In France, homeopathic treatment is widely available in the French health service (Editorial, 16 November). GPs and hospitals there regularly refer patients to homeopathic doctors for treatment. Pharmacies in France have a wide range of homeopathic remedies and a pharmacist trained to advise patients. Far from being the “mock medicine” your editorial derides, people find homeopathy an efficacious treatment for a range of illnesses and conditions. Years ago acupuncture was regarded as magical thinking, but is now widely recognised as effective for a number of conditions and is available on the NHS. Given the tiny proportion of the NHS budget allocated for homeopathy, let’s say yes to keeping it in.
Dr Barbara Gwinnett
Wolverhampton
• A psychologist might be tempted to wonder why this fleabite on the NHS offends so much. The history of medecine is littered with the ex-cathedra pronouncements of doctors which turned out to be wrong or passed out of fashion. There is something disquieting about the bullying authoritarian efforts of allopathic doctors to suppress something as marginal, gentle and possibly beneficial as homeopathy.
I remember, before the NHS, being taken by my mother to a homeopathic doctor, also, of course, a qualified allopathic doctor, and later the Queen’s homeopathic doctor, to discuss whether I should have my tonsils out, a very fashionable operation at that time, particularly popular amongst the pupils of Eton. On balance she thought it would be cheaper and less painful for me to have some homeopathic medicine from Nelson’s in Duke Street. I still have my tonsils. Much later my son fell mildly ill in Korea and in the pharmacy they asked him whether he wanted western medicine or Korean. Bravely he opted for Korean. The Korean customers laughed and applauded as he drank a foul-tasting potion. The following day he was better. Please let a thousand flowers bloom.
Anthony Caston
Tervuren, Belgium
• With any other substance used as a medicine, it is possible to use chemical analysis to establish the difference between a preparation containing the active ingredient and a placebo. With homoeopathy there is no chemical test that will separate the two, since, in the case of the most “powerful” homeopathic remedies, the dilution is so great that there is not a single molecule left of the substance that is said to cause the therapeutic effect. How can such nonsense be believed in by otherwise sane individuals who have been through a medical and scientific training? There is one other consequence of homoeopathic “theory”. Since the highest dilutions are said to have the strongest effect, taking nothing at all should lead to an overdose and possibly kill the patient.
Karl Sabbagh
Co-author, Magic or Medicine?
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