Here are some facts that may intrigue, including a study published in CHEST (the leading respiratory medicine journal). Hopefully, you and your readers can still learn from history and from research. For more information about homeopathy, go to www.homeopathic.com or www.HomeopathicRevolution.com

Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) served in the British government for three decades; he was twice prime minister. His personal homeopath was a respected Irish physician, Joseph Kidd, MD (1824–1918), who was taught homeopathy by Paul Francois Curie, MD, the French surgeon and physician who was grandfather of the famed Pierre Curie.

Paul Curie was brought from Paris to London in 1835 by his patron, William Leaf, a rich London silk merchant. But Curie was not brought there just to treat the rich: Leaf funded the first free dispensary for poor people. Then came the infamous Irish potato famine of 1845–1849, when Kidd was challenged to show that homeopathy can be effective in the most adverse conditions. He moved to the rural areas where the worst starvation was happening, and he kept an active record of all of his patients and their diseases and deaths. He recorded 1.8 percent mortality, while the local hospital’s rate was 36 percent (Treuherz, 1995, 42–75).

In 1871 Kidd’s reputation for effectiveness improved even further, when he became the homeopath to Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield. Disraeli suffered from asthma, bronchitis, and Bright’s disease. On the day of Disraeli’s first visit (November 7, 1877), he wrote in his journal:

"I had made up my mind never to create a word as to my progress or the reverse, until I had given my new man a fair and real trial: I will tell you that I entertain the highest opinion of Dr. Kidd, and that all the medical men I have known, and I have seen the highest, seem much inferior to him, in quickness of observation, and perception, and reasonableness, and at the same time originality, of his measures." (Treuherz, 1995, 37)

Dr. Kidd normally only saw patients in his home office, but he made a rare exception for Disraeli. In July 1878, Kidd had to go to Berlin to treat Disraeli’s asthma and gout so that the prime minister could meet with the German leader, Bismarck.
There is even some mention of which homeopathic medicines Disraeli was given at different times: Ipecacuanha (ipecac root, a leading remedy known to cause nausea and vomiting and yet cure it in homeopathic doses), Arsenicum (arsenic), and Kali bichromicum (potassium bichromate, effective medicine for certain serious respiratory problems*).

In 1881, during the final days of Disraeli’s life, Queen Victoria asked Disraeli to see Sir Richard Quain, a conventional physician. Normally, the harsh and intolerant attitudes of the orthodox medical organizations of that time did not even allow conventional physicians to treat homeopathic patients, but Disraeli was a rare exception. Even in Disraeli’s last days and nights, Kidd, Quain, and a third doctor (Mitchell Bruce) provided him with constant attention without worrying or arguing about homeopathic and orthodox doctors working together.

Dr. Kidd’s obituary, published in The Lancet, was one of the few times in the nineteenth century that this medical journal ever published something positive about a homeopath:
"He always held fast to the opinion that there is a truth contained in the doctrine of homeopathy which supplies a clue to the treatment of obscure cases. … From an early period he adopted the practice of prescribing only one drug at a time so as to be better able to study the action of individual remedies. … A large part of his success must be attributed to his careful survey of small details." (Kidd, 1918)

* Some recent research has tested Kali bichromicum for treating people with chronic bronchitis or emphysema who had a thick and sticky bronchial discharge, and double-blind, placebo-controlled study has found very impressive results (Frass, et al., 2005). In this study, conducted by a respected professor from the University of Vienna and published in a respected journal in internal medicine, fifty patients received either Kali bichromicum 30C globules or a placebo. The amount of tracheal (throat) secretions was reduced significantly in those given the homeopathic medicine, and none of them required reintubation (technological intervention to help them breathe), while 16 percent of those who took the placebo required this intervention.

REFERENCE TO C.O.P.D. study: Frass, M., Dielacher, C., Linkesch, M., Endler, C., Muchitsch, I., Schuster, E., and Kaye, A. Influence of Potassium Dichromate on Tracheal Secretions in Critically Ill Patients, Chest, March 2005a.

You might be interested in the discussion of the Frass et al. that can be found here:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/07/homeopathy_in_thecringeicu_1.php

Or here:

http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2007/09/dana-ullman-mph-gives-me-some-h...

I think I've missed something:

"Kidd later had great success with homeopathy in the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s".

The Irish Potato famine caused the deaths of many thousands of people and cause the emigration of many more. This was due to blight ruining the potato harvest, with anything of any worth being shipped to England.

The people died due to hunger. Is the test *really* saying that within the realms of homeopathic armoury is the potential to *cure hunger* with sugar pills?

Tell me I've missed something important......

Well, let's look at the actual claim:

"he kept an active record of all of his patients and their diseases and deaths. He recorded 1.8 percent mortality, while the local hospital’s rate was 36 percent"

So... given what 19th century hospitals were like, and given that the hospital was liable to have more seriously ill patients than the people he visited, this is evidence that homeopathy works how exactly?

Just realize that you're the same Dr*T who's blog I just commented on, nice to have you over.

The name sounded vaguely familiar but I hadn't gotten round to googling it or anything. I suppose I should be pleased that my new blog is reaching a big enough audience now for Ullman to consider advertising on it.

Several points to make in reply to the advert you've just posted for your pill business (I love how you say "for more information", and direct people to a shop).

Anecdotes about Disraeli are fun, but just anecdotes, and 120 year old anecdotes at that. The plural of anecdote is not data.

You comment that "when Kidd was challenged to show that homeopathy can be effective in the most adverse conditions. He moved to the rural areas where the worst starvation was happening, and he kept an active record of all of his patients and their diseases and deaths. He recorded 1.8 percent mortality, while the local hospital’s rate was 36 percent".

It doesn't take a genius to work out that saying that less of his home patients died than the likely critically ill patients in a 19th century hospital in a decimated country really isn't any evidence that his ideas worked.

Regarding the Frass study, firstly there was no Kali Bichromicum given to the patient, just a water solution. Secondly a single trial with 25 patients in each group conducted by somebody from an institute that has a financial interest in proving that homeopathy work is not a particularly reliable source.

Thanks for the welcome :) (and the comment :)

Perhaps Dana can tell us why he is so keen to promote the Frass study, which was not individualized, when an absence of individualization is often claimed by homeopaths as the reason for rejecting the large number of negative results in trials of their remedies.

It seems that the homeos only care that they can sometimes pull out a positive result whatever contortions they must put their beloved philosophy through to claim those results as meaningful.

There are so many obvious problems with the Frass article that frankly I'm amazed that it managed to get published at all - I'm tempted to devote an entry to it in the next few days.

I'm really starting to feel that someone should set up some kind of equivalent of researchblogging for papers that should never have gotten through peer review, or papers that are commonly mis-represented. It's ridiculous that Dana can keep fooling people by using the same references over and over again....

Assuming that Elvis has not left the building,

Mr Ullman, Frass does not tell us why his study patients were in the ICU. From your lofty vantage point as homeopathic genius, perhaps you can tell us how many patients in each of the groups had serious respiratory involvement in whatever disease brought them to the ICU.

[Hint: this is about the reason they were in the ICU and the question has nothing to do with their prior COPD status]

I bet he has left the building.... It seems to be his style, shoot and run. I think I may have to entice him back by writing a full blog on him. He seems to monitor BPSDB, so he might come out of the woodwork.

By the way, Dana seems to have misquoted Kidd's mortality figures. He says the source for his figures was Truehertz, and I think he must be referring to the "Audit Statistics" table on this page:

http://www.homeoint.org/books/treuherz/kidd1.htm

Dana cites Kidd's mortality rate as being 1.8% while the Hospital's was 36%.

According to Truehertz, these figures were for two different conditions:

For "Typhus", Kidd's mortality was 1.8% and the hospital's was 13.5%.

Dana's figure of 36% for the hospital's mortality rate is the figure for "Dysentery", for which Kidd's patients showed a 14% mortality rate.

As you say, it is hardly remarkable that patients who were sick enough to be hospitallised showed higher mortality than Kidd's patients, but the differences in outcome also seem to be far less than Dana claims.

Nice piece of work Mojo.

A homeopathist misrepresenting data... how shocking!

Incidentally, as a thought exercise, I'd love to compare the current U.S. or U.K. mortality rate of homeopathic patients versus hospital patients. I bet hospitals would come out far worse, and I'm surprised Dana doesn't use this comparison. Maybe it would be too easy to tell that it's a false comparison.

Modern medicine is largely based on the research of MR. and Mrs. Currie, so why would his ancestor (a gent who lived before that medical revolution) be a better source of medical training?

I mean claiming your woo isn't outdated quackery by citing outdated quacks isn't exactly helping is it? I know we have this natural inclination to assume that our elders are smarter then us, but that doesn't mean they were. There was a time when your grandfather was just some dumb teenager, and he was an even dumber teenager than you as he didn't have the works of his generation to jump off from.