-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
Hi Andy,
Nice article you wrote in Wired on homeopathy, the medicine of the 21st
century.
Coupla small corrections:
The "vigorous shaking" part is called succussing, and is done by banging the
vial by hand on a medium hard surface. (same root as percussion) -although
there are machines which are in use that are more like shaking.
The process of serial dilution is called - dilution <grin>
For in depth reading and online classes on homeopathy, see:
http://www.simillimum.com
For access to practically every book in print on homeopathy, with
subject/keyword/author search, many books listed with online reviews... see:
http://www.minimum.com
Dave Hartley
http://www.asheville-computer.com/dave
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33749,00.html
Homeopathy -- Dilute And Heal
by Andy Patrizio
3:00 a.m. 15.Mar.2000 PST
With a little help from a scientist looking for a way to clean car engines,
a physician has been able to explain the confounding paradox behind why
homeopathic medicine gets more potent as it's diluted.
Homeopathic medicine, discovered by a German physician more than 200 years
ago, espouses many concepts seen in other forms of alternative medicine --
namely, that the body can and knows how to heal itself.
"Everybody's fine and hunky dory with [homeopathic concepts] until they come
to the part where the more you dilute and shake the substance, the more
powerful it gets and the deeper it reaches," said Dr. Bill Gray, author of
Homeopathy: Science or Myth.
"That doesn't make sense [for most practitioners], because we're used to
thinking in a chemical sense."
Just how the body reacts to varying dosages of medicine is still being
debated. Pharmaceutical and herbal medicines both operate under the notion
that more is more; whether it's aspirin, Prozac, or Echinacea, the more
milligrams per dose, the quicker the cure.
Not so in homeopathy. The "law of infinitesimals" states that the more you
dilute a drug, the more potent it gets. Arnica, for example, can address a
sprain or bruise in low potencies. In high potency, it can adversely affect
a person's mental state.
Remedies are made with one part of the material, which can be a chemical,
element, plant, or even poison, added to nine or 99 parts water. The water
is vigorously shaken after the material is added. Then one drop of that
water is added to another nine or 99 drops of water, a process called
"successing."
The mixture is again shaken and the process repeated. After repeating this
hundreds or even thousands of times, the water is poured onto sugar pellets,
which is how the medicine is administered.
This intense watering down conflicts with accepted laws of chemistry, namely
Avogadro's Principle, which states that any substance becomes untraceable if
it is diluted beyond when a single molecule of the chemical can be found.
Critics point out that homeopathic medicines are diluted far beyond
Avogadro's Number. The thesis of Gray's book is that water gains structure
through the whole successing process.
"The point is, now that modern research shows that water that's prepared
homeopathically is altered in its structure, this water does actually alter
tissue cultures, organ function, and entire animals," said Gray, who has
been practicing homeopathy in the San Francisco Bay Area for 29 years.
Validation of the dilution process came in a roundabout way, thanks to
research by California Institute of Technology chemistry professor Shui Yin
Lo, who was performing experiments on how to improve car engine efficiency.
1 of 2 Next >> (continued on site)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33749-2,00.html
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