# Homeopathy (Adapted from an email on [[2015-09-10]]: [link](x-devonthink-item://15CFC873-E6EA-4559-8C60-FA3E4B9E8BA4)) I've researched homeopathic products to understand how they are supposed to work and what the active ingredients are. For example, here's a list of active ingredients from Calms Forte: ``` Avena Sativa HPUS 1X Chamomilla HPUS 2X Humulus Lupulus HPUS 1X Passiflora HPUS 1X Biochemic Phosphates (Calc. Phos. HPUS 3X, Ferrum Phos. HPUS 3X, Kali Phos. HPUS 3X, Mag. Phos. HPUS 3X, Nat. Phos. HPUS 3X) ``` And here's a list of active ingredients from [[Markus]]' teething tablets: ``` Calcarea Phosphorica 6X HPUS Chamomilla 6X HPUS Coffea Cruda 6X HPUS Belladonna 12X HPUS (0.0000000000003% alkaloids, calculated) ``` What do the 6X, 12X, and HPUS mean? HPUS is a list of substances and preparation instructions recognized as legal by the 1938 FDA act; this is why the homeopathic industry can sell these items and not have them regulated by the FDA as they do other pharmaceuticals. Inclusion in that list is a result of tests or "provings" that were done during the 1800 and early 1900s, and those under questionable controls. 6X and 12X are measurement indicators of how much of that substance is diluted. And here's where it gets fun. > Homeopathic products are made from minerals, botanical substances, and > several other sources. If the original substance is soluble, one part is > diluted with either nine or ninety-nine parts of distilled water and/or > alcohol and shaken vigorously (succussed); if insoluble, it is finely > ground and pulverized in similar proportions with powdered lactose (milk > sugar). One part of the diluted medicine is then further diluted, and > the process is repeated until the desired concentration is reached. > Dilutions of 1 to 10 are designated by the Roman numeral X (1X = 1/10, > 3X = 1/1,000, 6X = 1/1,000,000). Similarly, dilutions of 1 to 100 are > designated by the Roman numeral C (1C = 1/100, 3C = 1/1,000,000, and so > on). Most remedies today range from 6X to 30X, but products of 30C or > more are marketed. > A 30X dilution means that the original substance has been diluted > 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic > centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the > number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times > the size of the Earth. From [Homeopathy: The Ultimate Fake](https://quackwatch.org/related/homeo/) At a 24X dilution, chemistry says the original substance is lost completely; might as well be drinking water. Even a 1X dilution means only 1% of the medication is even composed of that substance, which makes one wonder, why bother at all? Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a German physician is the one that started all this; this is pre-Louis Pasteur and during the time when people believed in "humors" and didn't know anything about bacteria and how disease spreads. He believed small doses of a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people would cure similar symptoms in sick people, and the smaller the better. This gets into all sorts of weird semi-supernatural theories like water memory, because even he realized the extremely diluted forms pretty much had nothing of the original substance in them. It's all quite ... bizarre. Another example, the other night I took an entire half-bottle of calms forte at once; never felt a thing.