Alternative medicine: is it credible?

[Aoqua]

I'm a reasonably logical bloke and I'm worried that even mainstream alternative medicine (contradiction in terms?) has no plausible rationale, so I can't see how it could possibly work. Take homeopathy. The idea is that you have a poison and keep diluting it till it's diluted out of existence, leaving only an impression of itself. You then give that 'impression' (in water) to someone who's suffering from the effects of the poison and they get better! But firstly there's no scientific basis for this 'impression' and even then, if this worked then we'd be drinking homeopathic treatments for all the world's known toxins when we drank tapwater, after all, that's just purified sea or river water.

Similarly Reflexology. I believe in Evolution, so I think all aspects of our bodies are that way for a reason. So how could our feet have evolved to be a health map of our bodies? There is no reason for them to have!

So, can alternative medicine be effective when it is theoretical nonsense?