HOMOEOPATHY: HOW DOES IT  WORK?
By Paul Callinan  M.Sc. N.D. D.Hom. Ph D.

Recently homoeopathic medicine has risen to new heights of  controversy in the world of medical science. Nature, a prestigious journal in  the field of Bioscience, has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a warning  to readers to suspend judgement on one of its printed research papers. The  author and principal experimenter, Professor Jacques Benveniste of the French  Medical Research Council, has been subjected to scorn, ridicule, and critical  investigation of his experimental procedures because the results he printed  supported homoeopathic medicine. Paul Callinan, one of Australia's few  homoeopathic researchers, looks at the past and present of this contentious  medicine.

The rising profile of homoeopathy has produced something of a  dilemma in the world of medicine: does it work or doesn't it? The decision  bites deep: if homoeopathic medicine is nothing but fraud, quackery, and  placebo, as many of its opponents would maintain, then a large number of  competently trained homoeopaths and doctors, together with countless thousands  of dedicated lay practitioners have been led up the medical garden path. Their  millions of patients, including many heads of state and prominent members of  several of Europe's royal families, have fallen victim to the most successful  medical hoax ever perpetrated. On the other hand, if homoeopathic medicine is  effective, then for the first time in more than a hundred years the Western  world is on the verge of developing an entirely new system of medicine. The  medicines are non-toxic and easily manufactured; they are also very  cheap.

During the 170 years of its existence, homoeopathy has been  the centre of continual and often bitter medical controversy. It has been  particularly opposed by orthodox medicine, otherwise known as allopathy. But  recently, both research and patient support has grown at a rapid pace. Yet  rather than being hailed as a possible new medical breakthrough to give better  health for all, it has been ridiculed, ignored and systematically suppressed.

Clearly, something is wrong. The problem is that homoeopathic  medicines can be diluted to such extremes that it can be shown physically,  chemically, and mathematically that there is nothing in the final dose but  water. Obviously then, the objection goes, any medicinal effect is nothing but  placebo, and the homoeopaths are both frauds and charlatans.

Yet the origins of homoeopathic medicine are both honourable  and orthodox. It was developed in Germany by the research of Dr. Samuel  Hahnemann (1755-1834), who as well as being an experienced orthodox physician  was also a competent chemist, a good mineralogist and botanist, and an able  translator of eight different languages. His research stemmed from a  dissatisfaction with the standard medical practices of his time: routine  bleedings, heroic purgings with cathartics, and administration of large doses  of crude drugs. While translating Cullen's Materia Medica into German, he was  struck by a hitherto unexplored medical observation, first mentioned by  Hippocrates. Cullen had proposed that the notable success of cinchona (an  extract of quinine bark) in the treatment of swamp fever was due to its value  as a stomach tonic. Hahnemann disagreed, and in his research on the question  decided to take a course of the cinchona extract himself. To his surprise, he  developed a set of symptoms remarkably similar to those of the swamp fever it  was used to treat. All the symptoms disappeared when he stopped taking it.  Further administration to himself and his family always produced the same  symptoms, varying only in degree.

This was a strange phenomenon, uncited in the medical  literature of the day. A remedy which was effective in a particular disease  would produce a similar set of symptoms in a healthy person, when given in  sufficient doses. In searching for precedents for this effect, he established  that the first mention made of it was in the writings of Hippocrates (460-377  B.C.), regarded by the orthodoxy as the father of modern medicine. Hippocrates  had said that likes can be cured by likes: that vomiting may be stopped by  being made to vomit, and any illness caused by one means can be treated  successfully by a similar means.

The Law of Similars

From this Hahnemann produced the first axiom of homoeopathy:  Similia Similibus Curentur - Let Likes be Cured by Likes, otherwise known as  the Law of Similars - and so began his life's work. By 1821 he had produced  two major works: The Organon of Rational Medicine, embodying the principles of  the homoeopathic approach to medicine, and his Materia Medica Pura, covering  the effects of sixty four medicines.

This approach to medicine represents a dramatic move away from  the established method. The allopathic approach was of establishing the  existence of a particular disease, clarifying its symptoms, and then testing  the effectiveness of various medicines on it, by the use of opposites. An  illness accompanied by fever and diarrhoea, for example, would call for the  combined use of medicines which would be anti-febrile and others which would  normally constipate, and so in a crude way, a total balance would be found by  using a number of appropriate medicines together. The homoeopaths tried the  opposite approach: first test a substance for medicinal use, they said, by  giving it to healthy volunteers, and carefully noting the symptoms it  produces. This is known as a proving. Once the symptom picture has been fully  developed over a number of human trials, then it can be assessed for  usefulness against diseases with a similar set of symptoms. A substance which  produces a bizarre set of symptoms such as bright red orifices and blue-green  discharges, for example, will have little use in homoeopathic clinical  practice because symptoms of this type are rarely met. However a substance  which produces a runny nose, watery red eyes and repeated sneezing would be of  great value in the treatment of hay fever. The common onion produces just  those symptoms (as countless cooks can guarantee), and by use of the above  trial system the onion has now achieved an established place in homoeopathic  therapeutics. In essence, allopathic medicine embodies the law of opposites,  homoeopathic medicine the law of similars.

Potentisation

At first the homoeopathic approach to medicine seems  contradictory. Surely experience would tell us that exposing hay fever  sufferers to large doses of onion would just add insult to injury, and make  them worse rather than better. The homoeopaths would agree, but with two  provisos.

First the symptoms must match closely before onion will have a  therapeutic effect; this is embodied in their Law of the Single Remedy, which  states that the most effective result will come from the most similar remedy  given in single doses. Then after the initial aggravation of symptoms dies  down, the hay fever will be noticeably better.

Second, if the initial doses of onion are sufficiently  diluted, there will be very little aggravation at all before improvement sets  in. In fact, the homoeopaths see dilution to infinitesimal degrees as a  necessary part of the preparation of their medicines. It is embodied in the  other important axiom for treatment; the Law of the Minimum Dose. This states  that the most effective dose for a disorder is the minimum amount necessary to  produce a response. Give one dose only of the diluted substance, the  homoeopaths say, and then wait for a favourable reaction. Having produced the  desired improvement, give a second dose only when improvement stops.

It is this dilution of homoeopathic medicines which has been  the greatest obstacle to their more universal acceptance. The process is known  as potentisation, and involves a sequence of progressive dilution and a  rhythmic shaking, termed succussion. In the normal case, 1 part of the source  substance is added to 9 parts of water and shaken rhythmically. This is known  as a 1x (decimal) dilution, or 1 part in 10. One part of this is then taken  and added to another 9 parts of water, and again succussed, to give a 2x  dilution, or 1 part in 100. Similarly, a 3x dilution is 1 part in 1000. These  dilutions, also known as potencies, can be repeated an large number of  times.

Dilutions are also made on a centesimal scale, or 1  part in 100, yielding 1c, 2c, and so on. It needs only a little mental  arithmetic to appreciate that a dilution procedure of this type (either  decimal or centesimal) rapidly disperses the original substance. Figure  1 gives a summary of the potencies, and their corresponding  dilutions.
	Summary of the homoeopathic  potencies showing concentrations of the source  drug.

Hence the low potencies have been diluted least, and may still  contain significant amounts of the source drug. But at 12c or 24x what is  known as the Avogadro limit is reached, and at this concentration it is  unlikely for even a single molecule of the original drug to be still present  in one litre of the preparation. Yet the Avogadro limit occurs in the low  potency range, and the homoeopaths maintain that, contrary to expectations,  the power of the medicine increases as the potency increases. So there is very  little doubt that many patients treated with high potencies receive nothing  but water.

The Homoeopathic Dilutions. While the toxicity of such medicines is obviously very  low, their efficacy has been seriously questioned, as dilutions above  12c can be dismissed on pharmacological grounds as completely inert. Yet  potencies in the medium to high dilution range are the normal working  area of homoeopathy, and many striking cures have been claimed. The  first and obvious response is to claim that the action in successful  cases is purely placebo, and the medicine is useful only in the  suggestible and the gullible. Not so, maintain the homoeopaths, who  claim cures on infants, animals, unconscious patients, those with  infectious diseases, and those with deep seated chronic disorders. In  addition, the clinical trials are impressive. So the medical plot  thickens.

Clinical Trials

The early homoeopaths were all trained allopaths, and once  having been convinced of the effectiveness of homoeopathic medicines, felt no  need to prove anything to anybody. After all, they had the training to use  whatever medicine they considered appropriate for their patients. It was also  expedient to make as little noise as possible about their use of a medicine  which was already regarded as suspect within their own ranks. In any case,  most of their research time was spent on provings, in order to expand the  number of known and useful medicines, and very little on clinical  trials.

As a result, it took an event of considerable magnitude to  bring the medicine out into the open, and the European cholera epidemic of  1832, two years before Hahnemann's death, was just such an occasion. By the  accounts of all observers, the homoeopaths had a far higher recovery rate than  the allopaths, and it is recounted that in Paris, the price of the  homoeopathic medicine for cholera increased 100-fold. In Russia (where it is  said the epidemic originated), the report from the Consul General showed that  of the 1,270 cases treated homeopathically, 1,162 recovered, and only 108  died, giving a mortality rate of less than 10 percent. By contrast, the  mortality rate from allopathic treatment was 60 to 70 percent.1

Following the homoeopathic success in the epidemic, medical  interest in homoeopathy increased at a rapid rate, and by the time of the next  European cholera epidemic in 1854, the London Homoeopathic Hospital was  already established. Its facilities were turned over entirely to the treatment  of cholera victims, and the results were impressive. The homoeopathic death  rate was 16.4 percent, compared to the allopathic death rate of 51.8 percent.  Similar successful figures were reluctantly reported by a number of other  countries2. Detailed returns for Britain had to be made by all hospitals and  practitioners as to treatment and results in cholera, and the totals submitted  by the British Medical Council in their Blue Book of Statistics. However, the  figures from the Homoeopathic Hospital were deliberately omitted, and were  only produced after considerable protest. The official reason for the omission  was that inclusion of the homoeopathic figures "would give an unjustifiable  sanction to an empirical practice, alike opposed to the maintenance of truth  and the progress of science."

This prejudiced and bigoted reaction to the success of  homoeopathic medicine is typical of the problem which has plagued the advance  of science for many centuries. Orthodox medicine, in particular, is well known  for its poor track record in meeting innovative change and research  breakthroughs with the proper degree of scientific detachment and quiet  encouragement. Even within their own ranks, some of the greatest of  innovators, such as Lister, Jenner, and Harvey, suffered ridicule and  professional ostracism over discoveries which later became mainstays of  medical practice. In reaction to homoeopathic successes, the modern orthodox  call has been for more clinical trials. Give us controlled trials, many  allopaths have said, and if successful, we will accept the medicine.

Since that time, a number of clinical trials have been run,  but many of them with poor controls. Some of the better run trials are  summarised here briefly. Those looking for a more complete list could do no  better than the excellent review of Scofield3.

Mustard Gas

The best controlled of the early clinical trials was conducted  jointly in London and Glasgow during the second world war, to find a method of  prevention and treatment of mustard gas burns. Mustard gas in the 30c potency,  given as a preventative, reduced the incidence of deep and medium burns  significantly. THe remedies Rhus tox and Kali bich also gave statistically  significant results in treatment3.

Rheumatoid arthritis

More recent trials were conducted in 1978 at the Glasgow  Homoeopathic Hospital, now emerging as a stronghold of homoeopathic research.  Gibson and co-workers conducted a double-blind comparison of a range of  homoeopathic remedies (matched against the individual symptom pictures), and  compared the responses to those of salicylates and placebo in the treatment of  rheumatoid arthritis. They showed that the patients who received homoeopathic  remedies responded statistically better than those who received salicylates;  moreover 42 percent of the homoeopathic group were able to discontinue all  other treatment during the year3.

Objections to the method of trial led to a more rigidly  designed trial in 1980, where patients were given either a homoeopathic  medicine or placebo, but were allowed to continue with their orthodox  anti-inflammatory drugs. The homoeopathic group showed significant improvement  as judged by a number of tests, as compared to the patients who received  placebo. It was noted that homoeopathy was a safer and no less effective  alternative to present day second line drugs in the treatment of rheumatoid  arthritis3.

Hay Fever - The Crack Widens

One of the most recent clinical trials, and certainly the most  tightly controlled to date, was conducted in 1986 at the Glasgow Homoeopathic  Hospital by Dr David Taylor Reilly, an allopath by training. The claim that  homoeopathic medicines are placebo was tested in a randomised, double-blind,  placebo-controlled trial. The effects of a homoeopathic preparation of mixed  grass pollens (30c potency, no molecules of the original pollen remaining) was  compared with those of placebo in a total of 144 patients with active hay  fever. The homoeopathically treated patients showed a statistically  significant reduction in symptoms as assessed by both patient and physician.  No evidence emerged to support the idea that placebo action explains the  clinical response to homoeopathic remedies.4

The publishing of this latter paper in the Lancet, arguably  the most prestigious medical journal in the world, indicated the depth of  penetration of homoeopathic medicine into the allopathic world. The  controversy it produced indicated the degree of crystallisation of the  collective allopathic brain. Here at last was proof positive in the much  upheld double-blind trial, yet the collective reaction was less than positive.  Although some of the more far-sighted of the correspondents suggested the  possibility that a new chemistry and a new physics had been born, the reliance  on pharmacology in the allopathic way of thinking showed its dominance.  Reactions to drugs are caused by molecules of drug substance interacting with  various body components, the thinking goes, and if there are no drug molecules  in a medicine then there is no reaction aside from placebo effects. The  experiment was simply testing one placebo against another. The fact that  statistical significance was obtained for one of the `placebos' was apparently  deemed of no consequence, and indicates that the issue may not be a scientific  issue at all, but more an economic and emotional one.

Pharmacological Support

Logically, one of the first areas to investigate for support  (or the lack of it) in homoeopathy is the area of pharmacology, or drug  action. And contrary to expectations, some surprising support is appearing.

Ask a pharmacologist about the biological effect of very low  concentrations of common substances on living organisms and the answer will be  that there is typically very little or zero response. Ask for some theoretical  backup, and in short order you will find yourself confronted by one of the  pharmacological tools of trade, the Dose - Response Curve. In brief, the curve  illustrates one of the rules of thumb in drug use: that an increased dose of a  drug will give an increased effect, while a lowered dose of a drug will give a  reduced effect, and a very low dose will give no effect at all.

The area of the threshold dose is usually avoided in standard  pharmacological drug testing, for two reasons. The first is that the threshold  dose lies some distance from the area of the ED50, so investigating this area  for drug reaction is basically a waste of time. But the other reason is far  more interesting. The threshold dose is an area where paradoxical and  contradictory results are obtained, not easily explained in conventional  terms. Again, the easy answer is to simply avoid it in experimentation. But  the bottom line is that for many years the pharmacologists have known of the  strange results obtained in the threshold dose area, but have simply chosen to  ignore them. In doing so, they had unwittingly withdrawn orthodox support for  an entirely different field of medicine.

It is interesting that one of the very earliest laws of  pharmacology, known as the Arndt - Schulz Law, had already expressed the  homoeopathic effect. Formulated by Arndt in 1888, and restated by Hueppe a few  years later, the law set the groundwork for what should have been a  side-by-side development of allopathic and homoeopathic medicine in the  following century. It states:

For every substance, small doses stimulate, moderate doses  inhibit, large doses kill.

Allopathic medicine, with its emphasis on moderate drug doses,  works in the inhibitory part of the scale. The result is seen in the typically  inhibitory medicines produced: antihistamines, antibiotics, antacids, cough  suppressants and so on, laying the basis for the so-called `suppressant'  effect of drugs.

Homoeopathic medicine, on the other hand, begins at the  stimulatory end of the curve, and moves to the left, into the smaller and  smaller dose range. Its emphasis is on the stimulation of the body's natural  balancing mechanisms, as seen in its philosophy of the natural regeneration of  the body through rebuilding of vitality, a concept also in close agreement  with naturopathic thought.

The pioneering work of Boyd12 bound the worlds of homoeopathy  and Arndt-Schulz together in the early 1940s with a series of tightly  controlled experiments, and set the stage for work much later on as to how  homoeopathic medicine may work. Boyd worked with the enzyme malt diastase,  which was already known to be inhibited by crude doses of the salt mercuric  chloride, and measured its speed in the hydrolysis of starch. He also used a  number of homoeopathically prepared dilutions of mercuric chloride, including  a batch at 61x, where there was no likelihood of any of the original salt  remaining - it was pure water. He also worked with distilled water as a  control. He showed that crude doses of mercuric chloride inhibited diastase  activity, as was already well known, and that distilled water had no effect.  But he also showed, with statistically significant results, that mercuric  chloride 61x accelerated diastase activity.

Now this experiment had a number of ramifications, besides  supporting the Arndt-Schulz Law. If there was no mercuric chloride in the 61x  potency, the it should have reacted the same as distilled water. If, on the  other hand, there was a contamination of mercuric chloride somehow in the test  doses, then the activity of the enzyme should have decreased. Instead it did  neither, but increased, From the laboratory

point of view, homoeopathic medicines not only had been showed  to work according to the Arndt-Schulz Law, but had been shown to affect enzyme  action.

Hormesis: The New Breakthrough

Look up the Arndt-Schulz Law in a modern textbook of  pharmacology, and you will be lucky if you find it mentioned, let alone  discussed. It died out of the textbooks as the allopathic interest moved  further into the inhibitory part of the Arndt-Schulz curve, and as the  pharmacological Dose - Response curve avoided the area of the threshold dose.  It appeared that, for all its promising origins, theoretical support for  homoeopathy had died a natural death.

Recently, however, further support for homoeopathic medicine  has come from a most unlikely direction: the field of toxicology, or the  action of poisons. Beginning in 1960, data began to accumulate that poisonous  substances were having two effects on living organisms5. At high doses they  inhibited metabolism and ultimately caused death, as was well known. But at  low doses they exerted a stimulating effect, a response totally unexpected and  not explainable by current medical science. Recently the trickle turned to a  torrent, as toxicologists turned to examine the new phenomenon of hormesis,  the name given to the stimulatory effect of low levels of usually poisonous  substances.6-11 The Arndt-Schulz Law had not died: it had simply resurfaced  with a new name.

The research results are incomplete, but the trend is  inescapable. Evidence from experiments, both human and animal, shows hormesis  as an effect occurring in all biological domains tested, with growing research  support. It demonstrates that all substances (including pesticides and  carcinogens) which show an inhibitory effect at high concentrations, have a  stimulatory effect at low concentrations.

Typical Concentration-Response Curves  Developed in Hormesis Research6

The alpha curve is the most expected pattern, and is assumed  to describe the actions of drugs in humans as the concentration moves from low  concentrations to progressively more inhibitory ones. This curve is a  tentative one, and is assigned to those drugs which have not yet been fully  tested for a stimulatory response.

The beta curve was the most frequently observed pattern, and  accounted for the human reactions to the bulk of the drugs tested. It shows a  typical curve as predicted by the Arndt-Schulz Law, but (understandably) was  not tested in toxic and lethal dose ranges.

The two other curves the gamma and delta forms, were recorded  where data was available for biological response at lower dose ranges. However  data points for these ranges are generally less available, so the validity of  these curves is unknown until further data is available.

Homoeopathic research has consistently produced results  showing the basic curve structure of hormesis and the Arndt-Schulz Law. But  the research goes further: as the drug substance is progressively diluted, the  biological reaction alternates between stimulation and inhibition, as given by  the hormesis gamma and delta curves. This periodic behaviour is called  rhythmicity by the homoeopaths, and represents one of the several great  unexplained phenomena in homoeopathic action. But one factor is established:  as the dilutions become extreme and the concentration of the source drug  approaches zero, the biological reaction will also fade out unless the diluted  solution is succussed in accord with traditional homoeopathic  practice.

A Typical Rhythmicity Curve of the  Homoeopathic Remedy Prunus Spinosa

The implications of hormesis are enormous and deserve a story  of their own, but a few points here may give future directions.

: Pesticides which are toxic to pests at high concentrations  can cause a proliferation of their growth at lower concentrations, such as can  occur in rainwater run-off and collecting river systems. The ecological value  of their use will tumble.

: Any substance which causes cancer will likewise be shown to  be anti-cancer in its action at a lower dose range.

: The present tactic of various health departments in this  country of giving a herb in high doses to experimental animals (and then  banning it in all dose ranges when tumours form) will become  counterproductive. Any herb which causes cancer in high doses will be shown to  protective against the same cancer in low dose ranges, suitable for human  intake.

How Does Homoeopathy Work?

Central to the issue of medical acceptance of homoeopathy is  the clarification of its mechanism of action. In particular, is there a model  which adequately explains its clinical effectiveness and the successes of the  trials?

In the development of a workable model, the research thinking  has gone something like this: Given that the medicine is effective even when  it can be shown that there is no likelihood of any molecules left in a  particular dose (due to dilution), then the effect of the dose must lie with  the water molecules themselves, since that is all that is left. Water itself  can be assumed to have no effect in this case, since the dose is small, and  the effect would always be the same. The answer must lie within the water  molecules, and the only real possibility is in the type of energy that the  molecule has stored.

Energy storage within molecules in biological systems lies  within the realm of biophysics rather than biochemistry. Biophysics is a new  field, having become established only within the last twenty years or so. It  is not yet included in medical curricula in universities to any great extent,  and is only now beginning to make its mark in the biological sciences. Small  wonder, therefore, that the established medical world knows little of its  existence, or the promise it holds in explaining the action of the medicines  of energy, such as homoeopathy, acupuncture, psychic and spirit healing, and  radionics.

Energy Storage

Molecules such as water can store energy in  four different ways - kinetic, spin, vibration and electronic excitation. Some  storage modes can store more energy than others, and we will start at the  lowest, least energetic mode, which is kinetic energy, or energy of motion. A  molecule stores kinetic energy by virtue of its speed. It is this storage in  gases and liquids which causes pressure (such as air pressure) by the  continual collision of the molecules with surfaces like our skin, and also  causes the bulk of chemical reactions to occur. At room temperature, the  energy which these molecules contain is low, compared with other states. It is  unsuited to homoeopathic medicine since the energy is constantly altered by  collision, and so any energy stored is degraded.

Energy Storage In  Molecules

Spin and Microwave Cooking

Spin energy is found in gases and liquids, but not in solids,  where the stronger attractions between molecules prevents rotation.It is also  not found in water until about 420C, a factor of considerable importance to  living organisms, composed as they are of up to 90 percent water, with humans  being about 40 percent. Heating up water to about 42 degrees causes sufficient  disruption of the molecular attraction between molecules to allow spin to  occur, and that's precisely the temperature at which humans start to die. Life  processes in general seem to keep a safe distance from the temperature band of  42 to 45 degrees.

Spin energy in molecules corresponds to microwave radiation,  which is one reason why this radiation is lethal. It is also an indication of  the potential power of energy storage in this mode - strong enough to cook  food. But it is unsuited to homoeopathic medicine, since at room temperature,  the spin storage state in water has not become active.

Electronic Excitation

At the top end of the scale is electronic excitation, which is  the stuff powering lasers, of great strength and intensity. Excite the  electrons circling the component molecules up into higher orbits and energy is  stored. Drop them down together, and a pulse of light is given out. It may be  of sufficient strength and power to burn a hole through a razor blade, cut  tissue in surgery, or stop an army tank - it depends on what molecules are  used, and how strongly the electrons are excited. It is not suitable for  homoeopathic medicine, because the excited electrons are unstable, and will  decay in a matter of fractions of a second.

Vibratory Storage

Standing midway between the cooking power of microwave and the  destructive power of lasers stands vibratory energy. Although it has an  accepted place in physics as a means of storing energy, it has had a chequered  career in medical science because of its association with trance mediums,  psychic phenomena and extrasensory perception. Vibratory energy can be found  in molecules throughout all three states of matter - solid, liquid and gas. It  is responsible for phenomena such as the expansion of metals when heated, and  the transfer of heat by conduction. Vibratory motion of a molecule increases  when the molecule absorbs energy, and can re-radiate it at a later date,  usually in the infrared part of the spectrum, where heat is also  found.

It is in the storage of vibratory energy in water molecules  during the succussion process that homoeopathic medicine places many of its  hopes for a scientific explanation of its action. It is proposed that during  the collision process, vibratory energy is exchanged between the source drug  and the water, and that the water is left with a vibratory imprint of the  drug. Further succussion makes the imprint deeper, which explains why the  medicines are regarded as acting more strongly as the dilution increases.  Furthermore it is not just energy which is being stored, it is proposed, but  information, differing from one remedy to another depending on the source  substance used, with every substance leaving a different vibratory signature  in the water molecule. In this way homoeopathic medicine is seen as carrying  information into the body when it is taken in dose form, perhaps as biological  instructions.

If water molecules were dissociated from each other at room  temperature, any vibratory energy stored would quickly degrade. But at 250C,  about 70% of water molecules are incorporated into a stable hexagonal lattice  structure, capable of storing a considerable amount of vibratory energy before  it breaks up. But storage of vibratory energy causes structural changes,  because any molecule which absorb energy will always change its shape. So a  convenient way of telling if this particular model was correct was to examine  homoeopathic water for structural changes.

A number of workers over the years have shown that both high  and low potency homoeopathic medicines show structural changes in the water  they contain. It was additionally shown that in order for the structural  changes to occur, two things must happen. First, there must be a source drug  to begin with; that is, you can't make a homoeopathic medicine from water  alone. Secondly, you must succuss the remedy as it is diluted stepwise, in the  rhythmic shaking manner used by the homoeopaths for many years. Only when  these two processes are included will structural changes show.

Certainly one of the most visually impressive experiments to  test the possibility of structural changes was carried out recently, involving  ice crystals. Ice crystal structures are very good mirrors of the energy  status of their component water molecules. It is why, for instance, you will  never find two identical snowflake patterns, for each is formed under slightly  different conditions. In the experiment, different potencies of the  homoeopathic remedy pulsatilla were frozen at -100C, and photographed under  polarised light to show any changes in the ice crystal structure. The results  are strikingly beautiful, and the changes in crystal size as the potencies  increase indicate increased energy storage in vibratory modes.

Benveniste - Champion or Charlatan?

In one of the stranger episodes in the recorded history of  scientific publishing, the prestigious British research journal Nature  recently published experimental results which the editors say they consider  utterly impossible. The typically indigestible title of the paper is "Human  Basophil Degranulation Triggered by Very Dilute Antiserum Against IgE"14, and  the conclusions it proposes have been similarly indigestible to the medical  community. The main players in the experiment were a special type of white  blood cell known as a basophil and an antibody, IgE. When basophils are  normally exposed to this antibody, their chemistry and internal structure  change, in a way that is easily checked by staining techniques. But what  Benveniste and his colleagues found was that the changes occurred even when  the antibody was used up to the 120x potency, a dilution at which it is  virtually impossible for even one molecule of the antibody to remain. The  results also showed the familiar rhythmic changes in basophil reactions as the  potencies increased, a factor still unexplained, even by homoeopaths. The  deputy editor of Nature remarked that two centuries of observation and  rational thinking about biology will have to be abandoned if the results  stand, because they cannot be explained by existing physical laws.

The 13 member international research team headed by Professor  Benveniste conducted their experiments after being challenged by two eminent  French homoeopaths to disprove homoeopathy once and for all, by conducting a  sensitive, tightly controlled experiment in an accredited research centre. The  centre chosen was at the University of South Paris, where Professor Benveniste  is a Research Director. "That was how it all started", he said. "They  challenged us to prove them wrong, and we couldn't."

The furore surrounding this experiment has produced some  unique reactions within the scientific community, and highlights an important  question: how should the scientific establishment deal with anomalous findings  which challenge the very roots of established thought? Nature

journal had its own answer: it sent a fraud squad comprising  one of its editors, a professional magician, and an investigator of scientific  frauds from the USA to Benveniste's laboratories. Over a period of a week they  criticised shortcomings in experimental design, studied the laboratory  records, and interrogated the researchers. Finally, they failed to replicate  the results in a double-blind trial, and declared the experiments "a  delusion." Benveniste, not unexpectedly, considered the investigation a witch  hunt and an outrage. "I welcome any explanation for our findings" he said,  "but not this kind of crap."

The homoeopaths of the world, together with interested  onlookers, can be assured that the matter will not rest there. Further  interesting reading on the bizarre reactions to homoeopathic experiments on  the part of the scientific and medical establishments will surface. Benveniste  will undoubtedly be back, with a more tightly controlled experiment which will  probably decide, once and for all, the future of homoeopathy.