Alternative medicine 101
So, let’s make a few things clear. Homeopathy, naturopathy and herbalism… basically the same thing, natural cures etc, right? No, they aint.
Homeopathy was invented by Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, a time when going to see a medical doctor could have possibly had you dead by a) bloodletting b) leeching or some other peculiar yet dangerous intervention. The idea behind it is in curing like with like vs with the opposite. The classic example is malaria and cinchona bark which will be later used as a source of quinine. So, if one had malaria one would be feverish. Then when one ingests cichona bark preparation, one also becomes feverish and thus be cured. So far so good you might say for the time period, but wait, there’s more. To that one must add that supposedly, the more you dilute it, the stronger it gets. So, when it says 12C it means 12 serial 100 fold dilutions. Here one wonders why that does not apply to other chemical substances, like paint for instance. Why with each dilution it loses color instead of gaining it?… Might have something to do with this Avogadro dude who would hint that at this dilution there is hardly any molecule of the remedy still present in the solution. Also, the very concept of homeopathy predates the microbial theory of infectious diseases, cause back then you got sick cause of myasma, or bad air and not because your barber surgeon was cutting open corpses with his scalpel before draining an abscess on you without any pesky washing in between.
Naturopathy is based on an assumption that whatever is natural that is good (Arsenic, anyone? Very natural, or how about infant mortality of 50% before the age of 5? Very natural indeed before mean Zemmelveis had made people wash their hands and some other dude found penicillin). It has started in USA at the turn of 20th century as a mix of opportunism and a reaction to the ascent of modern medicine. It is in essence a mishmash of some valid modalities as hydrotherapy, massage, healthier uproach to life with whatever a particular practitioner fansies. Homeopathy, energy healing, colonic enemas, iridology, you name it. You can read more about here from a former naturopath who went into the profession in all honesty to help people only to find out that almost all of it is bunkum. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kavinsenapathy/2016/05/31/why-is-big-naturopathy-afraid-of-this-lone-whistleblower/?sh=6d73cdb87ee4
And last, but definately not least there is herbalism or phytotherapy. This is where we get back to more solid grounds. It is indeed an ancient practice (which in itself does not mean it has to be good. How about ostrasizing the mentally unwell: we’ve done from the dawn of times). To make the long story short: herbs are dirty drugs. We know now that cinchona bark contains quinine (and a bunch of other active components). We know that foxgloves contain glycosides which were indeed useful for people with heart failure before the extraction or synthesis techniques were good enough. So, they do contain stuff, quite a lot of it, actually, and of the three it is at least not 100% a product of human imagination and marketing. However, the problem with herbs is the same as the problem with street drugs: you could never be sure what’s in it and how much of it is there. Herbs require proper growing and harvesting, at most auspicious times as well as proper storing. On it depends how much of quinine you’re gone get out of your daily cinchona bark tea: on a good day you’ll be fine, on a bad day you might overdose and shut down your liver.
That’s it, folks!
