Dammit!

[Praktica]

Oh, and just an update, with daily treatment consisting of eye drops of yoghurt whey, my nasty conjunctivitis is just about cleared. Tomorrow with luck, I will be able to use my contacts and mucking about with knives in the kitchen will be less of an adventure. 

Great news. My partner is very impressed by the success of your biological warfare approach.

I have used a similar approach for sinus inflammation in the past using a preservative product that is marketed to butchers to minimise spoilage of sausages. I use it in the form of a nasal flush. It contains Lactobacillus sakei which is effective in helping rebalance the flora in the nasal respiratory region which relieves sinus inflammation in my case.

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The problem I have with homeopathy (and with most "alternative" practices) is the lack of proof of efficacy - and lack of explanation of possible modes of action. These things go back to a world where science was lacking, or very new, and knowledge was limited. Being old does make a treatment correct.

The problem with find scientific proof of 'alternative' practices is that are usually multifactorial and modern science has very much a reductionist approach. This is to eliminate all possible influencing factors but when many naturopathic treatment regimes have a number of modes of attack, often using naturally derived compounds that contain very many complex compounds the double blind method of testing tends to fall short. That's why many of these treatments are referred to as being 'traditional', they have proved themselves over the test of time not in a laboratory.

That sounds like special pleading - to excuse lack of proof of efficacy. Many natural substances claimed have pharmaceutical effects have been evaluated, and those with effects are used as drugs in medicine. I take a drug, metformin, derived from a plant - but you could use goat's rue, instead, and claim it was "natural".