homeopathic medicine
Meaning of homeopathic medicine: A system of remedies prepared by repeated dilution, based on principles that predate modern chemistry and conflict with it.
Definition of homeopathic medicine
Homeopathic medicine is a system of alternative treatment built on two principles: that a substance causing certain symptoms in a healthy person can treat an illness with similar symptoms, and that repeatedly diluting and shaking that substance increases its therapeutic power. Remedies are often diluted past the point where any original molecule remains. Reviews of clinical trials have not found effects distinguishable from placebo.
How are the remedies made?
A starting material, usually a plant, mineral or animal product, is dissolved and then diluted in a repeated sequence, with vigorous shaking at each step. Labels record how far this has gone. A remedy marked 30C has been diluted one part in a hundred, thirty times over.
| Notation | Dilution at each step | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| X or D | One part in ten | 6X is six such steps |
| C | One part in a hundred | 30C is thirty such steps |
| M | One part in a thousand | Higher dilution still |
What is the scientific objection?
Chemistry sets a limit on how far a substance can be diluted before none of it is left, since matter is made of countable particles. Dilutions at and beyond about 12C pass that limit, so a tablet at 30C is overwhelmingly likely to contain no molecule of the original substance at all. Practitioners answer that water retains an imprint of what it once held, a proposition for which no accepted physical mechanism exists. The second principle, that like treats like, is unrelated to how vaccines work, a comparison sometimes offered but not sustainable, since a vaccine delivers a measurable quantity of material that provokes a specific immune response.
What does the evidence show?
Individual trials report positive results, as trials of any inactive treatment sometimes do, but systematic reviews that pool the higher quality studies have repeatedly concluded that effects are consistent with placebo. Several national reviews have reached the same conclusion. This places it among the forms of alternative medicine whose popularity rests on individual experience rather than on trial evidence, and the consultation itself, which is typically long and attentive, may account for part of that experience.
Where does the risk lie?
The remedies themselves are usually inert, so direct harm is uncommon, though products with low dilutions do contain active material and cases of poisoning have been reported. The greater concern is indirect: effective treatment delayed or declined for a serious illness. Homeopathy is regulated as a category of its own in several countries, which allows products to be sold without the proof of effectiveness required of medicines.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
The medication history included several homeopathic medicine preparations taken alongside prescribed treatment.
Good to know
Dilutions beyond roughly 12C contain no molecule of the starting substance, and the documented harm from these products is chiefly the delay of effective treatment rather than direct toxicity.
Word origin
Where “homeopathic medicine” comes from
From the Greek homoios, meaning similar, plus pathos, meaning suffering, reflecting the principle that like treats like.