A review of machines and devices to potentize homeopathic medicines.

Background: Potentization, consisting of serial dilution and succussion, is a key step in the manufacture of homeopathic medicines. Originally prescribed as a manual process, several attempts at mechanization have been published, patented and even commercialised in order to remove the human element and introduce reproducibility without drudgery. Various machines have been used over the years to prepare homeopathic medicines.

Metal nanoparticle induced hormetic activation: a novel mechanism of homeopathic medicines.

Background: High-potency homeopathic remedies, 30c and 200c have enormous dilution factors of 10 and 10 respectively. Therefore, the presence of physical entities in them is inconceivable. As a result, their efficacy is highly debated and often dismissed as a placebo.

Safety and bioactivity studies of Jasad Bhasma and its in-process intermediate in Swiss mice.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Bhasma, Ayurvedic medicinal preparations, are prepared using herbs and minerals on following long iterative procedures. However, industrially mercury and sulphur are more commonly used to prepare bhasma from its raw material. The end point of this iterative procedure is mainly judged by the traditional tests specifying physical appearance of the powders.

Establishing the interfacial nano-structure and elemental composition of homeopathic medicines based on inorganic salts: a scientific approach.

Extremely dilute systems arise in homeopathy, which uses dilution factors 10(60), 10(400) and also higher. These amounts to potencies of 30c, 200c or more, those are far beyond Avogadro's number. There is extreme skepticism among scientists about the possibility of presence of starting materials due to these high dilutions.

Generalized estimating equation approach for analyzing the effects of metal-derived products on survival and hatching of zebrafish embryos.

Zebrafish embryos are widely used as a model to monitor the effect of chemicals on their survival and hatching at different time epochs. This experimental design generates longitudinal data in which the observations for a given subject are correlated and they are statistically independent across the subjects. This particular nature of the observations suggests the use of generalized estimating equation (GEE) methodology for performing meaningful statistical analysis.

Why extreme dilutions reach non-zero asymptotes: a nanoparticulate hypothesis based on froth flotation.

Extreme dilutions, especially homeopathic remedies of 30c, 200c, and higher potencies, are prepared by a process of serial dilution of 1:100 per step. As a result, dilution factors of 10(60), 10(400), or even greater are achieved. Therefore, both the presence of any active ingredient and the therapeutic efficacy of these medicines have been contentious because the existence of even traces of the starting raw materials in them is inconceivable.

Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective.

Homeopathy is controversial because medicines in high potencies such as 30c and 200c involve huge dilution factors (10⁶⁰ and 10⁴⁰⁰ respectively) which are many orders of magnitude greater than Avogadro's number, so that theoretically there should be no measurable remnants of the starting materials. No hypothesis which predicts the retention of properties of starting materials has been proposed nor has any physical entity been shown to exist in these high potency medicines. Using market samples of metal-derived medicines from reputable manufacturers, we have demonstrated for the first time by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the presence of physical entities in these extreme dilutions, in the form of nanoparticles of the starting metals and their aggregates.