Homeopathy is a system of alternative medicine based on the principles of “like cures like” aka ‘similia similibus curentur‘ and dilution aka the Law of Infinitesimals. Homeopathists prepare their concoctions in what they call remedies, which is a process of dilution and shaking the herb in the belief that the harmful properties are removed and yet the therapeutic properties are magnified.

Part of the Pseudoscience Therapies Series

Pseudoscience: a system of beliefs, theories, or practices that are presented as scientific but do not use the real scientific method. (‘pseudo‘ = ‘false‘).

Red Flags

Homeopathy’s pseudoscience Ref Flags:

Anecdotes and Testimonials are the best positive evidence,
Buzzwords / psycho babble,
Panacea: Claims that homeopathy cures or treats everything,
Hospitals don’t use it,
Magic: magical energy claims, ‘water remembers’ via an ‘imprint’,
Mechanism:
- The mechanism for homeopathy has no modern sensible supportive evidence.
Quality Research shows “indistinguishable from placebo”.

Origin Story

Homeopathy was created by a German Physician, Samuel Hahnemann, in 1796. Hahnemann says that he was translating medical treatise by William Cullen, a Scottish physician and chemist, into German. He was skeptical of Cullen’s theory about how cinchona could cure malaria, so he tried injesting cinchona. He found that the plant tasted bitter when he ingested some of the bark, and he experienced fever, shivering and joint pain – symptoms in common to malaria. It was very common, in that era, to trial treatments on yourself, so you could find out what it does). This similarity of symptoms to the disease it was supposed to treat led Hahnemann to propose that effective drugs would produce similar symptoms to the disease, hence his term ‘homeopathy’ from homeo, Ancient Greek for ‘same’ and ‘pathos’ for ‘disease / suffering’. [Source: Wikipedia – Homeopathy].

Modern science and medical practice was in its infancy in 1796, so many of the ideas about what was ‘true’ at that time turned out to be very wrong. Hahnemann recognised that medicine was ill advised as it was largely ineffective and often harmful. Hahnemann was an early adopted about the idea that concocted medication was the future of medicine, however her believed that single drugs at lower doses promoted health through an immaterial vitalistic way. Hahnemann named his method ‘homeopathy’ in 1807, and contrasted it to ‘allopathic medicine’, the rest of Western Medicine. [“allo” lit “other”, pathos lit “disease or suffering”, Etymology Online – Allopathy]. [Source: Wikipedia – Homeopathy].

Hahnemann’s ideas were approximately in line with scientists and doctors of his day. While early modern ‘western medicine’ had begun, the evidence for it working was still poor, and it could easily have been found that it was going down the wrong path and that Hahnemann’s ideas were sound.

History shows that Hahnemann was wrong.

Hahnemann believed that large doses of drugs that caused similar symptoms would dangerously compound with the disease, thus he advocated for diluting the medicine component to reduce the harmful effects and increase its potency. He created a method to serially dilute the remedy multiple times, while retaining and enhancing the “spirit-lie medicinal powers of the crude substances”.

Dr Samuel Hahnemann gathered and published an overview of his new medical system in his book, The Organon of the Healing Art (1810). Modern Homeopaths use the 6th revision of this book, published 1921, as the core of their system.

Does it work? (No)

Options: No / Mostly no / Purple hat (usual practice, but pretending to be more), Yes.

Homeopathy does not work at all.

With what we know about how the world works (which underlies pretty much every technology you use regularly), the homeopathic mechanism cannot work.
Hahnemann’s own claims for his own experiments didn’t replicate.
Zero quality evidence shows that homeopathy reliably works beyond a placebo.

Mechanism

How Homeopathy Says it Works

The basic idea of homeopathy comes down to two major concepts:

Like cures like (similia similibus curentur).
Law of Infinitesimals (Dilution makes the remedy safer and more potent).

Like Cures Like

As noted in Origin Story above, Hahnemann began his belief that medication needs to be able to create the same symptoms as the disease to treat the disease when he was experimenting with a ‘cure’ for malaria by the Scottish physician William Cullen.

The concept of “like for like” mimics some paganistic ideas about the law of similarities, and sympathetic magic. As a concept, at the time, it was not uncommon. However, even in this early era of medical science, there were those who did not blindly trust Hahnemann’s account. Oliver Holmes published in 1861 that when he tried mimicking Hahnemann by eating cinchona bark, he couldn’t even produce the same symptoms that Hahnemann described – fever, shivering and joint pain. In this case, the first treatment using the homeopathic idea of ‘like cures like’ failed to even be ‘like’.

Future research into cinchona showed that the chemical quinine contained in the plant kills the Plasmodium falciparum parasite that causes the disease. If you have ever enjoyed tonic water, you’ll probably have noticed a lack of fever, shivering and joint pain. Tonic water happens to have quinine in it. That is, the active ingredient in cinchona that treats malaria, the quinene, doesn’t adhere to this concept of ‘producing the same symptoms’.

After 230 years of very effective modern western medicine, almost no ‘medicine’ works because ‘like cures like’. The only serious proponents of this are alternative medicine practitioners, especially the homeopaths.

Law of Infinitesimals (dilution)

As noted in Origin Story above, Hahnemann wisely decided that compounding symptoms could be a problem. His solution to this was to dilute the medical ingredient down so that it wouldn’t cause strong enough symptoms to compound. So far, if we assume that the proposed medicine does cause similar symptoms, this is reasonable logic. What is missing, though, is that this also dilutes the effectiveness of the medicine component.

“Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist.” [Swiss]
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” [English]

Paracelsus, 1538.

Hahnemann devised a technique for making dilutions called potentization. He claimed this technique would preserve the substance’s ‘therapeutic properties’ while removing its ‘harmful effects’, enhancing ‘the spirit-like medicinal powers of the crude substances’.

The Actual Science

There is no scientific evidence for the ‘spirit’.

Remedies are just water with additives.

‘Potentization’ involves a series of systematic dilutions and ‘succussions’ (lit forceful shaking actions), to allegedly eliminate chemical toxicity and enable the therapeutic effect.
- Homeopathic potencies are reported via a combination of a letter and number designation such as ‘6X’ or ’30C’. The letter defines the proportion of dilution, using Roman letters (X is 10, C is 100). The number defines how many times this has been done in a row. 30 C means that the medicine has been diluted to 1/100th of its original strength, and then this is done 30 times. [Homeopathy: does a teaspoon of honey help the medicine go down? SM Sagar, 2007].
- This compounds astronomically fast, meaning that if I use a 30C dilutions of 1 kilogram of gold, I would expect to find no atoms of gold in my final solution. Any homeopathic compound that starts with Avogadro’s number of atoms, after 12C or 24X dilutions, will have 1 atom of the original ingredient left.
The ‘law of infinitesimals’ is magical thinking.
- Homeopathy states that dilution increases the curative power of homeopathic medications. That is, the more it is diluted with the ‘shake’ (each dilution), the stronger the ‘therapeutic properties’ becomes, making a stronger remedy.
- The belief is that somehow the important components of the medicine are imprinted on the water molecules, which will ‘nudge the vital force in the direction of healing’. [‘The third principle, the minimum dose’, 12 June 2016].
  - There is no ‘vital force’.
  - Modern science has shown that there is no ‘imprinting’ on H20 molecules.
  - Homeopathy gives no mechanism for how the dilution knows which bits are good (therapeutic) and which are bad (compounding symptom).
Analysis of homeopathic remedies often finds products other than water in them.
- Sweeteners (including lactose) and alcohol (ethanol).

Let us put this another way. When you wash your hands, you are diluting whatever is on your hands until it is gone. Let us say you are keen to wash the unwanted item away, so you rub and shake your hands under the water. Homeopathy’s principle of dilutions would mean that whatever you are trying to get off your hands is now much, much stronger. Yet we still use water to wash our hands, because it works.

Quality Research

There are many published articles on homeopathy. All of the “pro” articles are demonstrations of how not do reliable rigorous science.

How Not to Do or Argue Science

In the article Complementary Medicine, Exercise, Meditation, Diet, and Lifestyle Modification for Anxiety Disorders: A Review of Current Evidence, J. Sarris, S. Moylan et al, 2012, this line in the abstract is quite to the point “The breadth of evidence does not support homeopathy for treating anxiety.”

Homeopathy Works for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Prof. Harald Walach, July 2022 (not from a journal)
- Summary:
  - Walach is upset that German Green Party leader Robert Habeck proclaimed “that homeopathy is no more than placebo”, and that this was “dutifully agreed” by politicians and medical administrators, and thus Health Minister Lauterbach wants to create a set of rules THAT will remove homeopathy completely from all medical books.
  - Walach “still think[s] homeopathy is good”, and wishes to use treating ADHD as evidence that Habeck was wrong.
  - Walach included 6 out of 7 available trials testing homeopathic remedies for ADHD, 1 was excluded as it was too early and too small.
    - We will overlook his claim to ‘600 hundred studies’ in the homeopathic database, of which ‘more than 250 placebo-controlled studies’, but only 7 on ADHD.
    - Walach asserts that “g = 0.542 against all possible forms of control and of g = 0.6 against placebo.”
      - g = 0.2 or lower means small effect size, 0.5 is a medium effect, and 0.8 means a large effect.
    - Walach asserts that “p= 0.03”, indicating that only a 3% chance of seeing these results by coincidence.
    - Walach admits that “the average size of the studies was small, 52 participants”.
      - Walach asserts that while it would be fair to critique these studies for being so small, he also argues that large studies are good for teasing out small effects, and thus, by implication, since the effect size above is average with low chance of coincidence, not needed.
      - This is bad science. Small studies magnify the effect of mistakes into significance.
        
        If I have 3 people in a running race, and over 2 trials I show that the tablet I gave the subject prior to the run, the subject was last with the placebo and second place with the agent, that effect size looks huge. When I include 50 runners, going from last place to second place might mean something.
      - According to Walach’s ‘About‘ information, he was a professor at the Medical University of Poznan, and a Professorial Research Fellow at the Next Society Institute – that is, he isn’t a lay person making ignorant mistakes.
    - Walach begins to talk about 2 studies, “pragmatic, unblinded trials conducted in England”, where he assumes the treatment includes “nutritional counselling, i.e. dietary advice and lifestyle counselling (less cola, lots of vitamins, less television, etc.) and also Ritalin or similar substances”. No indication why this is here, but even so, let us examine his statements.
      - Walach states: “Ritalin is an amphetamine-like drug that acts on the dopamine receptor. It is assumed that ADHD is caused by a disturbance in the dopamine balance, and Ritalin intervenes in this. Unfortunately, like all substances with a central nervous effect, it leads to a habituation effect and has strong side effects.” and gives 2 sources for his explanation of ritalin.
      - The above explanation is mostly wrong or grossly misrepresentative.
        
        Ritalin is not an ‘amphetamine-like drug’, it is another category (unlike dextroamphetamine, methamphetamine, lisdexamfetamine (Vyvanse), Adderall etc). There are some similarities to the effect ritalin has on the dendritic dopamine receptor, and how it occupies the DAT, which is why it is also used to treat ADHD, but that’s about it.
        
        Ritalin is not addictive (if you follow the scripted quantities).
        
        I couldn’t find any quality evidence that Ritalin (methylphenidate) is addictive. I found many articles talking as though it is, generally without references. The references that did exist, that I did follow, only talked about amphetamine. Again, Ritalin is not an amphetamine.
- Why is this bad:
  - I couldn’t find any of the studies that Walach used to demonstrate that homeopathy worked.
    - It may be that these studies do show what Walach asserts, but it is just as possible that they don’t.
    - We don’t know what homeopathic remedy was used. While the philosophy of homeopathy should just mean it was water, often alcohol is added to the remedy.
      - Alcohol has dopamine changing properties.
      - Was it the “water memory” that worked, or the alcohol (if it actually worked)?
  - Walach doesn’t understand the basic science ADHD, or how ADHD medication.
    - Walach’s inflammatory statements about ADHD medication, serves to:
      - Bias the reader against regular, proven to be safe, medication; prompting them to want an alternative solutions, &
      - Justify why homeopathy is a worthy consideration.
    - To be charitable:
      - Perhaps Walach only relates what concerned parents are saying, rather than trying to claim these statements are true.
      - If true, he should make that clear, rather than stating these concerns as scientific facts.
    - To be cynical:
      - If the charitable case is true, Walach has failed to write a clear fact based correction to those views, allowing people to get the wrong impression, which he benefits from.

RED FLAG ALERT: If you have good evidence that your product works, then share the results. If you are trying to make an argument that your product works, but you can’t show the evidence that unambiguously demonstrates that, then you are probably lying or have been deceived.

Far to many claims about what homeopathy can be used for have been made, with little quality research done by homeopathic practitioners or medical practitioners that shows that homeopathy actually does anything positive beyond a placebo.

Where is the Harm?

Minor financial harm, purchasing a treatment that has zero quality evidence supporting that it works. While it seems cheap, but it is very expensive impure water with unknown ingredients.

Allergens, as Homeopathic remedies rarely list the ingredients. While you would think this is just water (due to the basic tenets of homeopathy), often it includes some kind of sweetener and alcohol. People who are allergic to these may have an unexpected response.

Delay in treatment as people will try homeopathic remedies instead of seeking a proper diagnosis and treatment for their condition, delaying care. This can lead to death (such as cancer, heart and so on).

Summary

When homeopathy was conceived (1796), Hahnemann’s ideas were not that strange, but were already being systematically discredited. His own inspiring experiment failed replication.

Homeopathy combines two faulty ideas: that you can always treat a disease with a herb that causes similar symptoms to the disease, and to make the herb safe, you can dilute and shake it in water, which magically suppresses the dangerous effects of the herb while boosting the strength of some unproven therapeutic effect.

No quality research supports that homeopathy reliably works. Believing that it does is both a waste of money on a product that has zero evidence of effectiveness, and can delay treatment for serious conditions, since homeopaths often claim they can cure anything, making desperate and gullible people their favourite target.

References

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, March 19). Homeopathy. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

Dictionary and etymology by etymonline. (2026). Allopathy, Etymonline. https://www.etymonline.com/word/allopathy

The dose makes the poison. (2022, August 13). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dose_makes_the_poison

Sagar, S. (2007). Homeopathy: Does A Teaspoon of Honey Help the Medicine Go Down? Current Oncology, 14(4), 126–127. https://doi.org/10.3747/co.2007.150

The third principle, The minimum dose. (2016). Findahomeopath.Org. https://www.findahomeopath.org/news/2016-06-12-the-third-principle-the-minimum-dose

Sarris, J., Moylan, S., Camfield, D. A., Pase, M. P., Mischoulon, D., Berk, M., Jacka, F. N., & Schweitzer, I. (2012). Complementary Medicine, Exercise, Meditation, Diet, and Lifestyle Modification for Anxiety Disorders: A Review of Current Evidence. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/809653

hawade-admin. (2022, June 15). Homeopathy Works for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – Prof. Harald Walach. Prof. Harald Walach. https://harald-walach.info/2022/06/15/homeopathy-works-for-attention-deficit-and-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/

hawade-admin. (2022, March 2). About Harald Walach – Prof. Harald Walach. Prof. Harald Walach. https://harald-walach.info/about-harald-walach/

Casben, L. (2009, September 28). Parents jailed over baby’s death. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-09-28/parents-jailed-over-babys-death/1445256

Mandal, D. A. M. (2010, June 17). News-Medical Experiment with Homeopathy Killed A Cancer Patient – Inquest. News-Medical. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20100617/Experiment-with-homeopathy-killed-a-cancer-patient-Inquest.aspx