The theory behind the working of homeopathy is that the body of every human being contains a vital force within the body, which regulates the functioning of the body.

Due to reasons such as heredity, environmental conditions, stress etc, this vital force weakens causing disease. So, disease is nothing but a complex of certain symptoms observed in the human body.

The homeopathic physician makes a study of not only the symptoms the patient is complaining of, but of the entire patient himself. This leads to a picture of the patient.

The physician then prescribes homeopathic medicine, which matches this picture. Now, the medicine so prescribed would have caused the same symptoms in healthy person during ‘drug provings’.

This medicine is given in a highly diluted dose, so as to prevent side effects. This minute dose creates a similar disorder in the vital force and provokes the vital force to react to the symptoms and overcome. (The same system is used in vaccines, where vaccination against smallpox is done by injecting the smallpox disease-causing organism, so that the body can build up its natural immunity).

How can a diluted substance without traces of the original remedy still have a therapeutic effect?

For that we have only theories. According to one theory, the electro-magnetic signature is being passed on during dilution and the brain, which works using chemicals as well as electrical currents for processing information, finds it easier to read and react to the pure electro-magnetic signature than to the impure gross original substance.

Research evidence

Given the difficulties in understanding how homoeopathy may work, researchers have concentrated on establishing whether it is a placebo treatment. Current evidence suggests that this is probably not the case.

A meta-analysis, published in the Lancet, examined over 100 randomized, placebo controlled trials and found an odds ratio of 2.45 (95% confidence interval 2.05 to 2.93) in favor of homoeopathy. The authors concluded that, even allowing for publication bias, “the results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are completely due to placebo.”

In 1854, during a cholera epidemic in London, England, the death rate of patients in allopathic hospitals reached 51.8 percent while the death rate of patients treated in the London Homeopathic Hospital reached 16.4 percent in comparison

In 1930, W. Persson proved that homeopathic substances could influence the fermentation process of starches by enzymes.

In 1931, Paterson and Boyd proved that patients showed immunity against diphtheria after being treated with Diphtherinum (a nosode made from the bacteria).

In 1950, A. Gay and J. Boiron were able to measure differences between the capacitances of pure distilled water and of sodium chloride dissolved and then diluted in distilled water to a potency that guaranteed that not a single atom remained in the homeopathic preparation.

In 1991, The British Medical Journal conducted research into 107 controlled trials and found in 81 the homeopathic substance to be effective.

In 1997, the Lancet Medical Journal published an even larger study, which also found homeopathic remedies to be effective. On an average, the homeopathic remedy proved to be 2.45 times more effective than a placebo.

Also a newer study proved that rats excreted more toxic substances when treated with a homeopathic substance than with a placebo.

Currently, there are about 200 published clinical trials mostly in support of the homeopathic remedies. One controlled study by David T. Reilly, Glasgow, Scotland proved the effect of homeopathic immunotherapy.

A randomized double-blind study done in France on over 500 patients proved the effectiveness of the homeopathic remedy Oscillococcinum in the treatment of Influenza.

The response to this has been mixed. Some people remain unconvinced by the evidence, claiming that there must be another explanation, such as methodological bias, for the results. Others point out that the evidence is very strong and argue that homoeopathic medicines must work by some, as yet undefined, biophysical mechanism.

One possible explanation, currently being investigated, is that during serial dilution the complex interactions between the solvent (water) molecules are permanently altered to retain a “memory” of the original solute material.