Scientific Investigations Of Homoeo Materials And Potencies
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1999 Nov / Dec VOL VIII NO 6.
Dr A.S. Paranjape

1. Abstract
In this article, we show a glimpse of research avenues offered by Homoeopathy.

Introduction
Water plays most important role in living systems. It is known to play unique role in biological systems by virtue of its hydrogen bonding property. But there is yet another property of water, ethyl alcohol (and may be many other materials) which is striking. This is, that these liquids exist in large number of stable states at NTP. This knowledge is a gift of the homoeopathic medicinal system to material science. However, this fact is not yet accepted because of lack of proper scientific demonstration. If proved true, this property may be useful in many systems other than homoeopathy, such as noise analysis, fuzzy systems, artificial intelligence etc. Many other materials such as associated liquids, some hydrogen bonded molecules or philosophy behind this unbelievable statement?

2. Homoeo Medicines: A Paradox
The most striking feature of Homoeopathy is the absence of medicinal material in what is called a potentised homoeopathic medicine for potency n>12. This statement sounds paradoxical, but looked into more carefully; it will unravel some fundamental aspects of physics.

Avogadro's Law
This states that one gram mole of a substance contains 6x10²³ molecules. Thus, for example, since molecular weight of water is 18, according to Avogadro`s hypothesis, 18 gms of water will contain 6x10²³ water molecules. This is equally true for any material.

The Paradox
Homoeopathic medicines are prepared by successive dilution of the medicinal material in a solvent/1/. The solvents generally used are water, ethyl alcohol (liquids), lactose and sucrose (solids). The dilutions frequently used are 1:100. With every dilution, the vial containing the solution is given strokes, that is, some mechanical energy and the resultant preparation is called potency. Thus, if one takes a basic medicinal preparation, say mother tincture, then

1 part of MT + 99 parts of solvent = potency 1 (n=1)
1 part of n=1 + 99 parts of solvent = potency 2 (n=2)
1 part of n=2 + 99 parts of solvent = potency 3 (n=3)

This means that
1 part of potency 1 has 10^-2 parts of MT
1 part of potency 2 has 10^-4 parts of MT
1 part of potency 3 has 10^-6 parts of MT
1 part of potency n has 10^-2n parts of MT

Thus, for n=12, in one part of potency 12 we have 10-24 parts of mother tincture. If the mother tincture is one molar solution, this means that beyond 12th potency, there is no medicinal molecule in what is called a medicine. This is apparently a paradox since a medicine prepared in this manner is highly potent as a medicine, that is, it has curative values. However, as a chemical, there can be no difference between a solvent and potentised solvent. They should be identical since there is absolutely nothing else that exists in a potentised solvent that is there in the solvent from which it is prepared. If there is a difference in the potentised solvent and unpotentised solvent, the prime task is to see how such a difference can exist. Deductively one can say that since there is no external agency dictating a difference in a solvent and nth potency of a medicine prepared in it, the difference must be because of some minute changes in the intermolecular arrangements in these systems. In order to see if this is feasible, we will have to look into some underlying physics required to understand this aspect.

3. Physical Basis Of Homoeopathy
In order to formulate a scientific problem, the basic facts need to be expressed in a scientific language.

Restatement Of Facts In The Scientific Language
There is ample clinical evidence, which shows that there is a difference between a solvent and a homoeo potency prepared in it. This fact can be translated into the language of physics as follows/3/:

1. These solvents (namely water, ethyl alcohol, sucrose, glucose, lactose etc) can exist in large number of states (that is, different molecular configurations) at normal temperature and pressure. (A medicine can be prepared with a large number of starting materials).
2. Any of these states can be obtained in a controlled manner by starting with a known inducing agent called the medicine (solute).
3. The states are long lived unless influenced by some external agency like temperature, pressure or interaction with other materials (the shelf life of homoeopathic medicines is very long, excepting those prepared in water, which is highly vulnerable to fluid).
4. They store information, which is imparted to them by starting materials (the properties of different medicines are different).
5. The solvent can communicate this information to a system which comes in contact with it and which is capable of interpreting this information (the medicines "act").
6. activating, is first mapped during the process of its proving. This suggests that these liquids can store a matrix of signals, which are capable of activating many excitation centers of a system simultaneously.

The vehicles or solvents, which can be used for preparing homoeo potencies, are sucrose, glucose, lactose, water, ethyl alcohol. Since medicinal properties are transmitted to the vehicle, it has to be preserved as some set of molecular aggregates.

States Of Matter
Broadly speaking, matter can exist in three different states, solid, liquid and gaseous, which occur as a function of temperature. However, even at a particular temperature, matter can have different forms. A well-known example is that of carbon. It has several stable states at room temperature, such as diamond, graphite, soot, coal etc. Similarly, phosphorus can also exist in different allotropic forms. At any given temperature and pressure, the molecules of any substance always try to acquire a minimum energy configuration, that is, arrangement of molecules is in such a way that the total energy of the system is minimum. If it can several minimum energy configurations, then each one of these represents a stable state or phase of the matter. Interconversion between the different states is not possible, unless external energy is supplied, because of potential barrier between different minimum energy walls.

Sucrose, glucose and lactose are solids and therefore one can imagine that such stable states or molecular configurations, if created, can be maintained since the relaxation times in these systems will be very long. But how could this be possible in water and ethyl alcohol? We can foresee two possible ways in which this is possible:

1. These liquids are known to have anomalous properties because of interlinking of their molecules by hydrogen bonds. In fact, hydrogen bonding is possible even in sucrose, lactose, and glucose as also in their aqueous solutions. Hence, let us understand what is hydrogen bonding.

Associated Liquids
This is also true of a class of fluids called associated liquids where molecules of the liquid are linked together because of hydrogen bonding between hydrogen and any other electro negative atom (like nitrogen). Water and ethyl alcohol belong to this class of fluids. In these liquids, molecules do not exist as single units, but are linked together forming dimers, trimers, tetrameres etc (polymerization).

Since the vehicles used for preparing homoeo potencies have hydrogenbonding characteristics, it is possible that the signals are preserved by forming specific hydrogen bonded networks.

2. Vibrational Spectra Of Liquids
Another way in which the specific signals can be preserved is as modulation in low frequency molecular vibrations /5/. Atoms and molecules are always trying to move. Their motions can be broadly classified as transitional, rotational and vibrational. At high temperatures, all these motions are possible but at low temperatures, transitional motion is frozen and atoms/molecules can either rotate around themselves or vibrate with respect to a fixed point/axis. In liquid state, these vibrational energies dissipate by relaxational processes. In solids, the frequency of vibration will be characteristic of a particular solid and all molecules/atoms will vibrate cooperatively, giving rise to what is called a vibrational mode or wave. If a vibration of some other frequency is induced in a solid, it will decay as a function of time. In a liquid, since it's intermolecular positions are not fixed; it is difficult to sustain a vibrational mode. However, now it is well accepted that over very short distances, say about a couple of nearest neighbours, such molecular orderings do occur. This gives rise to a vibrational spectrum, which can be seen by Raman scattering. This is a favourable situation for understanding the action of homoeo medicines. Raman scattering spectra of aqueous sucrose solution at 200K and at 353K is seen in gif.1. We can see a well-defined elastic peak called the boson peak at 200K. Although at 353K this peak is not visible, if the spectrum is analyzed as consisting of relaxational and vibrational peaks, vibrational part of the peak can still be seen. This means that some inter-molecular modes do exist which give rise to this vibrational spectrum. The advantage of being in a liquid state is that the inter-molecular distances are not fixed. This gives rise to wide vibrational spectrum having frequencies from 10cm-1 to 150 cm-1. Thus, in principle it is possible that inter-molecular vibrational frequencies can be modulated by the presence of another molecule namely the solute molecule. For large potencies (n>12), where solute molecules are not present, these modulations can still remain carrying the impression of the starting solute. Thus, in principle, even in the absence of matter, a signature of the material in the form of modulation in inter-molecular vibrational frequencies can be stored. This is one of the possible ways in which homoeo potencies can retain the memory of solute molecule in the form of a signature.

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