by Shane Scott

One of the core tenets of homeopathy is the belief that the more dilute a substance is, the more powerful its effects on the body. It would make sense, then, that homeopaths should go to enormous lengths to prevent contamination of their preparations with unwanted solutes. Clearly, you wouldn’t want some contraindicated contaminant potentising your remedy along with the substance you intended to put into the potion. Indeed, it does seem to be the case that laboratories which engage in the preparation of homeopathic medicines do take some pains to avoid contamination.

There is a significant problem, however. Water itself contains countless solutes. So how do the homeopathists prevent all of these unwanted substances potentising remedies with their character? The answer, it turns out, is the same answer to the question of how water doesn’t “remember” all of the things that have been dissolved in it throughout history: they use double distilled water. Because double distilled water is pure water, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Recently, for reasons quite distinct from any desire to piss all over a homeopathic campfire, I had cause to contact a gentleman who was involved in the water purification business. Not “chuck these tablets in your river water” or “here’s a filter for a kettle” water purification, but front-line, super-awesome, space-age water purification. So I asked him: “Can we make absolutely, 100% pure water?”

The answer? No.

Uh oh.

The purest water available commercially, he informed me, contains ionic impurities at the parts per trillion level and organic impurities at the parts per billion level. This is water that has gone through all of the following processes: ion exchange, organics removal, UV treatment, reverse osmosis, electro deionisation, ultra-filtration, and a host of other steps that he wouldn’t divulge. And that level of purity is from straight out of the treatment process. You’ve got a whole other set of problems when you try to bottle, store and transport it. You see, no matter what you use to contain the water, it’s going to contaminate it somehow. Glass doesn’t work well at all, the water will easily leach and dissolve silicates from the surface of the glass (especially, say, if you had it in a glass bottle and were whacking it repeatedly off of a book for some reason). The best (but not perfect) option is to use bottles made from high density organic polymers that have been extensively fluorinated; and these don’t come cheap.

This presents a couple of problems for homeopathic theory.

1) If your remedy is based on any of the following substances:

Bromine, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Nitrates, Nitrites, Phosphates, Sulphates, Silver, Aluminium, Arsenic, Gold, Boron, Beryllium, Barium, Bismuth, Calcium, Cadmium, Cobalt, Chromium, Cerium, Caesium, Copper, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Iron, Gallium, Gadolinium, Germanium, Mercury, Holmium, Indium, Potassium, Kryptonite, Lanthanum, Lithium, Lutetium, Magnesium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Sodium, Niobium, Lead, Palladium, Praseodymium, Platinum, Rubidium, Antimony, Selenium, Silicon, Tin, Strontium, Terbium, Thorium, Titanium, Thallium, Thulium, Uranium, Vanadium, Yttrium, Ytterbium, Zinc or Zirconium*

Then, even if you are using the purest water that is available (homeopathy only claims to use double distilled, so this is generous) and starting with, say, a molar solution of whatever substance you’re diluting (1 part per 1800). You cannot get past about 4C or 5C. You just can’t. You hit baseline.

Take the example of homeopathic table salt (or Natrium Muriaticum as it’s named in homeopathy), prescribed at 30C for long term nervous tension and heart disease (among other ailments). It’s just a solution of sodium chloride. ANY water you use will contain sodium and chloride ions. It gives you a nice wee answer to the sceptics who claim there’s none of the “named ingredient” in the prep, but it raises the question “what the hell is the point in continuing to dilute it past around 4C?”

I guess the answer could be that the continuation of dilution and succusion (shaking the vial violently, releasing untold numbers of novel solutes, by the way) continues the potentisation. But that brings me on to my next point…

2) Even with substances that don’t exist naturally in water (homeopathic snake venom, for example, used in the treatment of period pains), once the original substance is long gone, isn’t the succusion potentising the mixture the essence of all of these other substances that exist in the water? I mean, if the potentisation of homeopathic salt and arsenic and the like can continue once they’ve hit the limit of their dilution, why aren’t all these other substances affected by the treatment too. If they are, is this a good idea? Is this accounted for in the homeopathic canon? I dunno. What’s the official line?

Now, I don’t actually care that much about homeopathy. I don’t believe it works but I take a “live and let live” sort of view. I would like to see homeopaths take an official line against its recommendation for dangerous, life-threatening conditions, but I don’t really see the problem with people spending their money on it for self-limiting conditions if they think it makes them feel better. But seeing as it’s 10:23 week, homeopathy’s been invading my consciousness more than usual and I guess it bugs me to see the abuse of science in the explanations that are dragged out for homeopathy.

If it’s special wizardy magic, just say “it’s special wizardy magic”. Stop trying to dress it up in science.

*only joking about the kryptonite

Originally publish at Gleet.

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• Homeopathic “Training” Scrapped at Gartnavel
• Homeopathy: Witchcraft or Pseudoscience?