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87-537: Prior to the formation of the BEA-TT, the government minister with responsibility for transportation would set up ad hoc investigation commissions, for example after the 1988 Paris-Gare de Lyon rail accident and 1999 Mont Blanc tunnel fire . These commissions were supported by the Conseil Général des Ponts et Chaussées (CGPC, "Civil Engineering General Council"). The CGPC's experience, particularly following

174-405: A generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances (compare with a priori ). Common examples include ad hoc committees and commissions created at the national or international level for a specific task, and the term is often used to describe arbitration (ad hoc arbitration). In other fields, the term could refer to a military unit created under special circumstances (see task force ),

261-445: A scientifically illiterate public, have "... walled themselves off from academic medicine, and critique has been all too often met with avoidance rather than argument". Homeopaths often prefer to ignore meta-analyses in favour of cherry picked positive results, such as by promoting a particular observational study (one which Goldacre describes as "little more than a customer-satisfaction survey") as if it were more informative than

348-595: A "cruel deception". Edzard Ernst , the first professor of complementary medicine in the United Kingdom and a former homeopathic practitioner, has expressed his concerns about pharmacists who violate their ethical code by failing to provide customers with "necessary and relevant information" about the true nature of the homeopathic products they advertise and sell. In 2013 the UK Advertising Standards Authority concluded that

435-429: A 30C dilution, and most modern provings are carried out using ultra-dilute preparations. Provings are claimed to have been important in the development of the clinical trial , due to their early use of simple control groups, systematic and quantitative procedures, and some of the first application of statistics in medicine. The lengthy records of self-experimentation by homeopaths have occasionally proven useful in

522-459: A consultation, which can be a 10–15 minute appointment or last for over an hour, where the patient describes their medical history . The patient describes the "modalities", or if their symptoms change depending on the weather and other external factors. The practitioner also solicits information on mood, likes and dislikes, physical, mental and emotional states, life circumstances, and any physical or emotional illnesses. This information (also called

609-425: A handcrafted network protocol (e.g., ad hoc network ), a temporary collaboration among geographically-linked franchise locations (of a given national brand) to issue advertising coupons, or a purpose-specific equation in mathematics or science. Ad hoc can also function as an adjective describing temporary, provisional, or improvised methods to deal with a particular problem, the tendency of which has given rise to

696-484: A lawsuit in 2018 against the CVS pharmacy for consumer fraud over its sale of homeopathic medicines. It claimed that CVS was selling homeopathic products on an easier-to-obtain basis than standard medication. In 2019, CFI brought a similar lawsuit against Walmart for "committing wide-scale consumer fraud and endangering the health of its customers through its sale and marketing of homeopathic medicines". They also conducted

783-483: A limit to the matter". To counter the reduced potency at high dilutions he formed the view that vigorous shaking by striking on an elastic surface – a process termed succussion – was necessary. Homeopaths are unable to agree on the number and force of strikes needed, and there is no way that the claimed results of succussion can be tested. Critics of homeopathy commonly emphasize the dilutions involved in homeopathy, using analogies. One mathematically correct example

870-418: A preventive health measure. These organizations report that no evidence exists that homeopathic treatment is effective, but that there is evidence that using these treatments produces harm and can bring indirect health risks by delaying conventional treatment. While some articles have suggested that homeopathic solutions of high dilution can have statistically significant effects on organic processes including

957-478: A relevant cause. The term ad hoc networking typically refers to a system of network elements that combine to form a network requiring little or no planning. Homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine . It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann . Its practitioners, called homeopaths or homeopathic physicians, believe that

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1044-535: A series of randomized controlled trials. In an article entitled "Should We Maintain an Open Mind about Homeopathy?" published in the American Journal of Medicine , Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst  – writing to other physicians – wrote that "Homeopathy is among the worst examples of faith-based medicine... These axioms [of homeopathy] are not only out of line with scientific facts but also directly opposed to them. If homeopathy

1131-471: A significant comeback and the sales of some homeopathic companies increased tenfold. Some homeopaths credit the revival to Greek homeopath George Vithoulkas , who conducted a "great deal of research to update the scenarios and refine the theories and practice of homeopathy" in the 1970s, but Ernst and Simon Singh consider it to be linked to the rise of the New Age movement . Bruce Hood has argued that

1218-619: A single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent "remember" the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease. All relevant scientific knowledge about physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology contradicts homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are typically biochemically inert, and have no effect on any known disease. Its theory of disease, centered around principles Hahnemann termed miasms ,

1305-859: A student of Hahnemann. The first homeopathic school in the United States opened in 1835 and the American Institute of Homeopathy was established in 1844. Throughout the 19th century, dozens of homeopathic institutions appeared in Europe and the United States, and by 1900, there were 22 homeopathic colleges and 15,000 practitioners in the United States. Because medical practice of the time relied on treatments which were often ineffective and harmful, patients of homeopaths often had better outcomes than those being treated by medical practitioners. Though ineffective, homeopathic preparations are rarely detrimental, thus users are less likely to be harmed by

1392-427: A substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur , or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution . In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent . Often not even

1479-553: A substance with a concentration of 0.01% ( volume-volume percentage ). A 6C dilution ends up with the original substance diluted by a factor of 100 (one part in one trillion). The end product is usually so diluted as to be indistinguishable from the diluent (pure water, sugar or alcohol). The greatest dilution reasonably likely to contain at least one molecule of the original substance is approximately 12C. Hahnemann advocated dilutions of 1 part to 10 or 30C. Hahnemann regularly used dilutions of up to 30C but opined that "there must be

1566-515: A survey in which they found consumers felt ripped off when informed of the lack of evidence for the efficacy of homeopathic remedies, such as those sold by Walmart and CVS. In 2021, the French healthcare minister phased out social security reimbursements for homeopathic drugs. France has long had a stronger belief in the virtues of homeopathic drugs than many other countries and the world's biggest manufacturer of alternative medicine drugs, Boiron ,

1653-419: A therapeutically active preparation, selectively including only the intended substance, though in reality any water will have been in contact with millions of different substances throughout its history, and homeopaths cannot account for the selected homeopathic substance being isolated as a special case in their process. Practitioners also hold that higher dilutions produce stronger medicinal effects. This idea

1740-459: A therapy derived from homeopathy in which the preparations come from diseased or pathological products such as fecal, urinary and respiratory discharges, blood, and tissue. They are called nosodes (from the Greek nosos , disease) with preparations made from "healthy" specimens being termed "sarcodes". Many so-called "homeopathic vaccines" are a form of isopathy. Tautopathy is a form of isopathy where

1827-496: A time. They were made to keep extensive journals detailing all of their symptoms at specific times throughout the day. They were forbidden from consuming coffee, tea, spices, or wine for the duration of the experiment; playing chess was also prohibited because Hahnemann considered it to be "too exciting", though they were allowed to drink beer and encouraged to exercise in moderation. At first Hahnemann used undiluted doses for provings, but he later advocated provings with preparations at

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1914-578: Is electrohomeopathy , where an electric bio-energy of therapeutic value is supposedly extracted from plants. Popular in the late nineteenth century, electrohomeopathy is extremely pseudo-scientific. In 2012, the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh, India, handed down a decree stating that electrohomeopathy was quackery and no longer recognized it as a system of medicine. Other minority practices include paper preparations, in which

2001-402: Is Fluxion, which dilutes the substance by continuously passing water through the vial. Insoluble solids, such as granite , diamond , and platinum , are diluted by grinding them with lactose (" trituration "). Three main logarithmic dilution scales are in regular use in homeopathy. Hahnemann created the "centesimal" or "C scale", diluting a substance by a factor of 100 at each stage. There

2088-405: Is a collection of "drug pictures", organized alphabetically. A homeopathic repertory is a quick reference version of the materia medica that indexes the symptoms and then the associated remedies for each. In both cases different compilers may dispute particular inclusions in the references. The first symptomatic homeopathic materia medica was arranged by Hahnemann. The first homeopathic repertory

2175-486: Is a fraud perpetrated on the public with the government's blessing, thanks to the abuse of political power of Sen. Royal S. Copeland." Since the beginning of the 21st century, a series of meta-analyses have further shown that the therapeutic claims of homeopathy lack scientific justification. This had led to a decrease or suspension of funding by many governments. In a 2010 report, the Science and Technology Committee of

2262-477: Is added to part of the previous mixture, but the "Korsakovian" method may also be used. In the Korsakovian method, the vessel in which the preparations are manufactured is emptied, refilled with solvent, with the volume of fluid adhering to the walls of the vessel deemed sufficient for the new batch. The Korsakovian method is sometimes referred to as K on the label of a homeopathic preparation. Another method

2349-449: Is also a decimal dilution scale (notated as "X" or "D") in which the preparation is diluted by a factor of 10 at each stage. The centesimal scale was favoured by Hahnemann for most of his life, although in his last ten years Hahnemann developed a quintamillesimal (Q) scale which diluted the drug 1 part in 50,000. A 2C dilution works out to one part of the original substance in 10,000 parts of the solution. In standard chemistry, this produces

2436-587: Is also inconsistent with observed dose-response relationships, where effects are dependent on the concentration of the active ingredient in the body. Some contend that the phenomenon of hormesis may support the idea of dilution increasing potency, but the dose-response relationship outside the zone of hormesis declines with dilution as normal, and nonlinear pharmacological effects do not provide any credible support for homeopathy. No individual homeopathic preparation has been unambiguously shown by research to be different from placebo. The methodological quality of

2523-544: Is correct, much of physics, chemistry, and pharmacology must be incorrect...". The exceedingly low concentration of homeopathic preparations, which often lack even a single molecule of the diluted substance, has been the basis of questions about the effects of the preparations since the 19th century. The laws of chemistry give this dilution limit, which is related to the Avogadro number , as being roughly equal to 12C homeopathic dilutions (1 part in 10 ). James Randi and

2610-467: Is inconsistent with subsequent identification of viruses and bacteria as causes of disease . Clinical trials have been conducted and generally demonstrated no objective effect from homeopathic preparations. The fundamental implausibility of homeopathy as well as a lack of demonstrable effectiveness has led to it being characterized within the scientific and medical communities as quackery and fraud . Homeopathy achieved its greatest popularity in

2697-763: Is located in that country. Spain has also announced moves to ban homeopathy and other pseudotherapies. In 2016, the University of Barcelona cancelled its master's degree in Homeopathy citing "lack of scientific basis", after advice from the Spanish Ministry of Health. Shortly afterwards the University of Valencia announced the elimination of its Masters in Homeopathy. Homeopathic preparations are referred to as "homeopathic remedies". Practitioners rely on two types of reference when prescribing: Materia medica and repertories. A homeopathic materia medica

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2784-710: Is not to use italics. For example, The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that familiar Latin phrases that are listed in the Webster's Dictionary , including "ad hoc", not be italicized. In science and philosophy , ad hoc means the addition of extraneous hypotheses to a theory to save it from being falsified . Ad hoc hypotheses compensate for anomalies not anticipated by the theory in its unmodified form. Scientists are often skeptical of scientific theories that rely on frequent, unsupported adjustments to sustain them. Ad hoc hypotheses are often characteristic of pseudo-scientific subjects such as homeopathy . In

2871-583: Is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective". The federal government only ended up accepting three of the 45 recommendations made by the 2018 review of Pharmacy Remuneration and Regulation. The same year the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a hearing requesting public comment on the regulation of homeopathic drugs. In 2017 the FDA announced it would strengthen regulation of homeopathic products. The American non-profit Center for Inquiry (CFI) filed

2958-504: Is that a 12C solution is equivalent to "a pinch of salt in both the North and South Atlantic Oceans". One-third of a drop of some original substance diluted into all the water on Earth would produce a preparation with a concentration of about 13C. Robert L. Park points out that a 200C dilution of duck liver, marketed under the name Oscillococcinum , would require 10 universes worth of molecules to contain just one original molecule in

3045-470: Is unproven and does not derive from the scientific method . An account of the effects of eating cinchona bark noted by Oliver Wendell Holmes , published in 1861, failed to reproduce the symptoms Hahnemann reported. Subsequent scientific work showed that cinchona cures malaria because it contains quinine , which kills the Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes the disease; the mechanism of action

3132-634: Is unrelated to Hahnemann's ideas. Hahnemann began to test what effects various substances may produce in humans, a procedure later called "homeopathic proving". These tests required subjects to test the effects of ingesting substances by recording all their symptoms as well as the ancillary conditions under which they appeared. He published a collection of provings in 1805, and a second collection of 65 preparations appeared in his book, Materia Medica Pura (1810). As Hahnemann believed that large doses of drugs that caused similar symptoms would only aggravate illness, he advocated for extreme dilutions. A technique

3219-509: The 10:23 campaign groups have highlighted the lack of active ingredients by taking large 'overdoses'. None of the hundreds of demonstrators in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US were injured and "no one was cured of anything, either". Modern advocates of homeopathy have proposed a concept of " water memory ", according to which water "remembers" the substances mixed in it, and transmits

3306-465: The Bach flower remedies , which were developed by Edward Bach . Hahnemann claimed that undiluted doses caused reactions, sometimes dangerous ones, and thus that preparations be given at the lowest possible dose. A solution that is more dilute is described as having a higher "potency", and thus are claimed to be stronger and deeper-acting. The general method of dilution is serial dilution , where solvent

3393-603: The Cochrane Collaboration concluded that this evidence "fails to demonstrate that homeopathic medicines have effects beyond placebo." In 2009, the United Kingdom's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concluded that there was no compelling evidence of effect other than placebo. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council completed a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of homeopathic preparations in 2015, in which it concluded that "there were no health conditions for which there

3480-459: The Organon , Hahnemann introduced the concept of "miasms" as the "infectious principles" underlying chronic disease and as "peculiar morbid derangement[s] of vital force". Hahnemann associated each miasm with specific diseases, and thought that initial exposure to miasms causes local symptoms, such as skin or venereal diseases. His assertion was that if these symptoms were suppressed by medication,

3567-689: The Russian Academy of Sciences have all concluded that homeopathy is ineffective, and recommended against the practice receiving any further funding. The National Health Service in England no longer provides funding for homeopathic remedies and asked the Department of Health to add homeopathic remedies to the list of forbidden prescription items. France removed funding in 2021, while Spain has also announced moves to ban homeopathy and other pseudotherapies from health centers. Homeopathy

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3654-568: The United States , but remained more deeply established in European thinking. In the United States, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 (sponsored by Royal Copeland , a Senator from New York and homeopathic physician) recognized homeopathic preparations as drugs. In the 1950s, there were only 75 solely homeopathic practitioners in the U.S. By the mid to late 1970s, homeopathy made

3741-747: The alternative medicine community, scientists have long considered homeopathy a sham or a pseudoscience , and the medical community regards it as quackery . There is an overall absence of sound statistical evidence of therapeutic efficacy, which is consistent with the lack of any biologically plausible pharmacological agent or mechanism. Proponents argue that homeopathic medicines must work by some, as yet undefined, biophysical mechanism. No homeopathic preparation has been shown to be different from placebo . The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting its efficacy and its use of preparations without active ingredients have led to characterizations of homeopathy as pseudoscience and quackery, or, in

3828-500: The bushmaster snake ), opium , and thyroidinum ( thyroid hormone ). Homeopaths say this is to ensure accuracy. In the USA the common name must be displayed, although the Latin one can also be present. Homeopathic pills are made from an inert substance (often sugars, typically lactose), upon which a drop of liquid homeopathic preparation is placed and allowed to evaporate. Isopathy is

3915-658: The "symptom picture") is matched to the "drug picture" in the materia medica or repertory and used to determine the appropriate homeopathic remedies. In classical homeopathy, the practitioner attempts to match a single preparation to the totality of symptoms (the simlilum ), while "clinical homeopathy" involves combinations of preparations based on the illness's symptoms. Homeopathy uses animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances in its preparations, generally referring to them using Latin names. Examples include arsenicum album (arsenic oxide), natrum muriaticum ( sodium chloride or table salt), Lachesis muta (the venom of

4002-423: The 19th century. It was introduced to the United States in 1825, and the first American homeopathic school opened in 1835. Throughout the 19th century, dozens of homeopathic institutions appeared in Europe and the United States. During this period, homeopathy was able to appear relatively successful, as other forms of treatment could be harmful and ineffective. By the end of the century the practice began to wane, with

4089-470: The 21st century, a series of meta-analyses have shown that the therapeutic claims of homeopathy lack scientific justification. As a result, national and international bodies have recommended the withdrawal of government funding for homeopathy in healthcare. National bodies from Australia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and France, as well as the European Academies' Science Advisory Council and

4176-476: The Mont Blanc tunnel fire, showed there was a need for a new legal framework that guaranteed investigators access to sites, recordings and information covered by commercial confidentiality or pre-trial non-disclosure agreements. An Act of parliament passed on 3 January 2002 supplied the legal basis for technical investigations and reaffirms and mandates the investigatory principals of independence, and commits to

4263-970: The UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser and head of the Government Office for Science said "homeopathy is nonsense, it is non-science." His predecessor, John Beddington , also said that homeopathy "has no underpinning of scientific basis" and is being "fundamentally ignored" by the Government. Jack Killen, acting deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine , says homeopathy "goes beyond current understanding of chemistry and physics". He adds: "There is, to my knowledge, no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective treatment." Ben Goldacre says that homeopaths who misrepresent scientific evidence to

4350-405: The UK and other commonwealth countries, ad hoc Royal Commissions may be set up to address specific questions as directed by parliament . In diplomacy, diplomats may be appointed by a government as special envoys , or diplomats who serve on a ad hoc basis due to the possibility that such envoys' offices may either not be retained by a future government or may only exist during the duration of

4437-611: The United Kingdom House of Commons recommended that homeopathy should no longer receive National Health Service (NHS) funding due its lack of scientific credibility; NHS funding for homeopathy ceased in 2017. They also asked the Department of Health in the UK to add homeopathic remedies to the list of forbidden prescription items. In 2015, the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia found that "there are no health conditions for which there

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4524-586: The accuracy of the research. After investigation the team found that the experiments were "statistically ill-controlled", "interpretation has been clouded by the exclusion of measurements in conflict with the claim", and concluded, "We believe that experimental data have been uncritically assessed and their imperfections inadequately reported." The provision of homeopathic preparations has been described as unethical. Michael Baum , professor emeritus of surgery and visiting professor of medical humanities at University College London (UCL), has described homeopathy as

4611-477: The available systematic reviews confirmed in 2002 that higher-quality trials tended to have less positive results, and found no convincing evidence that any homeopathic preparation exerts clinical effects different from placebo. The same conclusion was also reached in 2005 in a meta-analysis published in The Lancet . A 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis found that the most reliable evidence did not support

4698-441: The cause of such diseases as epilepsy , cancer , jaundice , deafness , and cataracts . Since Hahnemann's time, other miasms have been proposed, some replacing illnesses previously attributed to the psora, including tuberculosis and cancer miasms. Hahnemann's miasm theory remains disputed and controversial within homeopathy even in modern times. The theory of miasms has been criticized as an explanation developed to preserve

4785-457: The cause went deeper and began to manifest itself as diseases of the internal organs. Homeopathy maintains that treating diseases by directly alleviating their symptoms , as is sometimes done in conventional medicine, is ineffective because all "disease can generally be traced to some latent, deep-seated, underlying chronic, or inherited tendency". The underlying imputed miasm still remains, and deep-seated ailments can be corrected only by removing

4872-416: The deeper disturbance of the vital force. Hahnemann's hypotheses for miasms originally presented only three local symptoms: psora (the itch), syphilis (venereal disease) or sycosis (fig-wart disease). Of these the most important was psora , described as being related to any itching diseases of the skin and was claimed to be the foundation of many further disease conditions. Hahnemann believed it to be

4959-657: The development of modern drugs: For example, evidence that nitroglycerin might be useful as a treatment for angina was discovered by looking through homeopathic provings, though homeopaths themselves never used it for that purpose at that time. The first recorded provings were published by Hahnemann in his 1796 Essay on a New Principle . His Fragmenta de Viribus (1805) contained the results of 27 provings, and his 1810 Materia Medica Pura contained 65. For James Tyler Kent's 1905 Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica , 217 preparations underwent provings and newer substances are continually added to contemporary versions. Though

5046-467: The diseases that they treat. This led to the name "homeopathy" , which comes from the ‹See Tfd› Greek : ὅμοιος hómoios , "-like" and πάθος páthos , "suffering". The doctrine that those drugs are effective which produce symptoms similar to the symptoms caused by the diseases they treat, called "the law of similars", was expressed by Hahnemann with the Latin phrase similia similibus curentur , or "like cures like". Hahnemann's law of similars

5133-451: The early primary research was low, with problems such as weaknesses in study design and reporting, small sample size , and selection bias . Since better quality trials have become available, the evidence for efficacy of homeopathy preparations has diminished; the highest-quality trials indicate that the preparations themselves exert no intrinsic effect. A review conducted in 2010 of all the pertinent studies of "best evidence" produced by

5220-481: The effect of those substances when consumed. This concept is inconsistent with the current understanding of matter, and water memory has never been demonstrated to have any detectable effect, biological or otherwise. Existence of a pharmacological effect in the absence of any true active ingredient is inconsistent with the law of mass action and the observed dose-response relationships characteristic of therapeutic drugs. Homeopaths contend that their methods produce

5307-593: The effectiveness of non-individualized homeopathy. Health organizations, including the UK's National Health Service , the American Medical Association , the FASEB , and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, have issued statements saying that there is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition. In 2009, World Health Organization official Mario Raviglione criticized

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5394-444: The experiments with positive results could be reproduced by all investigators. In 1988, French immunologist Jacques Benveniste published a paper in the journal Nature while working at INSERM . The paper purported to have discovered that basophils released histamine when exposed to a homeopathic dilution of anti-immunoglobulin E antibody. Skeptical of the findings, Nature assembled an independent investigative team to determine

5481-690: The expression " allopathic medicine ", which was used to pejoratively refer to traditional Western medicine. Hahnemann conceived of homeopathy while translating a medical treatise by the Scottish physician and chemist William Cullen into German. Being sceptical of Cullen's theory that cinchona cured malaria because it was bitter, Hahnemann ingested some bark specifically to investigate what would happen. He experienced fever, shivering and joint pain : symptoms similar to those of malaria itself. From this, Hahnemann came to believe that all effective drugs produce symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of

5568-441: The final substance. The high dilutions characteristically used are often considered to be the most controversial and implausible aspect of homeopathy. Homeopaths claim that they can determine the properties of their preparations by following a method which they call "proving". As performed by Hahnemann, provings involved administering various preparations to healthy volunteers. The volunteers were then observed, often for months at

5655-539: The growth of grain and enzyme reactions , such evidence is disputed since attempts to replicate them have failed. In 2001 and 2004, Madeleine Ennis published a number of studies that reported that homeopathic dilutions of histamine exerted an effect on the activity of basophils . In response to the first of these studies, Horizon aired a programme in which British scientists attempted to replicate Ennis' results; they were unable to do so. A 2007 systematic review of high-dilution experiments found that none of

5742-559: The highly diluted drugs: "No poison, however strong or powerful, the billionth or decillionth of which would in the least degree affect a man or harm a fly." Nineteenth-century American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes was also a vocal critic of homeopathy and published an essay entitled Homœopathy and Its Kindred Delusions (1842). The members of the French Homeopathic Society observed in 1867 that some leading homeopaths of Europe not only were abandoning

5829-610: The increased popularity of homeopathy in recent times may be due to the comparatively long consultations practitioners are willing to give their patients, and to a preference for "natural" products , which people think are the basis of homeopathic preparations. Towards the end of the century opposition to homeopathy began to increase again; with William T. Jarvis , the President of the National Council Against Health Fraud , saying that "Homeopathy

5916-430: The last exclusively homeopathic medical school in the United States closing in 1920. During the 1970s, homeopathy made a significant comeback, with sales of some homeopathic products increasing tenfold. The trend corresponded with the rise of the New Age movement , and may be in part due to chemophobia , an irrational aversion to synthetic chemicals, and the longer consultation times homeopathic practitioners provided. In

6003-464: The majority of randomized trials in homeopathy have shortcomings and that such trials were generally of lower quality than trials of conventional medicine. A major issue has been publication bias , where positive results are more likely to be published in journals. This has been particularly marked in alternative medicine journals, where few of the published articles (just 5% during the year 2000) tend to report null results . A systematic review of

6090-485: The military, ad hoc units are created during unpredictable situations, when the cooperation between different units is suddenly needed for fast action, or from remnants of previous units which have been overrun or otherwise whittled down. In national and sub-national governance, ad hoc bodies may be established to deal with specific problems not easily accommodated by the current structure of governance or to address multi-faceted issues spanning several areas of governance. In

6177-430: The noun adhocism . This concept highlights the flexibility and adaptability often required in problem-solving across various domains. In everyday language, "ad hoc" is sometimes used informally to describe improvised or makeshift solutions, emphasizing their temporary nature and specific applicability to immediate circumstances. Style guides disagree on whether Latin phrases like ad hoc should be italicized. The trend

6264-588: The practice of administering infinitesimal doses but were also no longer defending it. The last school in the United States exclusively teaching homeopathy closed in 1920. According to academics Paul U. Unschuld  [ de ] and Edzard Ernst , the Nazi regime in Germany was fond of homeopathy, and spent large sums of money on researching its mechanisms, but without gaining a positive result. Unschuld also states that homeopathy never subsequently took root in

6351-542: The preparations are composed of drugs or vaccines that a person has consumed in the past, in the belief that this can reverse the supposed lingering damage caused by the initial use. There is no convincing scientific evidence for isopathy as an effective method of treatment. Some modern homeopaths use preparations they call "imponderables" because they do not originate from a substance but some other phenomenon presumed to have been "captured" by alcohol or lactose . Examples include X-rays and sunlight . Another derivative

6438-418: The proving process has superficial similarities with clinical trials, it is fundamentally different in that the process is subjective, not blinded , and modern provings are unlikely to use pharmacologically active levels of the substance under proving. As early as 1842, Oliver Holmes had noted that provings were impossibly vague, and the purported effect was not repeatable among different subjects. Outside of

6525-574: The publishing of the report. The BEA-TT was founded by a decree on 26 January 2004, with the right of access to all elements useful to an investigation, even those covered by non disclosure or confidentiality requirements such as those pre-trial or for commercial and medical reasons. Its current head office is in the Grande Arche in La Défense business district and in Puteaux . It formerly

6612-422: The system of homeopathy in the face of treatment failures, and for being inadequate to cover the many hundreds of sorts of diseases, as well as for failing to explain disease predispositions, as well as genetics , environmental factors, and the unique disease history of each patient. Homeopathy achieved its greatest popularity in the 19th century. It was introduced to the United States in 1825 by Hans Birch Gram,

6699-587: The terms for substances and dilutions are written on pieces of paper and either pinned to the patients' clothing, put in their pockets, or placed under glasses of water that are then given to the patients. Radionics , the use of electromagnetic radiation such as radio waves , can also be used to manufacture preparations. Such practices have been strongly criticized by classical homeopaths as unfounded, speculative, and verging upon magic and superstition. Flower preparations are produced by placing flowers in water and exposing them to sunlight. The most famous of these are

6786-575: The treatment that is supposed to be helping them. The relative success of homeopathy in the 19th century may have led to the abandonment of the ineffective and harmful treatments of bloodletting and purging and begun the move towards more effective, science-based medicine . One reason for the growing popularity of homeopathy was its apparent success in treating people suffering from infectious disease epidemics. During 19th-century epidemics of diseases such as cholera , death rates in homeopathic hospitals were often lower than in conventional hospitals, where

6873-424: The treatments used at the time were often harmful and did little or nothing to combat the diseases. Even during its rise in popularity, homeopathy was criticized by scientists and physicians. Sir John Forbes , physician to Queen Victoria , said in 1843 that the extremely small doses of homeopathy were regularly derided as useless and considered it "an outrage to human reason". James Young Simpson said in 1853 of

6960-508: The use of homeopathy to treat tuberculosis ; similarly, another WHO spokesperson argued there was no evidence homeopathy would be an effective treatment for diarrhoea . They warned against the use of homeopathy for serious conditions such as depression , HIV and malaria . The American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology recommend that no one use homeopathic treatment for disease or as

7047-445: The words of a 1998 medical review, "placebo therapy at best and quackery at worst". The Russian Academy of Sciences considers homeopathy a "dangerous 'pseudoscience' that does not work", and "urges people to treat homeopathy 'on a par with magic ' ". The Chief Medical Officer for England, Dame Sally Davies , has stated that homeopathic preparations are "rubbish" and do not serve as anything more than placebos. In 2013, Mark Walport ,

7134-527: Was Georg Jahr's Symptomenkodex , published in German in 1835, and translated into English as the Repertory to the more Characteristic Symptoms of Materia Medica in 1838. This version was less focused on disease categories and was the forerunner to later works by James Tyler Kent . There are over 118 repertories published in English, with Kent's being one of the most used. Homeopaths generally begin with

7221-430: Was created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann . Hahnemann rejected the mainstream medicine of the late 18th century as irrational and inadvisable, because it was largely ineffective and often harmful. He advocated the use of single drugs at lower doses and promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of how living organisms function. The term homeopathy was coined by Hahnemann and first appeared in print in 1807. He also coined

7308-511: Was devised for making dilutions that Hahnemann claimed would preserve the substance's therapeutic properties while removing its harmful effects. Hahnemann believed that this process enhanced "the spirit-like medicinal powers of the crude substances". He gathered and published an overview of his new medical system in his book, The Organon of the Healing Art (1810), with a sixth edition published in 1921 that homeopaths still use today. In

7395-468: Was found to be scientifically, logically and ethically flawed, with most authors having a conflict of interest . The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health later released a statement saying the book was published without the consent of the Swiss government. Meta-analyses , essential tools to summarize evidence of therapeutic efficacy, and systematic reviews have found that the methodological quality in

7482-640: Was headquartered in the Tour Voltaire  [ fr ] in La Défense business district and in Puteaux, and previously in the Tour Pascal B  [ fr ] in Puteaux and La Défense. Ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally ' for this ' . In English , it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than

7569-481: Was reliable evidence that homeopathy was effective." The European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC) published its official analysis in 2017 finding a lack of evidence that homeopathic products are effective, and raising concerns about quality control. In contrast a 2011 book was published, purportedly financed by the Swiss government, that concluded that homeopathy was effective and cost efficient. Although hailed by proponents as proof that homeopathy works, it

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