Actually it was only 1 staff member, a nurse.

“Three trials do not proof make.”

Yoda’s cousin you are not!

Some of the homeopahtical ingredients were listed as: camphor, copper, hellebore and arsenic, no mention of sugar I’m afraid.
The cases of cholera was varied is stages in both hospitals.

Of the 61 cases of cholera treated (at the Homeopahtical Hospital), 10 died, a percentage of 16.4; of the 331 cases of choleraic and simple diarrhœa trated, 1 died. The neighbouring Middlesex Hospital received 231 cases of cholera and 47 cases of choleraic diarrhœa. Of the cholera patients treated 123 died, a fatality rate of 53.2 per cent.

There is a lot more studies done that are found on Pubmed that favour Homeopathical treatments, I’m not going to list them but follow this link if you like: http://avilian.co.uk/2008/08/scientific-research-and-homeopathy-in-vitro-and-related-studies/

I think a lot more research still needs to be done and Luc Montagniers’ recent studies prove promising, but each to their own opinion I guess.

A similar study in Honduras in 2006 (yours was from 1994) featuring a greater number of children suffering from diarrhea than the Nicaragua study shows “no significant difference” between children treated with magical fairy-dust pills or placebo. http://bit.ly/bDFTES Other studies do show some correlation between homeopathic remedies and small increases in relief. This is something scientists should study more to make sure they can repeat the results and lock down exactly why and how it should work, because childhood diarrhea is a horrible scourge in developing countries. Is it because the children getting homeopathic treatment are basically also getting standard oral rehydration therapy? Or is it something magical? I don’t know. Whatever it is, there’s a problem to be solved and I’d like scientists to find out exactly what works.

Here’s a meta-analysis of homeopathy clinical trials in childhood and adolescence ailments, including upper respiratory tract infections: http://bit.ly/5uCkHZ “The evidence from rigorous clinical trials of any type of therapeutic or preventive intervention testing homeopathy for childhood and adolescence ailments is not convincing enough for recommendations in any condition.”

The study I think you’re referring to about the kids with URTI compared homeopathic care vs. self-prescribed homeopathic care. It didn’t compare homeopathy vs. medicine. http://bit.ly/bW8aQp I found another study comparing kids with URTI taking homeopathy or placebo, and found “no effect over placebo.” http://bit.ly/cxsRqB

This (http://bit.ly/cV9UGt) meta-analysis of several trials studying headache pain and homeopathy mentions one in which H was better than placebo and three in which it was equal to placebo. It’s not found to be harmful — how could it be? there’s nothing in there and headaches are harmless — but generally not helpful either. So why waste the money?

The fact remains that the principles upon which homeopathy are founded (the law of similars, the law of infinitesimals, magical “succussion”) make absolutely no logical sense, cannot be proven to work, and are not founded in reality. If anyone can prove they work and can distinguish a homeopathic dilution from water, there’s a man in Florida who’ll gladly give that person a million dollars. Or listen to the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths, who now acknowledge openly and grudgingly that there are no material substances “in the diluted remedies that form the basis of this multi-million-dollar industry.” http://bit.ly/ce6OYn . But whatever. I’m done.

Shame I couldn’t make it, and would have been nice to finally catch up with you, but never mind. There’s plenty more woo to batter into submission, so there’ll always be another time.

http://www.berkshirehumanists.org.uk/?p=2383

fabian :
How then did the London Homoeopathic Hospital cure three times as many people during the cholera epidemic in 1854? With placebo’s????

They didn’t cure more, they lost a lower percentage compared to other hospitals, they also treated fewer patients for cholera, considerably fewer patients (61) than, for example the Middlesex Hospital – 231.

These figures of course do not take into account the point in the progression of the illness at which the patients attended the hospital.

It might be wise to remember that some of the recorded sick/dead at the Middlesex were staff members, which may or may not indicate dubious sanitary conditions in the hospital which would only have exacerbated the issue.

Three trials do not proof make.

Your quoted figures do not take into account comparative trials between the homeopathic remedies and those wacky conventional medicines that people insist upon using.

With regards to your ‘statistically significant improvement’, this means nothing without quoting the statistics.

Conducted in Nicaragua in association with the University of Washington and the University of Guadalajara, this randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 81 children showed that an individually chosen remedy provided statistically significant improvement of the children’s diarrhea as compared to those given a placebo.

A study of the homeopathic treatment of migraine headache was conducted in Italy.8 Sixty patients were randomized and entered into a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. While only 17% of patients given a placebo experienced relief of their migraine pain, an impressive 93% of patients given an individualized homeopathic medicine experienced good results.

A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed on 175 Dutch children suffering from recurrent upper respiratory tract infections. The study found that the children given homeopathic medicines had a 16% better daily symptom score than children given a placebo.

I could go on but I’m not going to as the list would get too long and will likely be deleted.

If your still not convinced then maybe former Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier recent paper of June 2009 might raise a few eyebrows about Electromagnetic signals and DNA.

I’m highly skeptical that there is any valid science behind homeopathy, frankly. For homeopathy to work, first you’ve got to prove that the “law of similars” is true. So therefore, the cure for a snake bite is more snake venom? The cure for arsenic poisoning is more arsenic? The cure for malaria is more malaria? And don’t claim this is how vaccines work, because it isn’t — vaccines are used to provoke the immune system into producing antibodies to specific viruses. The antibodies you produce are what cure the viral infection, not the vaccine itself.

Second, you’ve got to prove that diluting a substance makes it more powerful. Take a capful of orange juice and pour it into a quart of water. That means it’s got more vitamins in it than the jug of orange juice? Of course not. It’s a quart of water with a capful of orange juice in it. And pouring a capful of that mixture into another quart of water makes it more “orange juice-ish” than regular orange juice? No. And a capful of that mixture poured into ANOTHER quart of water gives it more vitamins than the plain old carton of orange juice? Surely not. Diluting this mixture in quarts of water again and again, 15 or 30 or 60 or 300 times, makes the vitamins ever more potent than just pure orange juice? Or is it more likely you’re just diluting what’s essentially just water into more water?

Third, you’ve got to prove that water has a memory. It’s a molecule of 2 hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom — there’s no mechanism by which a molecule of water can “remember” things.