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An online pharmacy is selling a 'homeopathic owl' remedy that is prescribed to people with owl 'characteristics' like insomnia.

Freeman's is one of the UK’s largest homeopathic pharmacies and has been supplying clients in the NHS including the Glasgow Homeopathic hospital for many years.

Michael Marshall from the Good Thinking Society contacted Freeman's after spotting the owl treatment, keen to find out what it was made of and how it worked - he recorded the conversation in the video below.

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He said: “I don’t know how you go about making a remedy from an owl.” The operator replied that they use the feathers.

“And is that for people who are allergic to owls?” Marshall asks.

“It’s not like they're actually allergic to owls, they could have the characteristics of one where they don’t sleep… some people can actually pick up the characteristics of animals. So some homeopathic doctors like to treat that way,” the operator adds.

“You get to weird places very quickly when you get into bed with quackery,” said Marshall, speaking to Mirror Online.

He's campaigning to stop NHS funding of homeopathic medicines. "Around £3-5 million is spent each year and it's completely worthless. People are being told that it works when there's no evidence that it does."

Homeopaths believe that highly diluted substances can be used to treat a wide range of conditions.

Practitioners believe the more the substance is diluted (and then shaken) the more powerful the treatment becomes.

Remedies are often so diluted in water that they contain none of the original subsistence. Homeopaths say that the liquid retains a "memory" of the original substance that can trigger a healing response in the body.

Most doctors would say that any positive health benefits from taking homeopathic remedies are due to the placebo effect - and there have been numerous studies that have corroborated this.

Other bizarre remedies on the Freeman's website include: Camembert, Coca-Cola, badger and pig hair.