Author: Dr. Swapan Paul[1], Dr. Asif Sardar[2]
Lecturer
Dept. of Homoeopathic Materia Medica
National Institute of Homoeopathy.
215th Batch PGT, Dept. of Homoeopathic Materia Medica
National Institute of Homoeopathy.
Address for correspondence:
National Institute of Homoeopathy, Kolkata
Abstract
Advancements in scientific techniques have enabled researchers to critically examine and scrutinize nonconventional therapies to either validate or reject them for routine clinical practice. The substantiation of the homeopathic system has been controversial since there is no standard drug dilution strength that can be subjected to clinical tests. Homeopaths usually claim to achieve curative effects by using homeopathic substances ranging in concentration from mother tinctures in crude forms to infinitesimal dilutions with a probability of almost zero active ingredients in them. The issue becomes further confused when different criteria are applied to drug dilution preparations that are inconsistent with any established scientific metric such as Avogadro’s number.
KEY WORD: Drug dynamization, homoeopathy, moleculer theory, water memory
Introduction
Homeopathic medicines are micro-dosed natural substances derived from botanical, animal or mineral sources. A specific homeopathic medicine dilution is obtained by a precise and controlled process of successive “homeopathic dilution”. The medicine is diluted or de-concentrated and then vigorously shaken, traditionally referred to as succussion. This process transforms the original substance into a therapeutically active medicine.
Many new homoeopaths mistake potency or dilution with strength. There is actually no correlation between potency and the strength of a homeopathic medicine. A homeopathic medicine at 30C potency is not stronger than the same medicine at 6C or 3C. The difference is in their action, e.g. 6C potency is better suited for a local symptom, a 30C or higher potency is more appropriate for general conditions such as allergy, stress or sleep disorders. It is claimed that the lower the concentration of a substance, the more potent it becomes. This concept, often referred to as the “Law of Infinitesimals,” is the equivalent of saying that the less sugar you put into a cup of coffee, the sweeter it will become. This is just the opposite of the dose-response relationship that pharmacologists of modern science have demonstrated.
This fact was well known to its founder, Dr. Hahnemann, who tried to establish drug standardization around the 30th dilution during his last years of life. He even developed a semi-nonlinear method, known as LM potencies, which was revealed in his post-mortem publication of Organon of Medicine, 6th edition, in 1921. Dr. Hering, founder of American Homeopathy, devised the decimal dilution method, which, like the earlier dilution methods, lacked any fundamental metric such as Avogadro’s number. A literature search revealed that the drug dilution and standardization issues were never settled in homeopathy. The issues of miracle cures with different dilutions become questionable when such claims are examined in the absence of any placebo or control studies. In short, homeopathy has failed to establish validity of its dilutions’ affects in general research settings. The common denominator to all such failures can be attributed to the absence of standardization of drug dilutions based on scientific metrics. Different drugs are composed of different numbers of atoms/molecules to start with. A single linear no-threshold method cannot standardize the heterogeneous drugs to a desired unique scale. A nonlinear method is needed to standardize homeopathic drugs to a single scale such as the 30th to either validate or reject them on scientific grounds. This issue becomes more important in the light of new emerging nanotechnology. Homeopathic drug standardization based on scientific metrics is needed for research and reproducibility for routine clinical practice.
KEY WORD: Drug dynamization, homoeopathy, moleculer theory, water memory