Minutus

Jeff, it's a lovely idea, and one that has the benefit of being easy to picture; it could be rather nice as a science-fiction film (and, inevitably, the computer game). But it does seem to need some explanation, because it lacks explanatory power and seems highly inconsistent with the few basic things we do know about medicinal action, both pathogenetic and curative.
Has any such attachment been seen (or otherwise detected) to occur? And if this is how an ultrapotency would behave in the presence of an invading pathogen, how does this behaviour relate to the medicine's pathogenetic action, and how would it behave in the presence of bacteria useful to the organism?
This apparent explanation of curative action certainly raises more questions than it seems to answer.
And then there are, as others point out, all the illnesses that don't arise from any kind of invasion by pathogenic organisms: how does this explanation serve to explain the medicine's action in those?
In disease that begins with such an invasion and proceeds to chronic illness with tissue changes, if the medicine's action were primarily that of attachment and physical barriers, how could it effect the broader changes that it certainly does than those at the site of host–parasite interaction?
Most tellingly, given that we know that the particular symptoms that a medicine is capable of causing are the best guide to those it can cure, we have a quandary. Two quite different medicines -- say, Mercurius and Mezereum -- may cure two patients with the "same" illness, say, syphilis; in any case, an illness arising from the one pathogenic organism, in which the two patients exhibit characteristically different symptoms.
We know of the medicines' individual suitability to the particular case by their respective pathogeneses; and each pathogenesis has little to do with the "disease" (here, syphilis) and, typically, does not even cause it to arise per se (that is, in this case, it doesn't introduce, create, or recreate the offending spirochete that gives rise to the disease).
Yet, by virtue of their symptomatic suitability to the particular patient's case of the disease -- that is, of their similarity to the entire patient symptomatology, much of which would not seem to be a direct result of the spirochete -- each is capable, being correctly administered to the right patient, of subduing the patient's entire chronic illness, beginning with the most recent alterations and finally reversing the process the patient underwent in the initial invasion.
Unfortunately, an explanation of the medicine's action that depends entirely on the medicine managing to recognise a host cell's susceptibility to the pathogen, to recognise a particular microorganism's likelihood of being pathogenic, and to fit itself to both fails to take into account or even to allow for the individuality of the patient's morbid response, the known necessity of the medicine to suit (i.e. replicate) that response, and the complex mechanism by which the organism heals itself in reversing it.
In a word, then, the explanation seems simplistic: it seems to explain nothing, and it seems also to be inconsistent with what we know. But if there's more to it -- something that overcomes these difficulties -- it would be interesting to consider.
Cheers --
John

It's a funny thing, Dr Roz, but the relatively high force that the heart and arteries exert upon the contents of the blood vessels results in a relatively low pressure because of the area it's spread over, which is enormous. Using a simple thought experiment, it's easy to foresee that the gentlest tink of a teaspoon against the inside of the tumbler containing a medicinal potency for the patient's next dose will apply a pressure to the liquid at that point that is incomparably greater than the heart exerts on the blood.
This is because this relatively gentle force is applied over an area of liquid that is utterly miniscule -- and because water, being bonded together fairly tightly (it has an unusual degree of surface tension when it's relatively free of solutes), takes time to escape the narrowing gap between teaspoon and glass.
So, although the heart is a powerful machine, the pressure it is capable of exerting upon blood is as nothing to the pressure a teaspoon exerts upon the potency in a glass.
I'm not convinced that extraordinary pressure is a necessary component of the dynamisation process in a liquid solvent -- I rather think that Hahnemann may be correct in supposing it to have more to do with friction and (coherent) shaking -- but if it is a necessary component, then the teaspoon in the tumbler would seem to outclass the heart by a long way in the force it casually applies.
The heart's capacity to "succuss" the blood is relevant, we should remember, only in the context that the blood in the heart and arteries contains some of the relevant medicine. Even if the medicine eventually does make its way to the blood vessels unaltered -- which assumption is drawing a long bow -- by that time, it has already made itself felt. Succussing it after the event wouldn't seem anyway to serve to avoid repeating the primary action of an unchanged potency, since by then that is a fait accompli.
You've made a point well that I didn't, concerning the explanatory power of Jeff's hypothesis: that the hypothesis doesn't seem capable of explaining (and even seems inconsistent with) a medicine's capacity to cure one patient rather than another who has been attacked by the same microorganism. If the medicine's curative behaviour were to involve marking a particular organism and attaching itself to it, we would seem to have no reason for it not to do so in all cases of a particular disease due to that microorganism, wouldn't we. Food for further thought, perhaps.
Cheers --
John

I have attached an article by Chandran Nambiar which you may find of interest, Sherry.
rgds Jeff
To understand the scientific interpretation of ‘similia similibus curentur’ in its real perspective, one should know the fundamentals of ‘target-ligand’ relationships and dynamics of ‘bio-molecular inhibitions’.

There are diverse types of molecular ‘targets’ such as receptors, enzymes and antibodies which interact with appropriate ‘ligands’, so that the biochemical pathways underlying vital processes are maintained unhindered. Knowledge of the real molecular dynamics involved in ‘ligand-target’, ‘signals-receptors’, ‘substrates-enzymes’ and ‘antigen-antibody’ interactions is essential for understanding the science behind ‘similia similibus curentur’.

A receptor is a molecule found on the surface of a cell, which receives specific chemical signals from neighbouring cells or the wider environment within an organism. These signals tell a cell to do something—for example to divide or die, or to allow certain molecules to enter or exit the cell.

In biochemistry, a receptor is a protein molecule, embedded in either the plasma membrane or the cytoplasm of a cell, to which one or more specific kinds of signaling molecules may attach. A molecule which binds (attaches) to a receptor is called a ligand or ‘signal’, and may be a peptide (short protein) or other small molecule, such as a neurotransmitter, a hormone, a pharmaceutical drug, or a toxin. Each kind of receptor can bind only certain ligand shapes. Each cell typically has many receptors, of many different kinds. Simply put, a receptor functions as a keyhole that opens a neural path when the proper ligand is inserted.

A ligand may be a whole molecule, a functional group, a moiety or even a radical or free ion.

Ligand binding stabilizes a certain target conformation (the three-dimensional shape of the target protein, with no change in sequence). This is often associated with gain of or loss of protein activity, ordinarily leading to some sort of cellular response. However, some ligands (e.g. antagonists) merely block target molecules, without inducing any response. Ligand-induced changes in targets result in cellular changes which constitute the biological activity of the ligands. Many functions of the human body are regulated by these diverse types of biological target molecules responding uniquely to specific ligand molecules like this.

Studies on the the shapes and actions of target molecules, especially receptors and enzymes have advanced the understanding of drug action at the binding sites of biological molecules.

Hi, Jeff --

This biochemical framework is completely relevant to allopathic practice, in which the "target" of a drug often is in fact specific to a certain receptor or other biochemical molecule; but it's less easy to see that it relates to any treatment whose raison d'etre is to inflict upon the patient an entire broad spectrum of effects, as homoeopathy does both in provings and in treatment, and to do so upon a basis purely of what those effects are.

The framework is also incapable of either explaining or remaining consistent with the perceived reversal of drug effects (hormesis / Arndt–Schultz law) that occurs in the minutest doses.

And that is to say nothing of its incompleteness in dealing with water that has been impregnated in some way with the dynamic effects of a medicine with which it had formerly come into contact.

Of course, there is science now, and plenty of it, to show that water is capable of retaining such dynamic effects. But a simplistic chemical model that fails to take account of these dynamic processes has no predictive power. A model that fails to take account of the whole patient is dangerous. A model that fails to take into account that every medicine has systemic effects far broader than predictable from its relatively simple chemical properties has no practical use whatever in homoeopathy. A model that fails to take account of hormetic effects and of secondary reaction to the primary illness the medicine imposes on the patient is worse than useless.

Such a model invites a piecemeal view of medicines and their effects and a piecemeal view of the patient's sufferings, and easily overlooks "side" effects and treats them as irrelevant or the next target for another drug. Given this, it therefore seems of practical use only in allopathic prescription.

Cheers --

John