But the principles behind homeopathy, a medical system developed more than 200 years ago in Germany, are flawed: “like cures like” and the “law of minimum dose.” The concept behind “like cures like” is that if people are exposed to substances that cause symptoms of disease, this will cure people of diseases that produce the same symptoms. If your problem is an itchy rash, then perhaps you should try a treatment containing poison ivy. If you’ve got diarrhea, perhaps try some five-alarm chili.

The “law of minimum dose” is the idea of “less is more” carried to the extreme — that the most effective medicines are those of the lowest possible doses. Ingredients are repeatedly diluted until they are present in extremely small quantities. These quantities are so small, that sometimes there isn’t even a single molecule of what is supposed to be curing the ailment present. Applying the “law of minimum dose” to a splitting headache, instead of swallowing a normal aspirin pill, you’d grind it up into powder and eat a crumb so small an ant would ignore it.