Emmans Dean, Michael (2001) The trials of homeopathy : a critical historical account of the origins, structure and development of Hahnemann's scientific therapeutics and two systematic reviews of homeopathic clinical trials, 1821-1953 and 1940-1998. PhD thesis, University of York.
Abstract
The controversial discipline of homeopathy is examined from three original perspectives. Conceptual background The structure and presentation of Hahnemann's research programme is contrasted with philosophical assumptions about medical science and emerging theoretical structures in German academic medicine circa 1800, and the subsequent rift between homeopathy and alfopathy is explained at this level. The sources of homeopathic theory and method are located in mainstream eighteenth-century experiment. Alleged relationships to alchemical medicine are discounted, with the exception of certain pharmacy techniques introduced after 1816. Divergent schools and approaches within homeopathy are traced to their sources, and mapped onto a unified therapeutic field. Historical importance A systematic review of prospective clinical evaluations of homeopathy, 1821-1953, contends that these played an important but neglected part in the evolution of the clinical trial. Placebocontrolled trials by sceptics most probably originated in prior Hahnemannian use of within-patient placebo controls. Pragmatic trials of homeopathy versus allopathy in the mid nineteenth century show that judgements of homeopathic inefficacy made by influential nineteenth-century opponents, which have coloured debate ever since, were not evidence-based. Early twentieth-century clinical trials by homeopaths were methodologically in advance of biomedical trials in some respects. Clinical relevance A systematic review of 205 prospective controlled clinical trials published since 1940 found evidence of homeopathy's safety, and specific and global efficacy in trials of high internal validity. Implications for clinical research and practice are considered, founded on analysis of intrahomeopathic differences and trends. On the basis of trial evidence, the relative merits of placebo-controlled and pragmatic evaluations of homeopathy are discussed. Clinical relevance was found particularly in areas that pose problems for biomedicine, and proposals for pragmatic trials of homeopathy versus standard treatment are made in the following conditions: unexplained female infertility; postviral fatigue syndrome; influenza; atopy.
Metadata
Keywords: | Therapeutics |
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Awarding institution: | University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Health Sciences (York) |
Academic unit: | Department of Health Sciences & Clinical Evaluation |
Identification Number/EthosID: | uk.bl.ethos.247754 |
Depositing User: | EThOS Import (York) |
Date Deposited: | 24 Jul 2020 15:20 |
Last Modified: | 24 Jul 2020 15:20 |
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