BBC Radio 4 - Material World

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear Colleague

If you did not hear this programme, you can listen to it again - Go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/the ... orld.shtml and click on
LISTEN AGAIN.

I have posted the following to the programme.

Dear Material World

Re: Homoeopathy

A number of issues need to be answered:

When Dr Samuel Hahnemann discovered homoeopathy, it was not based on
extremely dilute materials but on what we now call crude substances or
mother tinctures - That is to say extracts of plant remedies etc. It was at
this stage that he discovered the Law of Similars - that if a substance can
produce symptoms in a healthy person, it can cure similar symptoms in the
sick.

After some years of experimentation he discovered that if he diluted the
substances (to avoid their side effects) not only their curative properties
remained but amazingly strengthened with greater dilution.

Experiments on Animals (so that we avoid the accusation of the placebo
effect) have clearly demonstrated the power and the efficacy of Homoeopathy.
Indeed, all you need to do is to visit the archives BBC2 QED programmes of c
1991-2 where they ran an experiment on the application of homeopathy to a
herd of cows suffering from mastitis. The effect was brilliant and
encouraged myself as a BSc graduate in another discipline to go and study
homoeopathy.

If these are not convincing enough, then anyone doing a brief research into
homoeopathy would find out that homoeopathic remedies have been proved on
'healthy' human volunteers. This is how we learn about the properties of
each remedy so that we can apply the laws of homoeopathy, importantly that
Similar Cures Similar. Some of the symptoms experienced by the volunteers
are indeed unpleasant.

The major problem that caused difficulty for David Colquhoun was the concept
of low dilutions being effective. Science has not really found an answer to
this and cannot explain it with ease. But should David Colquhoun wish to
find out the power of low dilutions for himself, I would like to offer him
the opportunity to take part in a re-proving so that he can either put up or
shut up.

Regards
Soroush Ebrahimi
Registered and Licensed Homoeopath
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07:52

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

> Dear Colleague
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07:44

[Shannon Nelson]

Hi Soroush,
Just one quibble:

You wrote:
I feel it is important that we try to counter the perception that
"dilution" is the important factor--that leads straight to a whole host
of ludicrous questions, about e.g. why we are not the most severely
poisoned by those contaminants which are present in the least amounts
(in our air, water, food), etc. Wouldn't it be better in the above
paragraph to substitute "...if he siluted the substances ..." with
something like, "... when he put those substances thru a process of
serial dilution-and-agitation ...", or something like that? Why make
homeopathy even harder for the "uninitiated" to understand and accept
than it already is?
Best wishes,
Shannon

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear Shannon

I wrote that because I believe that was the fact of the matter - I did not
want to re-write history.

Minute dilution of either plasticizers or the hormones in the PILL which end
up in the water cycle are causing havoc already - so the point of the
effects of high dilutions is already proven. And who says the contaminants
are not making us ill??

What I did miss out was on the definition of science:
Systemized knowledge derived through experimentation, observation, and
study. Also, the methodology used to acquire this knowledge.

A branch of knowledge based on objectivity and involving observation and
experimentation

A method of reaming about the world by applying the principles of the
scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing
hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in
valid and reliable ways; also refers to the organized body of knowledge that
results from scientific study.

Rgds
Soroush

[Shannon Nelson]

Thanks Soroush,
In a spirit of exploration, below...
I realize that his first step was simple dilution. My understanding of
the reason, tho, was not to enhance effectiveness, but rather to
reduce/eliminate chemical toxic effects. Tho it does stand to reason
that reducing toxic effects *would* enhance curative effects (of a
toxic substance). Have you read anywhere, then, why he made the next
step, to dilution *and succussion*? Because simple dilution is simply
*not* the way that today's remedies are made, nor the way that he made
or directed to make remedies, after those earliest years. Yet surely
it would be easier to use simple dilution, *if* that were anything
close to equal in effectiveness?

What is the effectiveness of, say, one small crystal of salt dissolved
in a bathtub of water, versus even, say, a 6c of the substance? Surely
the latter, tho (I think?) less diluted, shows a greater curative
power?

Of course. And the problem is compounded by their ubiquity--we're
getting chronic, ongoing exposure to them "from everywhere", and in
increasingly complex mixture. So the situation doesn't compare... But
would you say that it is less harmful to take "a dose" of, say, rocket
fuel neat from a cup, compared with the same amount diluted in (let's
say) a large underground drinking source? Or how about chlorine--is it
less harmful to drink it straight from a cup, versus highly diluted in
tap water? (To make the situation more equivalent to remedy dosing,
let's say that the cup of chlorine is diluted to make a finite number
of "doses", with pure water coming from the pipes before and after.) I
don't think so...
Sure they are. But would they be less harmful if we were taking them
undiluted, perhaps taking a year's worth all at once, each year? Maybe
some would...

More to the point, tho, I have never heard it claimed the the *potency*
(curing power) of a substance can be raised simply by diluting it more.
The process we use to make remedies is NOT simple dilution, but
instead involves an energetic contact between substance and
substrate--succussion or titration or fluxion. Shouldn't that be
mentioned? Or what was your reason for mentioning *only* the dilution
part?
Shannon

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear Shannon -

I did not mention succussion because I was trying to establish the fact the
Homoeopathy works on crude substances and dilution is secondary.

My answers start with XXX - pls see below.

Rgds
Soroush