The memory of water, the power of words

These small white pills are homoeopathic remedies for back-ache. Anyone who follows this blog will know that I'm not a fan of alternative medicines, but this doesn't mean that the various metaphors of homoeopathy aren't as potent as the remedies themselves are ineffective and, in the wrong hands and contexts, criminal. Still, I'm not here to talk about homoeopathy in Africa, or talking to plants, or over-priced oatcakes or any other of Prince Charles's contributions to modern thought. I'm here to direct you towards my review of an intriguing new novel, whose central character is a practising homoeopath, and whose procedures, among other things, explore the metaphorical riches of the ideas behind it. Memory, energy, guilt, repression, love. Powerful stuff, and grippingly told. The novel is called Out of Sight, its author is Isabelle Grey and my review is here.

NQR

You may need to click on this to see it properly, but, believe me, it's worth it. It comes from a revealing article by Robert Hudson in today's Guardian, called Medical Confessions. I particularly like TEETH (Tried Everything Else, Try Homoeopathy).

It reminds me of the case notes that used to be kept at the Stoke on Trent Labour Exchange, where I spent six months of what would now be called a gap year signing people on, instead of being signed on myself. The interviewers didn't use acronyms, so it's lucky the notes never fell into the wrong hands (steer clear, Casetti!). Among the milder comments were 'smells like sick' and 'unfuckable, even with bag on head'. I remember being shocked and irresistibly drawn to the things, rectangles of cardboard with yellow paper and a ragged cover, held together by one of those elasticated ribbons with the metal tag. I didn't interview people myself, but I wonder if peer pressure would have worked its terrible way on me. Would I have been as cruel?

My job was to prepare the claim and collect the signatures every Thursday, standing at the desk all day as people queued. Those days it was cash; I'd give them a chit and they'd take it to the pay-out window. My worst client, though we didn't call them clients or, even more indefensibly, job-seekers, was a Mr Ignazio, possibly of distant Asian origin, rumoured to be a karate black belt and dangerously, unpredictably irascible. My colleagues used to hide his claim and watch me root through the metal tray for it, increasingly panicked, while Mr Ignazio stroked the cutting edge of his hand.

Homoeophobia? Common sense

This shouldn't need doing again, but just in case you still think homoeopathy might have something in it, read this fine new article by Ben Goldacre from today's Guardian.

As long as you're popping a pill that contains no trace of 'active' ingredient (or - gulp! - listening to homoeopathic music) to get rid of a head cold, no harm's done. But when people start suggesting that homoeopathy can cure Aids, like the goon quoted below, it's time we all reached for whatever in rational discourse might pass for a gun.

Peter Chappell, whose work will feature at a conference organised by the Society of Homeopaths next month, makes dramatic claims about his ability to solve the Aids epidemic using his own homeopathic pills called "PC Aids", and his specially encoded music. "Right now," he says, "Aids in Africa could be significantly ameliorated by a simple tune played on the radio."

Radio Gaga?

Oh yes, the forenamed Society has apparently threatened to sue bloggers who are critical of homoeopathic 'medicines'. Well, homoeopathy sucks.

Watch this space.

Get with child a mandrake root

It's good to see Exeter University's professor of complementary medicine expressing serious doubts about the validity of many herbal remedies. Most of them, apparently, don't work and may even be harmful. This ought to be self-evident but, for an ever-increasing number of people, from Prince Charles down, hocus-pocus continues to exercise its awful appeal. I broke my shoulder just over a year ago and was recommended homoeopathic pills to encourage the bone to heal. As I wasn't prepared to break the other shoulder to provide myself with a control group I've no idea how efficacious they might have been, but common sense (remember that?) suggests that sugary pellets that contain not the slightest measurable trace of any active ingredient probably didn't have much effect on my compound fracture. Maybe I should have used crystals.

Interesting though that the Independent should consider the findings of Professors Ernst and Canter to be 'controversial'. Next thing we'll be reading that doubts about the credibility of the virgin birth or the transformation of Hyacinth, son of Amyclas, into a spring bulb are 'controversial' as well. The only thing that doesn't appear to be controversial any longer is the weight given to superstition in daily discourse. Italian news programmes talk regularly about miracles as though they'd actually taken place, which is at least as worrying as the presence of herbal 'medicines' on chemists' shelves.