jg 3/05. Materials specified: Table of contents - access athttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip044/2003010925.html.

Acknowledgements -- Photo Credits -- Introduction? Preface? Overview? -- Two Cases -- Dr. Hahnemann and the Law of Similars -- The Single Remedy D the Simillimum -- Minimum Dose, Potentization, and the Importance of Succussion -- What Kinds of Ailments Can Homeopathy Treat? -- Homeopathy Treats the Person, Not the Disease -- Remedy Sources -- Sidebar: Not All Remedies Come from Herbs and Flowers -- Remedy Preparation -- Potencies -- How Remedies Are Identified and Characterized Provings -- Materia Medica -- Self-Prescribing Versus Consulting a Professional Homeopath -- Taking the Case -- Repertory -- Selecting the Remedy D the Simillimum -- Follow-up -- Theory of Human Health D The Vital Force -- Sidebar: The Vital Force: A Controversial Concept -- 2. Types of Homeopathy D Commonalities and Contradictions -- Major Forms of Homeopathy -- Less Common Practices Associated with Homeopathy -- Sidebar: The Doctrine of Signatures -- Peripheral Techniques in Homeopathy -- Sidebar: Combination versus Single Remedies -- Commonalities and Discussion -- Sidebar: Why are Controversies Within Homeopathy So Intense and Long-lived? -- 3. Remedy Potency -- Remedies Do Not Need Their Molecules -- Sidebar: Dilution and Basic Physics -- How Can Remedies With No Medicinal Molecules Work? -- Proposed Theories -- Plausibility -- Non-Clinical Evidence For Activity of Non-Molecular Solutions -- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance -- Benveniste -- Water Memory -- Thoughts on Succussion -- Why Dilute Past 12C and 24X? -- Conclusion -- 4. Provings -- Internal and External Realities -- Is It Plausible That Provings Should Produce Symptoms? -- Evidence On the Causes of Provings Symptoms -- Which Symptoms Are Caused by the Remedy? -- Examples of Symptoms Attributed to Remedies -- Use of PatientsO and ProversO Own Words in Reporting Symptoms -- Extraordinary Time Specificity -- Proving Symptoms Can Come In Opposites -- Asymmetries -- Symptoms Do Not Come Easily -- Remedy Mental Associations -- Prover Sensitivity -- Sidebar: Sensitivity and Gender Equity -- How Provings Should Be Conducted -- Control Group -- Number of Provers and Statistical Significance -- Blind and Double-Blind Procedures -- Selecting the Provers -- Duration of Observations -- Dose Response -- Summary and Conclusion -- 5. Selecting the Remedy -- The Process -- Consistency Testing -- Obsession with the Simillimum -- How Close Is Close Enough? Why Isn't Homeopathic Effectiveness Increasing? -- Conclusion - Does It Matter If Homeopaths Disagree about the Remedy? -- 6. Administering the Remedy -- Selecting the Potency -- How Critical Is Potency? Why Isn't Potency More Critical? -- Dose Size D Physical Form and Amount -- Dose Frequency and Number of Repetitions -- Minimum Dose -- Storing the Remedy -- Taking the Remedy -- Does It Matter How the Remedy Gets Into the Patient? -- Conclusion -- 7. Following the Patient's Progress -- Aggravation -- Remedy Storage and Handling -- Antidoting Due to Patient Actions -- Sidebar: Who's Right D the Americans or the Europeans? -- Inadvertent Provings -- Hering's Laws -- Sidebar: Safety and Side Effects -- Suppression -- Sidebar: Is suppression serious? Is it common? -- Health-Caused Symptoms -- Partial or Temporary Improvement -- Minor Aggravation Simultaneous With General Cure -- Miasms -- Sidebar: Miasm Theory: The Core of Homeopathy or an Outdated Concept? -- Additional Homeopathic Reasons for Lack of Patient Response -- Conclusion -- 8. Non-Remedy Healing Mechanisms -- Unassisted Natural Healing -- The Spaghetti Effect D An Unrecognized Factor -- Statistical Healing D Regression to the Mean -- Non-Homeopathic Treatments -- Cessation of Uncomfortable or Harmful Treatments -- Lifestyle-Assisted Healing -- Placebo-Assisted Healing -- Sidebar: Measuring the placebo response -- Psychological Healing -- Conclusion -- 9. The Essentials of Good Theories -- The Essentials of Good Theories -- Explanations -- Predictions -- Consistency -- Falsifiability -- Simplicity -- Some Additional Tools for Arriving at External Reality -- Get Independent Confirmation of Facts -- Do Not Trust Authority -- Consider Multiple Hypotheses -- Sidebar: Examples of Alternative Hypotheses Not Considered -- Do Not Become Emotionally Attached to One Hypothesis -- Quantify -- Further Examples of Falsifiability Problems -- Undetectable by definition -- Patient Sensitivity -- Similarity of a Remedy -- The Deepness of a Remedy -- Sidebar: The Law of Similars: What Is the Evidence? How Sound Is the Theory? -- Sidebar: Was Hahnemann Scientific? -- Conclusion -- 10. Cured Cases D Reliable Data? -- Three Typical Homeopathic Cases -- Reliance on Cases Is Not Unique to Homeopathy -- Revigators -- Therapeutic Radium Mines -- Analysis of Two Homeopathic Cases -- Reporting Bias and Other Shortcomings -- Conclusion -- 11. Clinical Effectiveness Testing D The Bottom Line -- Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof -- Possible Reasons for Getting Better After Treatment -- Elements of Good Clinical Testing -- Overview of Clinical Trials on Remedy Effectiveness -- Meta-analyses -- Results -- Clinical Significance -- Sidebar: Inappropriate Data Included in Meta-Analyses -- Proponents' Comments on Negative Trials -- Sidebar: Individualization Is Not All Good -- Skeptics' Comments on Positive Trials -- Comments on Clinical Evidence on Remedy Effectiveness -- Reconciling Clinical Trials with Homeopaths' Clinical Experience -- What Should We Be Testing? -- 12. Animals, Babies, Epidemics, and Vaccinations -- Animals and Babies -- Sidebar: An apparent contradiction -- Historical Epidemics -- Sidebar: Should Homeopathic Remedies Work Because They Are Like Vaccinations? -- -- Homeopathic Vaccination -- 13. The Homeopathic Fringe or Leading Edge? -- Grafting -- Witchcraft -- It Does Not Matter How or Even If Remedies Are Taken -- Provings without Taking the Remedy -- Family Matters -- Synchronous Phenomena -- Paleontology -- Music Remedies -- Automobile First Aid -- Some Interesting Remedies -- Conventional Medicine and Licensing -- Conclusion -- 14. Summary, the Mechanisms of Misperception, and Conclusions -- Summary of Evidence that Most Homeopathic Remedies Are Inactive -- It Can Appear That the Remedies Are Responsible Even If They Are Not -- 1. Homeopathy Often Does Help Even If the Remedies Are Not the Cause -- 2. Correlation Seems like Causation -- 3. Dosage Protocol Creates Appearance of Cause -- 4. Getting Worse Is Sometimes Counted As Getting Better -- Misunderstanding of Science Contributes to Misperception -- Lack of Recognition of External Reality as Separate from Internal Reality -- Excessive Faith in Cases -- Patient Satisfaction -- How Is Not Needed to Determine If -- Mistrust of Clinical Trials -- Lack of Appreciation of Falsifiable Theories -- What about the Miraculous Cures? -- Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, and Chaos -- Science Cannot Yet Explain Homeopathy -- Homeopathy Already Is Scientific -- Closed-Mindedness and Conspiracy Theories -- Reliance on Authority -- Psychological Factors in Misperception -- Desire D Patients Want Homeopathy to Be Valid -- The Habits of Mind of Professional Homeopaths -- Belief Breeds More Belief -- Misperceptions Are Common -- If Homeopathic Remedies Do Not Work, Then Would Some Health-Care and Health- -- Insurance Companies Cover Homeopathy? -- Why Would Medical Schools Teach and Do Research on Homeopathy if the Remedies Do -- Not Work? -- The Future -- Postscript -- Appendix 1: Some Remedy Preparation Details -- Appendix 2: Molecules Remaining in Dilute Remedies -- Appendix 3: Water Clusters -- Appendix 4: Purity and Contamination -- Appendix 5: The Multitude of Procedures for Selecting the Remedy -- Remedy Selection Based Largely on the Law of Similars and the Totality of -- Symptoms D Classical Homeopathy -- Symptoms at the Exact Time of the Case Taking -- Which Symptoms Happen to Be Mentioned During Interview -- Selection of a Subset of Symptoms -- Repertory Selection - Which database? -- Flat (or Neutral) Analysis -- Symptom Ranking -- Power of Remedy to Induce or Cure Each Symptom -- Small versus Large Remedies -- Multiple Simultaneous Approaches -- Fitting -- Other Remedy Selection Methods -- Doctrine of Signatures -- Etiology -- Remedy Families, Classes, Kingdoms, and Other Groupings -- Themes -- Primary Physical Complaint -- Constitutional Prescribing -- The Central Delusion -- Multiple Diseases, Layers, and Miasms -- Unusual Remedy Selection Methods -- Additional Remedy Selection Issues and Complications -- Patient Compensation -- Acute Exacerbation of a Chronic Condition -- Cross-Cultural Errors -- Follow-Up Remedies and Remedy Relationships -- Conclusion -- Glossary