Primrose Road

Though Homeopathy Awareness Week has now come to a close, I couldn't help further investigating the homeopathic claim that gunpowder cures the bone infection osteomyelitis. I contacted a couple of local homeopaths (they're in the phone book? what?) using the pseudonym Vittoria Corombona (naturally) and described to them the jaw infection I had at twenty-one years old, as though I were still 21 and still had the infection.

I'd share direct quotes, but I'm a grad student and don't have the $$$ to defend myself in case of lawsuit. And from what we're learned here on the ol' In-tar-webz, scammers and generally drippy people who believe in their own scams tend to be rather litigious.

First, several noted my condition was unusual, a fact that is easily Googlable. (Bette Davis and I are pretty much the only healthy women in the Western world to have had it. ;)) I was also told that homeopathy is excellent for inflammations and infections because it'll strengthen your immune system. One homeopath even said that by strengthening my immune system, I'd kill the infection without antibiotics. Now, I haven't taken a science class since 1999 -- my only memories of the last science class I took are singing the periodic table and pretending to "be" the Big Bang while shouting "Boron, boron, release the boron!" -- and even I know that you want a normal immune system because a strong immune system can kill you.

So it's Homeopathy Awareness Week (check out the series over on the Skepchick blog), and I am disappointed to learn that when I had osteomyelitis of the jaw a few years ago, I could have avoided multiple surgeries and months of antibiotics by simply swallowing some gunpowder. That's right, gunpowder. Or rather, highly diluted gunpowder that's really just water.

Which reminds me: thank you doctors who did biopsies and culture and sensitivity tests to determine exactly what antibiotics I needed, and thank you doctors and nurses who operated to remove infected bone and tissue. I know it would have been much easier to just give me a glass of magic water. ;)