoeopathy. Please tell your followers about the intransigence of the rest of us on this list, those who maintain, in word and practice, the clear distinction between homoeopathy and the rest of potency medicine: the law of similars (with its basis in provings and single substances and inherent exclusion of unproven medicines and compounds). The rest of us will welcome not only the peace but also the fresh distinctiveness that this will bring us from those who think that a homoeopathic medicine relates to potency rather than to similarity, and from those who have so far made such a concerted, if misguided, effort to take from homoeopathy its name for adhering to the law of similars (need I mention again provings and single substances?).
Please take this proposal seriously. If support for potency medicine (as I've defined it) is as universal as you three suppose it is, then you'll have no trouble in attracting the largest possible following on your new list. In fact, most of us will have no compunction about inviting anybody with a desire to dismantle the boundary between potency medicine and that practice based upon the law of similars to join you and leave discussions in this place to proceed without further destructive distraction from the task of saving homoeopathy from those who actually declare themselves its enemies.
In a nutshell, there is no reason to subcategorise homoeopathy, with its single principle, into potency medicine based on that principle (called homoepathy) and potency medicine without that principle (also called homoeopathy). It would make a great deal more sense to incorporate homoeopathy into a supercategory such as potency medicine, which you can always and accurately say includes homoeopathy but also includes whatever it is that you want. And you can discuss that supercategory, however named, to your heart's content on another list without the belligerence of us stick-in-the-mud homoeopaths who don't want to spend any more time and effort sorting out your multiple confusions and contesting the insupportable claims that you yourselves immediately deny (here I'm thinking specifically, of course, of Irene). With your own supercategory that includes us narrow-minded homoeopaths, you'll have no contest; you'll be able to discuss all the wonderful conjectures you like; and there will be no further reason for what some would regard as bickering but may be better described as belligerent misunderstanding of the obvious.
Kind regards,
John
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)
It's my contention that before we institute such a campaign of mass inoculation, several questions need answering:
(1) Are there preferable alternatives to doing it?
(2) If there are no preferable alternatives, does it become absolutely necessary?
(3) If not absolutely necessary, is it more desirable than not?
(4) If it is more desirable than not, is it possible?
Anybody familiar with the histories of homoeopathy, vaccinations, and public health will be able to offer ready answers to these questions.
First: are there preferable alternatives to preventive inoculation? Yes: treatment by homoeopathy; education in hygiene; probably some public-health measures.
But suppose that there were no effective alternative preventive measures or safe treatments; then...
Second: does it then become necessary?
Given that it's possible for most people to access fresh fruit and vegetables, boil water, get out into the sun, and avoid kissing others at the wrong time, it's possible to regard the supposed lack of alternatives as specious. We can conquer spring fever in other ways; we can live with it; with a little care, we can get over it. We can live with it. A vaccine is not absolutely necessary.
But suppose that we didn't know how to prevent its transmission and knew without a doubt that this epidemic would become a pandemic and take on a fatal form; then...
Third: is it more desirable than not?
Spring fever can have certain sequelae; amongst them, exhaustion, chronic fatigue, and exacerbation of dust-mite allergies. It is also transmissible in one form or another for a long period. On the other hand, the sequelae of the vaccine are unknown, and similar vaccines, such as those against HPV, have already caused a great number of deaths, and there is no evidence that the vaccine will offer lasting protection. On balance, no. In any case...
Fourth: is it possible?
There is not yet any vaccine developed against spring fever, and the development of one is not possible: the condition is not dependent upon any particular bodily state except aliveness.
Now look in the same light at the proposal to institute a campaign of mass indoctrination in a redefinition of homomeopathy.
Is it possible?
Of course, we already understand that it's not possible to change what homoeopathy is simply be wishing to do so. A rock is a rock, and wishing that a clothesline might also be a rock does not make it so.
But suppose it were possible to mount a campaign to defend any and all use of potentised substances, single or polypharmaceutical, as consistent with homoeopathy.
Would it be desirable?
First, who would we have defending what? Would this bring about the united defence of the law of similars? Clearly not: it would bring about only what we already have: the attempt to defend anything and everything because it is called homoeopathy.
Second, how likely is any parliament to offer support to such broad use of medicines, whether restricted to ultramaterial potencies or including the low potencies? The point is not merely that in Hahnemann's consistent view we would be defending the indefensible, but rather that we would be telling our legislators that we as individual practitioners are unable to distinguish between homoeopathy and the prescription of apparently magical medicine any old how. Parliamentarians may not be readers of this list, but they're not necessarily ignorant of the word homoeopathy, especially when legislation is before them concerning it.
Third, the attempt to blur the line between homoeopathy and the magic promoted here with monotonous regularity is defamation not only of homoeopathy but also of its practitioners -- strangely, the same defamation practised, deliberately and in ignorance, by homoeopathy's opponents -- and no real homoeopaths will ever tolerate your saying about them that they don't recognise the difference between homoeopathy and everything else, though of course one is always welcome to continue saying it about oneself.
But even were it possible and desirable:
Is it necessary?
The world has come to recognise that something is going on here: that people use small doses of something (even doses too small to count at all) capable of causing symptoms similar to those of the patient. This much is universally recognised by anybody who has heard of homoeopathy. What necessity has been given to take away an understanding so hardwon over two centuries?
None.
What are the alternatives?
Given the lack of possibility, necessity, and desirability of the change that this campaign seeks, it would be easy to imagine that its proponents would give it up if they had any sense.
I think that the trouble here is that the anti-homoeopathic crowd on this list has backed itself into a corner. On the one hand, its several constituents don't want to declare their hand on this list too plainly as pro allopathic (compounds, prescriptions without a basis in adequate provings, etc.); on the other hand, however inadvertently, they have already done so.
That leaves them continually defending a position that they claim not to support, on the basis that, although they know better than to confuse homoeopathy with medicines with an "X" on them, nobody else does.
The good news is that there are only about three people on this list whose experience of the public's understanding is that it understands homoeopathy to be something completely other than it is -- something practised any old how with ultramolecular doses without regard to the law of similars. Nobody else seems to trip over the masses of ignorance that these few do. They're obviously living in very unfortunate neighbourhoods.
It may be that if they asked for help in cleaning it up -- in how to explain homoeopathy better to the ignorant -- instead of proposing to increase these piles of ignorance by their own efforts, they'd receive more support in their efforts than the support of a couple of self-confessed polypharmacists. But... they're in a corner.
So, having established that neither a possibility, nor a necessity, nor the desirability exists of this proposed mass-ignorance campaign as to what homoeopathy is, let us look at the alternatives.
• First possibility -- agree to use words the way they're defined: Shannon, Luise, and Irene, the three who most waste this list's time in campaigning for mass disinformation, could agree that homoeopathy is the ideal way of practising medicine when it's possible and that other means can always be used when we deem them necessary regardless that they fall under other categories than homoeopathy, and commence promoting homoeopathy rather than mongrelopathy.
That would be the ideal resolution of the matter. I take it, though, that this will not occur, as the three of you have too much conjectural medicine at stake in your own lives to let go of the tantalising mirage of enclosure of conjecture in the homoeopathic method.
• Second possibility -- create a new supercategory: the three of you could invent a new term to cover all those practices that you want to fall under one term. If you'd like suggestions, mine is potency medicine, and I'll perhaps use that term for this collection of practices for the remainder of this discussion. For reasons that I think I've made clear above, it would be undesirable for homoeopaths to be identified as practising mere potency medicine; it would as well unnecessarily limit them, as neither high nor low potencies are always necessary in homoeopathic practice, as Hahnemann could tell you. Primarily, though, it would have the disadvantage of identifying homoeopaths as not valuing the law of similars over any desperate alternative basis for prescription.
I won't include as a third possibility the laughable idea that the three of you are going to persuade the rest of us to throw in our lot with those (if they truly exist beyond you three!) who would identify in the name of homoeopathy, for literary and legislative protection, any old practice that begins with potentising substances.
It's as clear to me as it is mystifying to you that the majority on this list in fact understand that homoeopathy is practised on the basis of symptom similarity -- and therefore on the basis of provings -- and therefore on the basis of selection between single substances.
I won't even start on the most obvious weakness of all in the argument that compound remedies may be homoeopathic to the patient: the logical implication that all one ever need prescribe is a compound of the potencies of everything -- which for some unaccountable reason none of you has ever proposed. And the reason I won't start on it is that any idiot can, and no doubt would, think up the lovely conjecture that the potency compounds marketed by allopathic "homoeopathic" manufacturers are specially selected to work together rather than against each other -- and other such codswallop. The fallaciousness in ad hoc explanations such as that doesn't warrant dwelling upon, though I've no doubt that such conjecture find in you three a large capacity for convenient belief.
One further suggestion
I do have one further suggestion, and that is that you create your own "potency medicine" discussion list. In that place, you can argue for any definition you prefer of any word that you find inconveniently restrictive either to yourselves or to the patients and potential patients you have yet to educate or to your entire country -- whatever mass of people you believe share your view of homoeopathy. Please tell your followers about the intransigence of the rest of us on this list, those who maintain, in word and practice, the clear distinction between homoeopathy and the rest of potency medicine: the law of similars (with its basis in provings and single substances and inherent exclusion of unproven medicines and compounds). The rest of us will welcome not only the peace but also the fresh distinctiveness that this will bring us from those who think that a homoeopathic medicine relates to potency rather than to similarity, and from those who have so far made such a concerted, if misguided, effort to take from homoeopathy its name for adhering to the law of similars (need I mention again provings and single substances?).
Please take this proposal seriously. If support for potency medicine (as I've defined it) is as universal as you three suppose it is, then you'll have no trouble in attracting the largest possible following on your new list. In fact, most of us will have no compunction about inviting anybody with a desire to dismantle the boundary between potency medicine and that practice based upon the law of similars to join you and leave discussions in this place to proceed without further destructive distraction from the task of saving homoeopathy from those who actually declare themselves its enemies.
In a nutshell, there is no reason to subcategorise homoeopathy, with its single principle, into potency medicine based on that principle (called homoepathy) and potency medicine without that principle (also called homoeopathy). It would make a great deal more sense to incorporate homoeopathy into a supercategory such as potency medicine, which you can always and accurately say includes homoeopathy but also includes whatever it is that you want. And you can discuss that supercategory, however named, to your heart's content on another list without the belligerence of us stick-in-the-mud homoeopaths who don't want to spend any more time and effort sorting out your multiple confusions and contesting the insupportable claims that you yourselves immediately deny (here I'm thinking specifically, of course, of Irene). With your own supercategory that includes us narrow-minded homoeopaths, you'll have no contest; you'll be able to discuss all the wonderful conjectures you like; and there will be no further reason for what some would regard as bickering but may be better described as belligerent misunderstanding of the obvious.
Kind regards,
John
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)
