Scientific Basis Of Homoeopathy
Homoeopathy has always struggled with the modern medicine faculty's claim that homoeopathic medicines are mere placebos and high dilutions are not effective. Here is research and scientific perspective on how homoeopathy works even in high dilutions. This research has been taken from the website of the Faculty of Homoeopathy, UK.
Homoeopathic Dilutions
Although the basic idea of homoeopathy is similarity, its most controversial claim concerns the properties of ultra-molecular dilutions. Avogadro's Constant, the number of particles in a gram mole of a substance, is of the order of 10²³. In homoeopathic terminology, 10²³ corresponds to a 23X or approximately 12C dilution. Homoeopathic preparations in dilutions less than those contain material traces of the original substance; those in high (ultra-molecular) dilution are unlikely to do so.
The 'Memory of Water' Theory
The most widespread hypothesis to explain the mechanism of action of homoeopathic dilutions refers to 'memory of water' effects: 'Under appropriate circumstances, water retains information about substances with which it has previously been in contact and may then transmit that information to pre-sensitised biosystems.' Standard physico-chemical techniques, thermoluminescence, Raman and UV–VIS spectroscopy and other methods have shown that water displays large changes in its physico-chemical properties as a function of its history.
Molecular Clusters and Other Theories
An alternative mechanism is suggested by the results of research on molecular clustering in water solutions, which has shown that as a solution is made more and more dilute, very stable and larger 'clumps' of material develop in dilute solutions rather than in more concentrated solutions. This means that residual molecular clusters of the original substance might be present in homoeopathic dilutions.
High-Potency Effects in Biological Experiments
A recent meta-analysis evaluated 67 in-vitro biological experiments in 75 research publications and found that high-potency effects were reported in nearly 75% of all replicated studies; however, no positive result was stable enough to be reproduced by all investigators.
— Dr. Shubhangi Maharana