The electrical properties of high dilutions

The measurement of the electrical properties of highly diluted and succussed preparations has a chequered history. A method which was said to be highly sensitive in distinguishing preparations from controls turned out, in a blinded trial published in this journal 10 years ago, to be incapable of differentiating homeopathic potencies from control dilutions. The exact parameter measured was never revealed; this research treated the apparatus as a ‘black box’. However the homeopathic medicine used was Natrum muriaticum.[ ¹ ]

More recently Vitorio Elia and collaborators, in a long series of experiments[ ² ] have shown large changes in the properties of homeopathically-prepared solutions, including electrical properties such as specific conductivity as a function of their history, the solute previously dissolved, and time. This was supported by their microcalorimetric heat-of-mixing experiments. They detected two surprising and entirely unpredicted properties in homeopathic dilutions: the size of the measured physicochemical differences increased with age, and the parameters vary with the volume in which the dilution was prepared, being relatively greater with small volumes. They have worked with a variety of homeopathic medicines, not always revealing their names.[ ³ ] Their microcalorimetric procedure also showed changes in water following its exposure to electrical resonators.[ ⁴ ]

In this issue Roberto de Toledo Assumpção presents new, objective evidence that there are measurable physical effects in dilutions of sodium chloride (Natrum muriaticum in the homeopathic nomenclature), diluted beyond Avogadro's Number, the magical value at which the chemists tell us no molecule of sodium chloride should remain.[ ⁵ ] They are correct, that the sodium chloride has been diluted out, but an absence of chemistry does not exclude effects in physics. This paper continues the process of bringing homeopathy into the 21st Century. I will note items in this paper of particular relevance to homeopathy, for fuller details see my on-line series.[ ⁶ ]

¹ Retired from University of Salford

• References

• 1 Walach H., Van Asseldonk T., Bourkas P. et al. Electrical measurement of ultra-high dilution – a blinded controlled experiment. Br Homeo J 1998; 87: 3-12.
• 2 Elia V., Baiano S., Duro I. et al. New and permanent physicochemical properties of the extremely diluted aqueous solutions of the homeopathic medicine. A conductivity measurements study at 25 1C in function of the age of the potencies. Homeopathy 2004; 93: 144-150.
• 3 Elia V., Napoli E., Germano R. The ‘Memory of Water’: an almost deciphered enigma. Dissipative structures in extremely dilute aqueous solutions. Homeopathy 2007; 96: 163-169.
• 4 Cardella C., de Magistris L., Florio E., Smith C.W. Permanent changes in the physico-chemical properties of water following exposure to resonant circuits. J Sci Explor 2001; 15 (04) 501-518 Correspondence: 16(2): 256–259 (2002).
• 5 Assumpção R. Electrical impedance and H-V plasma images of high dilutions of sodium chloride. Homeopathy 2008; 97: 129-133.
• 6 <www.hpathy.com/research/smith-how-homeopathy-works.asp> and further articles in this series.
• 7 Hasted J.B. Aqueous dielectrics. London: Chapman and Hall; 1973.
• 8 Raether H. Electron avalanches and breakdown in gases. London: Butterworths; 1964.
• 9 Smith C.W. Water – its clinical and scientific depths. In: Emoto M. The Healing Power of Water. 2007. London: Hay House; 77-88 Chap 3.
• 10 Arani R., Bono I., Del Giudice E., Preparata G. QED coherence and the thermodynamics of water. Int J Mod Phys B 1995; 9: 1833-1841.
• 11 Smith C.W. Fröhlich's interpretation of biology through theoretical physics. In: Hyland G.J., Rowlands P. Herbert Fröhlich FRS: A Physicist Ahead of his Time. 2006. Liverpool: University of Liverpool; 91-138.