Homeopathy 2010; 99(04): 231-242
DOI: 10.1016/j.homp.2010.05.006
Original Paper
Copyright © The Faculty of Homeopathy 2010

Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective

Prashant Satish Chikramane
1   Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, Maharashtra, India
,
Akkihebbal K. Suresh
1   Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, Maharashtra, India
2   Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, Maharashtra, India
,
Jayesh Ramesh Bellare
1   Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, Maharashtra, India
2   Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, Maharashtra, India
,
Shantaram Govind Kane
1   Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, Maharashtra, India
› Author Affiliations

Subject Editor:
Further Information

Publication History

Received06 November 2009
revised22 April 2010

accepted22 May 2010

Publication Date:
17 December 2017 (online)

Homeopathy is controversial because medicines in high potencies such as 30c and 200c involve huge dilution factors (1060 and 10400 respectively) which are many orders of magnitude greater than Avogadro’s number, so that theoretically there should be no measurable remnants of the starting materials. No hypothesis which predicts the retention of properties of starting materials has been proposed nor has any physical entity been shown to exist in these high potency medicines. Using market samples of metal-derived medicines from reputable manufacturers, we have demonstrated for the first time by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the presence of physical entities in these extreme dilutions, in the form of nanoparticles of the starting metals and their aggregates.

 
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