| The mirror of homeopathy
© di
Claudio Cardella
Dipartimento di Meccanica e Aeronautica.
Univ. “La
Sapienza”, Roma, Italia and A.R.T.I. Research Team,
via Crispi 105, Napoli, Italia.
 Summary. This study aims to find a reasonable answer to the long
debated argument the opponents of homeopathy currently use
to claim it has no objective foundation. The main question
is: “Why, in a homeopathic remedy, the therapeutic message
should prevail on the random message due to the unavoidable
presence, in the aqueous solution of accidental impurities?”
Chemically pure water is a theoretical abstraction and even
in the purest real water we always find a relatively
considerable amount of solute species with an overall
concentration that approximately sums up to a part per
million. Nevertheless the recurrent dilution-succussion
procedure does not affect the impurities’ concentration.
Another pivot homeopathic feature remains mysterious: the
development of an inversion in the active principle
properties. We finally have definite experimental evidence
that homeopathically treated water compared with ordinary
water exhibits mirror like opposite properties both from a
chemical and from a biological point of view. Moreover we
observe an increase of some thermodynamic properties when we
repeat their measure on the same water sample after some
time. The results appear inconsistent with any established
theory. This work proposes a new approach to the problem on
a conceptual ground through an interpretation based on a
space-time inversion of the original substance constituting
the homeæpathic remedy. The space-time inversion takes
place in water as an effect of the homeopathic
dilution-succussion procedure. Introduction. In 1979 Dr. F. Di Pascale and the author
presented the very first hypothesis on the outrageous
existence of a “Water Memory” that relies more on
physical than on chemical aspects. The paper [1] did not
meet any reception by academic press: most of the journals
rejected it because “unsuitable for publication”, while
a referee [2] stated it was a “very unorthodox hypothesis
... about alleged and mysterious properties of water”.
Later on at the beginning of 1982, Linus Pauling reviewed
the article and his conclusion was: “I do not think that
is possible that any active principle can be effective at a
dilution far below because this is far less than a molecule
per litre. I doubt that water is endowed with a memory until
the liquid is biologically active”[3]. Today, most
researchers have to admit the existence of some physically
reacting water structure since we finally gained an
experimental evidence suggesting it (see for instance [4],
[5], [6]). Furthermore I have shown in a previous study [7]
that to interact with an e.m. field globally, i.e. as a
whole, the water structure not only has to exist, but it
should also be continuous, if not thoroughly homogeneous.
Only structural elements can react to a suitable e.m.
radiation according to their geometry, to their dimensions
and, above all, to their energy relationships. If the
structure of biological water was not continuous, then the
water changes due to a field interaction would not result in
a new state of the whole liquid body, but instead they would
appear locally “lumped”. In this case, some
experimentally verified overall phenomena could not take
place. Two of them in particular do not find an adequate
chemical, i.e. molecular, justification and claim a physical
approach: the water imprinting by e.m. frequency (see in
this booklet, Cardella, C., Physico-chemical permanent
alterations of water induced by an RLC passive circuit) and
the homeopathic effect. Homeopathy is a clinical reality since a long time, but
only recently has appeared in established literature after a
long wait (compare for instance [8] and [9] with [10]). Its
most controversial issue is the inversion of the original
active principle properties: if this inversion took place
inside the homeopathic remedy, rather than inside the
“patient’s” organism, it would baffle the mechanical
laws. Homeopathically treated water shows an exothermic
excess heat of mixing when compared to the heat of mixing of
untreated water. Further results give reasonable indications
that: i) thermal treatments of homeopathic water as boiling
do not affect the exothermic excess heat of mixing, ii) this
excess value does not decrease in time, but instead it shows
a sensible increase when measured again after weeks (see
above reference 5). These facts imply a violation of the
mass action law. We have reliable experimental evidence from
sprouting seeds, where there is no placebo effect, that the
original properties’ inversion subsists: lentils grow
longer sprouts when watered with a 8CH Paraquat/Diquat weed-
killer [11]; white arsenic D40 and D45 show a highly
significant stimulating effect on wheat seeds’ germination
[12]. The preceding outlook documents the development of a
mirror-like reflection of the original solute properties (biological
and physico-chemical) due to homeopathic treatment. Hence
the urgency of looking for a reasonable justification not
only to the classical therapeutic inversion of the original
substance but also to the classical therapeutic increase as
the dilution of the original solution increases. Besides, we
finally have to cope with a time arrow inversion concerning
the activity of homeopathic solutions. We can explain these
facts from a physical point of view as the overall effect of
a space-time inversion of the original substance
constituting the homeæpathic remedy. The time-space
inversion has to take place in the water solution and is
evidently due to the homeopathic dilution-succussion
procedure. In conclusion we can look at the homeopathic
inversion lying at the very basis of the classical
Similarity Law as to a consequence of such a space-time
inversion. The following considerations strive to
corroborate this hypothesis. The mirror of homeopathy. We know that chemically pure
water - i.e. completely free of any solute- is only a
theoretical abstraction. Even in the purest real water we
always find a relatively considerable amount of solute
species with an overall concentration that approximately
sums up to a part per million. If this presence is not
negligible by chemical standards, it is even less negligible
by homeopathic standards where it represents a 3CH dilution,
provided that each Hannemannian centesimal dilution lowers
the concentration of the initial substance by a factor.
Recalling the Avogadro’s Number value , a 12CH dilution
represents the theoretical limit where no molecules of the
original solute are statistically present in the actual
solution. Thus the crucial question is: “Why, in a
homeopathic remedy, the therapeutic message should prevail
on the random message due to the unavoidable presence, in
the aqueous solution of accidental impurities?” Before
attempting an answer we should firmly establish that the
recurrent dilution and succussion procedures do not affect
the impurities’ concentration. There are some important physical considerations
regarding the homeopathic remedy preparation that usually go
unperceived for the only reason they do not fit properly
into a mathematical description of physical events. One of
them is the classical Hannemannian prescription of assuming
the mother tincture as the starting point of the remedy
preparation. This apparently has little justification, since
by starting with a very diluted solution we could accelerate
the whole procedure and save time. Instead we have to start
with a highly concentrated active principle’s solution
because in this way we have a reasonable assurance that only
the active principle will undergo a substantial dilution
through the well-known process leading to the homeopathic
remedy realisation. The impurities pertain to the solvent
and therefore its concentration will remain fairly constant
throughout the process. In other words this means that the
impurities’ concentration will not affect the homeopathic
remedy preparation as far as the initial active principle
solution is concentrated. Of course the impurities
themselves should not interact with the active principle to
change its properties and/or its concentration. Another apparently trivial issue is the distinction
between concentrating and diluting a given aqueous solution.
In Physics, as well as in Chemistry, mass represents a
fundamental notion, but we are much more familiar with the
operation of adding mass to a system than with the operation
of subtracting it. The operation of taking away a certain
amount of a substance from a system on a logical standpoint
is equivalent to adding to the system the same amount of its
“anti-substance”. On this basis we usually assume there
is a symmetric relationship between the dilution and the
concentration procedures. This one-to-one correspondence
falls short in the conceptual framework of homeopathy. We
can concentrate a solution only up to the extent
corresponding to the quantity fixed by the solute solubility
in water, instead, if we accept the classical Hannemannian
assumptions, we can dilute the same solution as far as we
like. If the previous consideration holds, this means that
while we can add to water only a limited quantity of the
substance, we can add any quantity of its anti-substance.
What happens on these premises when we add a drop (i.e.
1/20.000 of a litre) of 20 CH Natrum Muriaticum to one litre
of a saturated NaCl solution? Elementary calculations show
that the saturated solution, in spite of the fact it
actually contains roughly 360 g of salt, turns into a Natrum
Muriaticum 17.5CH that means a salt concentration. As a
proof we assume that one litre of Natrum Muriaticum 20CH is
roughly equivalent, homeopathically speaking, to 360 g of
salt diluted in litres of water, then one drop of this
solution is tantamount to 0.0036 g of salt diluted into
litres of water. By adding this solution to one litre of
saturated NaCl solution we shall finally have 360 g of salt
into litres of water, that is Natrum Muriaticum 17.5CH. Such
a result is as coherent in the homeopathic paradigm as it is
absurd by chemical standards. By the way it gives the reason
because the unavoidable water impurity, whatever its
concentration may be, does not interfere, under the above
premises, with the homeopathic remedy properties. Where is
the “bug” in the previous assertion? Evidently it is
that while by chemical standards one litre of a saturated
NaCl water solution is actual, a concentration, although
homeopathically significant, is virtual. This means we can
obtain the saturated solution either by directly adding a
definite amount of salt to say one litre of water, either by
concentrating a huge quantity of extremely diluted solution.
This procedure is conceptually equivalent to the Virtual
Works Principle and is a virtual event. It represents only a
possibility among many others because it does not matter how
high the dilution is, since eventually we will always end up
to the same saturated solution. The same happens in
mathematics with Cantor’s definition of rational number:
we determine a rational number as the limit of a series of
decreasing intervals. The set formed by all these intervals
acts as an almost continuous backstage of the rational
number. Moreover we can think all the elements of the set as
being “anti-numbers” associated to the actual number we
are defining. Thus to understand the continuum formed by the
backstage chemical elements we have first to separate the
idea of a discontinuum from the idea of its measure. We
showed in a previous work [13] that the backstage elements,
antiparticles, antimolecules have a formal, potential and
virtual character: they are determining with no connection
to magnitude but for the determination they realise on the
stage. The backstage features are antithetical and symmetric
to the stage ones: if we have a given number of particles in
some known conditions, and if after we have altered these
conditions the number of particles does not vary, then the
number of “possible” antiparticles correlated to each
particle has to vary. Something, in antithesis, has to
change also for each particle as a necessary consequence of
the actual alteration. The backstage antithesis involves a space-time inversion.
A one-to-one correspondence exists between the actual stage
event and a very large set of backstage virtual non-events
all related to one single and actual event. In the
well-known example of the ice cube melting in a glass of
whisky thermodynamics states a non null probability for the
reverse event to happen. On the same standpoint we can think
the homeopathic procedure as a reverse event probability
amplifier. Thus the mirror of homeopathy becomes the border
line across actual and virtual particles: on one side it
keeps them apart and on the other it establishes the
correlation among them. In this framework the succussion process gets a new
meaning. If we call A a substance that spontaneously
diffuses in water according for instance to Fick’s law,
then the substance homeopathically produced mirror image,
that we call Ã, will tend in inverse time to concentrate in
a blob that will require a certain amount of energy to melt
down and to redistribute itself homogeneously in the solvent.
Therefore without any succussion energy we would have very
little chances to find any amount of à in the drop of
solution we pick up to dilute it again. This consideration
gives also a better insight of the previous statements: the
actual à concentration at any stage of dilution depends
only of the initial concentration of A, in the sense that
the more concentrated it was initially the more concentrated
will be à after a certain number of recursive
dilution-succussion processes. Acknowledgement. The author thanks Prof. P. R. S.
Sansevero for his benevolent attention throughout the
development of this work. References 1 Cardella, C. and Di Pascale, F., The role of water in
biological systems, (1978) finally published in Italian in
ACCADEMIA, San Marino, I, 1, 1994.
2 Origins of Life, referee’s letter, december 1980.
3 Pauling, L., private communication to the author, January
1982.
4 Citro, M., et al., Ultra high dilution, Physiology and
Physics, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 1994.
5 Elia, V., Thermodynamics of extremely diluted solutions, a
calorimetric study at 25°. OMEOMED ‘97, 1st World
Conference Sept. 22-25, 1997, Urbino, Italy.
6 Smith, C., W., Coherent frequencies in living systems and
homeopathic medicine. OMEOMED ‘97, 1st World Conference
Sept. 22-25 1997, Urbino, Italy.
7 Cardella, C., Omaggio a Francesco Pannaria: il campo e i
“campi biologici”, Conv. Naz. Soc. Int. di Medicina
Biocibernetica. Feb. 1995, invited lecture, Firenze, Italy.
8 Cazin, J. C., Cazin, M. et al., Human Toxicology, 1987, 6:
315-320.
9 Reilly, D. T., et al., Lancet, 1986, ii 881-886.
10 Reilly, D. T., et al., Lancet, 1994, 344 1601-06.
11 Cardella, C., et al., On the effect of a homeopathically
diluted weed killer on lentils sprouting, OMEOMED ‘97, 1st
World Conference Sept. 22-25 1997, Urbino, Italy.
12 Brizzi, M., et al., An overall analysis of a series of
experiments based on high dilutions in an Arsenicum Album I
wheat model. OMEOMED ‘97, 1st World Conference Sept. 22-25
1997, Urbino, Italy.
13 Cardella, C., The role of water in biological systems.
Part II. Invited paper to the 1st International Workshop on
TFF. June 15, 1996, Torino, Italy.
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