Dear Sri.Sangom and Sri. Nara,
Sorry we have digressed from the theme of this thread.
I got to read an interesting article on Homoeopathy that appeared in the Times of India of 16th instant:
IIT-B team unravels homeopathy mystery
Malathy Iyer | TNN
Mumbai: Six months after the British Medical Association wrote off homeopathy as witchcraft that had no scientific basis, we may now have an irrefutable answer to what makes this ancient form of medicine click. Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) have established that the sweet white pills work on the principle of nanotechnology.
Homeopathic pills, made of naturally occurring metals such as gold, copper and iron, retain their potency even when extremely diluted to a nanometre or one-billionth of a metre, states the IIT-B research published in the latest issue of ‘Homeopathy’, a peer-reviewed journal from the reputed medical publishing firm, Elsevier. IIT-B’s chemical engineering department bought commonly available homeopathic pills from neighbourhood shops, prepared highly diluted solutions and checked them under powerful electron microscopes to find nanoparticles of the original metal.
“Our paper showed that certain highly diluted homeopathic remedies made from metals still contain measurable amounts of the starting material, even at extreme dilutions of 1 part in 10 raised to 400 parts (200C),” said Dr Jayesh Bellare from the scientific team. His student, Prashant Chikramane, presented the paper titled, ‘Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective’, as part of his doctoral thesis.
Homeopathy was established in the late 18th century by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. While it is widely popular in certain countries, especially India, the British Medical
Mumbai: Six months after the British Medical Association wrote off homeopathy as witchcraft that had no scientific basis, we may now have an irrefutable answer to what makes this ancient form of medicine click. Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) have established that the sweet white pills work on the principle of nanotechnology.
Homeopathic pills, made of naturally occurring metals such as gold, copper and iron, retain their potency even when extremely diluted to a nanometre or one-billionth of a metre, states the IIT-B research published in the latest issue of ‘Homeopathy’, a peer-reviewed journal from the reputed medical publishing firm, Elsevier. IIT-B’s chemical engineering department bought commonly available homeopathic pills from neighbourhood shops, prepared highly diluted solutions and checked them under powerful electron microscopes to find nanoparticles of the original metal.
“Our paper showed that certain highly diluted homeopathic remedies made from metals still contain measurable amounts of the starting material, even at extreme dilutions of 1 part in 10 raised to 400 parts (200C),” said Dr Jayesh Bellare from the scientific team. His student, Prashant Chikramane, presented the paper titled, ‘Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective’, as part of his doctoral thesis.
Homeopathy was established in the late 18th century by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. While it is widely popular in certain countries, especially India, the British Medical Association and the British parliament have in recent times questioned its potency. Some four years ago, British research papers rubbished homeopathy as a mere placebo.
“Homeopathy has been a conundrum for modern medicine. Its practitioners maintained that homeopathic pills got more potent on dilution, but they could never explain the mechanism scientifically enough for the modern scientists,” said Bellare. For instance, if an ink-filler loaded with red ink is introduced into the Powai lake, Bellare said, there would be no chance of ever tracing it. “But the fact is that homeopathic pills have worked in extreme dilutions and its practitioners have been able to cure tough medical conditions,” he added. One of the theories that was floated a few years ago stated that these pills imprinted their memory on the water molecules.
For the first time, scientists used equipment, such as a transmission electron microscope, electron diffraction and emission spectroscopy, to map physical entities in extremely dilution.
Homeopathy is based on nanotechnology, proves IIT-B research
Mumbai: Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) have now proved that homeopathy definitely works on the principle of nanotechnology. Refuting the British Medical Association’s claim that this ancient form of medication does not work on a scientific basis, IIT-B published a report stating that homeopathic pills, made of naturally occurring metals such as gold, copper and iron, retain their potency even when extremely diluted to a nanometre or one-billionth of a metre.
Scientists used equipment, such as a transmission electron microscope, electron diffraction and emission spectroscopy, to map physical entities in extremely dilution. And sure enough, these high-tech devices could measure nanoparticles of gold and copper (the original metal used in the medicines).
“We had analyzed ayurvedic bhasmas (powders) a few years ago and found nanoparticles to be the powering agent. Following this, whenever we spoke about ayurveda at scientific meetings, we would get a person standing up to ask about homeopathy. That is when we decided to unravel the homeopathy mystery,” the team members said.
American homeopaths — Dr Joh Ives from the Samueli Institute in Virginia and Joyce C Fryce from the Centre of Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland — said that the IIT-B theory was fascinating. “We are all familiar with the simple calculations showing that a series of 1:99 dilutions done sequentially will produce a significant dilution of the starting material in very short order,” they wrote in an special editorial in the journal. But as dilution increases, this theory goes awry. “(But) Chikramane et al found that, contrary to our arithmetic, there are nanogram quantities of the starting material still present in these high potency remedies.”
The hypothesis is that nanobubbles form on the surface of the highly diluted mixtures and float to the surface, retaining the original potency. “We believe we have cracked the homeopathy conundrum,” said Bellare. However, the scientific world believes that the work needs to be replicated on a larger scale before it becomes an accepted theory.
According to well-known city homeopath Dr Farokh J Master, the IIT theory has proven something what practitioners have always known. “My instruction to my patients has always been to dilute the pills in a cup of water and stir it 10 times with a spoon. Then remove the spoon vertically, dip it in another cup of pure water and stir 10 times. I advise my patients to perform this exercise in five cups before discarding the first four cups and then drink from the fifth cup in two equal doses,” said Master. Dilution works, he says. “Homeopathy can cure dogs and cats who are not susceptible to the theory of placebos. So, the only possibility is that homeopathy is so potent that it cures all.”
Regards,
Swami
