Trick or Treatment—The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine (Electronic book text)

At this point, it is important to appreciate the extent of the dilution undergone during the preparation of homeopathic remedies. A 4X remedy, for instance, means that the mother tincture was diluted by a factor of 10 (1X), then again by a factor of 10 (2X), then again by a factor of 10 (3X), and then again by a factor of 10 (4X). This leads to dilution by a factor of 10 x 10 x 10 x 10, which is equal to 10,000. Although this is already a high degree of dilution, homeopathic remedies generally involve even more extreme dilution. Instead of dissolving in factors of 10, homeopathic pharmacists will usually dissolve one part of the mother tincture in 99 parts of water, thereby diluting it by a factor of 100. This is called a 1C remedy, C being the Roman numeral for 100. Repeatedly dissolving by a factor of 100 leads to 2C, 3C, 4C and eventually to ultra-dilute solutions.

For example, homeopathic strengths of 3 °C are common, which means that the original ingredient has been diluted 30 times by a factor of 100 each time. Therefore, the original substance has been diluted by a factor of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This string of noughts might not mean much, but bear in mind that one gram of the mother tincture contains less than 1,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules. As indicated by the number of noughts, the degree of dilution is vastly bigger than the number of molecules in the mother tincture, which means that there are simply not enough molecules to go round. The bottom line is that this level of dilution is so extreme that the resulting solution is unlikely to contain a single molecule of the original ingredient. In fact, the chance of having one molecule of the active ingredient in the final 3 °C remedy is one in a billion billion billion billion. In other words, a 3 °C homeopathic remedy is almost certain to contain nothing more than water. This point is graphically explained in Figure 2. Again, this underlines the difference between herbal and homeopathic remedies — herbal remedies will always have at least a small amount of active ingredient, whereas homeopathic remedies usually contain no active ingredient whatsoever.

Figure 2

Homeopathic remedies are prepared by repeated dilution, with vigorous shaking between stages. Test tube A contains the initial solution, called the mother tincture, which in this case has 100 molecules of the active ingredient. A sample from test tube A is then diluted by a factor of ten (1X), which leads to test tube B, which contains only 10 molecules in a so-called 1X dilution. Next, a sample from test tube B is diluted by a factor of ten again (2X), which leads to test tube C, which contains only 1 molecule. Finally, a sample from test tube C is diluted by a factor of ten for a third time (3X), which leads to test tube D, which is very unlikely to contain any molecules of the active ingredient. Test tube D, devoid of any active ingredient, is then used to make homeopathic remedies. In practice, the number of molecules in the mother tincture will be much greater, but the number of dilutions and the degree of dilution is generally more extreme, so the end result is typically the same — no molecules in the remedy.