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A folk remedy* for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers, has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. During the second week, the volunteers discontinued their medication. As a result, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. This shows that over a short period of time lavender cures insomnia.
A folk remedy is usually a plant-based form of treatment common to traditional forms of medicine, ones that developed before the advent of modern medical services and technology.
Citing that since 30 patients suffering from insomnia were able to take a sound sleep on lavender scented pillow the author claims that lavender has the capability to cure insomnia. The argument based on very slight evidence and takes some assumption in its conclusion; thus it stands unconvincing.
Firstly, author does not provide any information over the control group in the study - the group of people that undergoes the study without actually being treated with the drug/therapy being studied in the study. The control group helps to understand whether the symptoms after administering the drug/therapy were common to everybody or only to the group being administered with the drug/therapy. Perhaps the control group could have also reacted in a similar fashion as the other group. Hence, the conclusion would have been rendered false.
Secondly, author assumes that 30 people represent the whole group of people suffering from insomnia. It does not provide any information on their age, gender, occupation etc. to justify that they include a diverse group and all severity levels of insomnia. Perhaps, the people studied were suffering from brief insomnia. Therefore, it needs to be verified if lavender will have a similar effect in other severity levels as well. Hence the author needs to provide some characteristics of the people studied.
Thirdly, the author does not provide any information on how often was lavender refreshed on the pillows. Perhaps lavender evaporated from the pillows and hence did not have any effect on the people studied. Also, this would provide us information about how much lavender was required to cure insomnia. Also, the author does not provide any information over the side effects of lavender. Perhaps, people felt nauseated in the morning.
To conclude, the author needs to support the argument with some information to strengthen it. The argument needs to include information on the control group, the severity level of insomnia in people who participated in the study, whether the study included people with diverse characteristics and last but not least how much lavender was used in the study and whether it had any side effects on the people. This information would strengthen the argument and make it more convincing.
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