Homeopathy or Hoaxopathy?

"You cant fool all the people all the time", is an old saying. But Dr Hahnemann has been fooling all the people all along when he introduced his "Homeopathy concept". In fact, it is nothing new and it has already been mentioned in our Ayurveda: "Ushnam ushnesha sheethalam". This concept was extended to ludicrous extremes and now we find one homeopath at every street corner doling out sugar pills for umpteen number of diseases promising a distant cure. If the patients get relief, it is not due to the sugar pills but because of the kind words and empathy the patient gets from the doctor.

Dr Christian F Samuel Hahneman was born in 1755 and proposed his theory of "Like cures Like" in late 18th century only because scientific medicine was not so advanced and the existing chemotherapy at that time was causing "more harm than good", which is understandable. But simply because he had the symptoms of "malaria" on eating Cinchona bark and proposing that Cinchona can cure malaria is utterly ridiculous.

One grand theory proposed by Hahneman in 1803 was that Coffee was responsible for most of the diseases. When it was disproved, he had to abandon this theory and this Coffee Theory is a good example of his tendency to make up a grand theory from scant evidence.

It is strange that Homeopathy is still being practiced despite scientific evidence that it is no better than a placebo in treatment of any illness and absolutely useless in acute conditions especially requiring surgery.

Of late, there is a resurgence of Homeopathy and there are now Corporate Homeo hospitals catering to different sections of the society. I dont understand why we doctors practicing Evidence based Medicine do not see through the "Emperor's clothes" and protest against such blatantly unscientific practice.

My opinion is that Homeopathy is no different from Aroma therapy, Pyramid therapy etc, which have no basis in the day to day management of patients. Government should ban the false advertisements of the homeopaths and the publicity given to chains of homeo clinics.