{"id":179202,"date":"2018-04-19T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T23:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/04\/19\/adventures-in-the-annals-of-quackery\/"},"modified":"2018-04-19T18:55:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T23:55:00","slug":"adventures-in-the-annals-of-quackery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/04\/19\/adventures-in-the-annals-of-quackery\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in the Annals of Quackery"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>In the annals of quack medicine, there is patent medicine, there is quackery, and then there is treating someone with the saliva of a rabid dog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cHair of the dog\u201d remedies may do the trick for some hangover sufferers. But health experts say that a Canadian homeopath took the idea too far\u2014way, way too far. <\/p>\n

Homeopath and naturopath Anke Zimmermann used diluted saliva from a rabid dog<\/a> to \u201ctreat\u201d a four-year-old boy, according to a blog post she published earlier this year. Zimmermann claims that the potentially infectious and deadly concoction successfully resolved the boy\u2019s aggressive behavior, which she described as a \u201cslightly rabid-dog state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tale fits with the scientifically implausible principles of homeopathy<\/a>. These roughly state that substances that produce similar symptoms of a particular ailment can cure said ailment (\u201clike cures like\u201d) and that diluting a substance increases its potency (\u201claw of infinitesimals\u201d).<\/p>\n

Health experts say Zimmermann\u2019s claims aren\u2019t just farfetched, but, rather, they\u2019re barking mad. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Zimmermann quickly sniffed out the source of the problem: when Jonah was younger, a dog bit him. That is, Jonah\u2019s mother said that one time a dog accidentally \u201cbroke the skin slightly\u201d on Jonah\u2019s hand while it was reaching to get food Jonah was holding.<\/p>\n

Zimmermann pounced on the tidbit, claiming:
<\/span><\/p>\n

A bite from an animal, with or without rabies vaccination, has the potential to imprint an altered state in the person who was bitten, in some ways similar to a rabies infection. This can include over-excitability, difficulties sleeping, aggression, and various fears, especially of dogs or wolves. This child presented a perfect picture of this type of rabies state. Most homeopaths would have easily recognized the remedy required in this case.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cremedy\u201d to this \u201cstate\u201d was clearly the saliva of a rabid dog, Zimmermann concluded. Months later, the mother reported that Jonah\u2019s issues had improved\u2014although they had not resolved entirely.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the whole article for innumerable dog puns, but this is truly horrifying, and Zimmerman needs to be locked up to protect the rest of society. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the annals of quack medicine, there is patent medicine, there is quackery, and then there is treating someone with the saliva of a rabid dog: \u201cHair of the dog\u201d remedies may do the trick for some hangover sufferers. But health experts say that a Canadian homeopath took the idea too far\u2014way, way too far. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,440,414,421],"class_list":["post-179202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-evil","tag-medical","tag-psychology","tag-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}