The first two chapters of this book provide a brief introduction to, and history of, homeopathy. It is a decent summary, providing quotations from Samuel Hahnemann's original treatise on the topic, The Organon of Medicine.

        Chapters Three and Four survey recent research on homeopathy. This is perhaps the section of most interest to the clinician, examining the quality of the studies performed, and the results (both positive and negative). The studies include clinical trials, animal research, and in vitro research. The amount of literature on the topic astounded me; I was unaware of it because most has been published in non-English language journals. This fact makes a review such as this one worth the price of the book alone. Since the book's publication in 1995, research has proceeded apace. The latest major offering is a meta-analysis by Linde et al. on placebo-controlled trials, published in the 20 September 1997 issue of The Lancet (1997;350:834-43).

        Chapter Five, "Complexity, Information, and Integration," is the heart of this text. While delving into some difficult topics, it forms the foundation of the rest of the book. "Chaos theory" has become the latest catch-phrase in alternative medicine circles, serving as an imprecise garbage can explanation for any number of therapies. That is why it is essential that Bellavite and Signorini provided this overview of the actual mathematical and physical concepts of chaos, complexity, and fractal geometry. The idea of complexity is applied to health using the examples of inflammation and carcinogenesis. If you can get through this chapter, you will be richly rewarded. Criticism of chaos in medicine is valid if the theory is offered only as a vague black box; however, chaos and complexity do have definitions, and their application to physiology on the molecular, cellular, and organ-system levels makes perfect sense.

        After that lengthy discussion, the authors take this foundation and apply it to homeopathy. The next two chapters separately discuss the two defining tenets of homeopathy: the law of similars, and the effects of high-dilution compounds. Building on the previous theoretical base, the authors not only offer rational hypotheses for the mechanism of homeopathy, but also point out that the distinction between homeopathy and allopathy may not be as clearly defined as previously thought. The specific discussion of how homeopathic remedies may act on the homeostatic systems of the body, and how the biophysics of water can explain the meta-molecular effects of remedies, provide a rational and intriguing starting point for future research.

        Many in the medical and scientific community today dismiss homeopathic jargon such as "vital force" and "energy medicine" as anachronistic or superstitious. Bellavite and Signorini have accessibly translated these concepts into our current understanding of homeostasis and the energy defined by physics (joules and all!). Homeopaths have practiced for years without knowledge of these mechanisms; for the modern homeopath, however, this volume is the key to the next century.

Reprinted from The Synapse, February 1998.