Dr. MAS - Please use this thread to explain homeopathy to us

[geni]

Well, part of me is waiting for someone to point out where I've dropped a couple of orders of magnitude, but so far it looks sound.

I got the same results when I redid the maths.

 

[Donks]

...
So how about it, guys? We've just demonstreted that even at 6X there isn't enough of anything in a normal dose to have any physiological effect at all, never mind a beneficial effect on disease.
...
Rolfe.

Hmm, idle wondering here. How about habitual intake of a toxic substance at 6X, a substance that the body doesn't easily get rid of?

 

[geni]

Hmm, idle wondering here. How about habitual intake of a toxic substance at 6X, a substance that the body doesn't easily get rid of?

Depends on the intake rate.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

OK, I think can do that. 100µg in 0.2ml is 500µg/ml, which is 500mg/l. Er, if the 1:1,000,000 solution is 500mg/l, then the mother tincture is 500kg/l. Not actually possible, is it? Even if the dose of the 6X was significantly more than 0.2ml - say the patient took 5ml (a teaspoonful) of the liquid potency - it still only brings it down to 20kg/l.

Is that right? Feel free to mock if not.

I was assuming 100kg BW and a dose of 1g to keep the numbers simple. My calculation said there was a factor of 100 between a dose that would matter and the dose suggested as significant, assuming pure source material, which in your terms would be 1l/l or 1kg/kg. You have a factor of 500 or 20 and the missing factors of 5 come from your assuming a dose of 1/5ml or 5ml and my assuming 1g.

So I think we are all in agreement.

And still, this would be a worse case scenario for physiological toxicity using Botox, not salt, or hydrogen or horsefeathers.

 

[Rolfe]

I got the same results when I redid the maths.

It would be interesting now to make some estimates of what a realistic mother tincture might contain, and then bring it down to a drop or a teaspoon of 6X from there. The herbal ones are just silly, because they're such a mixture and we don't have any idea which constituent or group of constituents to treat as the active principle. (Though I would say that so far as something like belladonna is concerned, the concentration of alkaloids even in the mother tincture is probably in the ppm order of magnitude already.) And what can you do with the insoluble things? You'd really need an estimate of particle size.

However, what about Mas's favourite, the great cure for hepatitis, sodium sulphate?

Sodium, relative atomic mass 23
Sulphur, relative atomic mass 32
Oxygen, relative atomic mass 16

Na<SUB>2</SUB>SO<SUB>4</SUB> is therefore 142

I'm going to propose a 3M solution as the mother tincture, so that I can have a nice neat 1 mole of sulphate (even though I don't really need it for this particular sum). So, 426g/l mother tincture, which I think is more than generous. (Is it actually soluble to that extent, Geni? I have my doubts.) Which makes the 6X 426µg/l, or 426ng/ml.

One drop on a sugar pill would be a dose of 85ng. One teaspoonful would be 2µg.

And this is supposed to do what, again?

And this is still from an unrealistically concentrated mother tincture (nearly half a kilo of the salt in only a litre of water). Nevertheless, it allows us to get some appreciation of what tiny amounts are really there in the real 6X remedies taken from relatively weak mother tinctures.

I think I'm retracting my advice not to take a 6X cyanide pill. Assuming it was properly prepared (that is not using Kumar's pre-impregnated glassware, or Mas's magic pipettes which selectively suck up all the solute with only 10% of the solvent!), then a normal homoeopathic dose is probably safe enough. Though as an extra precaution, I'd want to know the exact concentration of the mother tincture.

Rolfe.

 

[Donks]

Depends on the intake rate.

How often do homeopaths take their remedies (the ones not saying one dose is enough, that is)?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I thought of another nasty one to look at, but the LD50 of ricin is about 4ug/kg. So even a 6X of that is safe, being 1/400th of the LD50 if prepared from 100% pure compound.

 

[geni]

I'm going to propose a 3M solution as the mother tincture, so that I can have a nice neat 1 mole of sulphate (even though I don't really need it for this particular sum). So, 426g/l mother tincture, which I think is more than generous. (Is it actually soluble to that extent, Geni? I have my doubts.) Which makes the 6X 426µg/l, or 426ng/ml.

One drop on a sugar pill would be a dose of 85ng. One teaspoonful would be 2µg.

And this is supposed to do what, again?

And this is still from an unrealistically concentrated mother tincture (nearly half a kilo of the salt in only a litre of water). Nevertheless, it allows us to get some appreciation of what tiny amounts are really there in the real 6X remedies taken from relatively weak mother tinctures.

I think I'm retracting my advice not to take a 6X cyanide pill. Assuming it was properly prepared (that is not using Kumar's pre-impregnated glassware, or Mas's magic pipettes which selectively suck up all the solute with only 10% of the solvent!), then a normal homoeopathic dose is probably safe enough. Though as an extra precaution, I'd want to know the exact concentration of the mother tincture.

Rolfe.

You know it would be interesting to find out how much stuff there really was in a 6X remedy.

 

[Rolfe]

You know it would be interesting to find out how much stuff there really was in a 6X remedy.

If would be a damn sight easier to find out what was in the mother tincture and then do the sums. Helios has a page of these, but they pretty much all seem to be plant extracts, and there's no clue as to what concentration of which is where. It would be relatively easy to work it out for the soluble salts, if we had the basic concentration information.

And I suspect I might have been a bit generous in assuming that the entire solute contents of 0.2ml of the liquid potency are incorporated into a single sugar pill.

So basically, we might as well give up any concessions that "it might do something" even at 6X.

Low-flying pigs ahead.

Rolfe.

 

[geni]

If would be a damn sight easier to find out what was in the mother tincture and then do the sums. Helios has a page of these, but they pretty much all seem to be plant extracts, and there's no clue as to what concentration of which is where. It would be relatively easy to work it out for the soluble salts, if we had the basic concentration information.

I was looking for a way to test their QC procedures.

 

[Gaga]

It's SO nice to watch REAL chemists and doctors do their stuff in public. It's just SO simple when it is explained by experts... [...]

Just my thought! that's why I love this place, thanks people
Moreover this display of chemistry prowess was aimed to understand if the substances in a 6x diluition can have any physiological effect. There's a still a huge leap of faith from any effect to a curative effect. The pandora's box of "like cures like" is still sealed

And I'm sure the homeopaths are learning too, probably for the first time in some cases, of the complete bankruptcy of their "science".

I sincerely hope that there's some homeopath lurking, because the ones that posted here recently (i.e. the mas collective) seem rather oblivious to learning something

 

[Rolfe]

I was looking for a way to test their QC procedures.

Tricky. There's so little there, and what might be expected varies so much with the (unknown) concentration of the mother tincture and with how much a sugar pill might absorb, that you'd need some extraordinarily sensitive equipment. As far as separating out the trace of remedy from the sugar, I think you'd have a job on.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if the QC of the process was excellent. My impression of the mind-set is that the spell must be meticulously followed in every particular in order for the magic to work.

However, I was thinking along slightly different lines. If one purchased a 5ml bottle of a mother tincture, and gently evaporated it, one could then weigh the residue no matter what it was. Then it would be a simple question of calculating what weight of this might be expected to remain in a single dose of 6X. Whether that's atropine, or chlorophyll, or DNA, or cellulose, never mind. Just how many ng of anything is the patient getting?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

And I'm sure the homeopaths are learning too, probably for the first time in some cases, of the complete bankruptcy of their "science".

But this isn't homoeopathic "science". It's just the bizarro-world of the MAS collective.

No "normal" homoeopath is going to do anything but laugh themselves sick over this conversation. Because these guys (unlike the MAS collective) can do the sums too. They know perfectly well that there's nothing in a 30C preparation. And even though they know there's something in a 6X preparation, they don't base their speculations (I wouldn't dignify them with the term "theories") about how it works on any action of the material presence.

Talk to a normal homoeopath, and you'll get a frank admission that there's nothing of any material consequence in any remedy. Followed by a load of woo about energies and spiritual essences. The literal-minded ones might home in on water memory, while the ones who've been dazzled by Lionel Milgrom's nonsense might prefer to talk about quantum entanglement, but none of them is relying on the physical properties of a microgramme or so of salt or a nanogramme or so of mashed-up plant.

So it's a bit of a dead end, really. But an interesting one to explore nevertheless.

Rolfe.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

No "normal" homoeopath...

Wow! Just to think that MAS and his cronies or selves have led you to use that phrase.

 

[Rolfe]

Wow! Just to think that MAS and his cronies or selves have led you to use that phrase.

What can I say? We've met some woos here and there, but have you ever before encountered any of them who thought the physical presence of any trace of the mother tincture was important?

"The MAS collective" - I like it. Sounds better than "the Pakistani contingent", I'm off to edit a couple of posts.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I was assuming 100kg BW and a dose of 1g to keep the numbers simple. My calculation said there was a factor of 100 between a dose that would matter and the dose suggested as significant, assuming pure source material, which in your terms would be 1l/l or 1kg/kg. You have a factor of 500 or 20 and the missing factors of 5 come from your assuming a dose of 1/5ml or 5ml and my assuming 1g.

Sorry, BSM, I've been a bit slow on the uptake of what you've been saying. This is an elegant and universally applicable way to debunk just about any remedy in principle, never mind solubility or molecular weight.

You're starting from the pure compound, and assuming a notional concentration of 1kg/l, in effect. Quibbling about densities isn't really worth it, because none of that would alter the calculations by anywhere close to an order of magnitude. It's the most concentrated mother tincture imaginable. So, take a tenth of that, 100g, and call that your 1X preparation and so on.

It doesn't matter how you do the preparation - triturition or dilution and succussion or what - because the arithmetic itself is clear. By the time you've got to 6X, you only have 1mg left in your flask or crucible.

OK, but 1mg is still quite a lot of substance in toxicological terms, right? Yes, but this is a litre (or a kilogramme) of the preparation. You're not going to take the lot, you're only going to take between 0.2 and 5ml (or g) of the stuff. BSM's compromise of 1ml (1g) seems reasonable, though to be honest regarding the pills I think you'd be lucky to get a tenth of that by taking one dampened pill and a fifth is more than generous.

So, at an absolute top-whack, assuming the preparation of a 6X potency from a "mother tincture" which consists of pure active constituent with no diluent at all, and taking the equivalent of a generous 5 pills, you can still only get 1µg of the active ingredient. OK, if you took a teaspoonful of the liquid potency, 5µg.

Can we find anything at all with a physiologically detectable action on the body at a dose of only 1µg? Which is 10ng/kg for BSM's rather chunky 100kg subject? Even for a thin and waif-like 50kg subject, and the 5ml teaspoonful, still only 0.1µg/kg in total. Much lower than anything we've been able to find as physiologically detectable.

And to recap what BSM said, this is for a far more concentrated mother tincture than would actually be found on a homoeopath's shelf, and comparing this improbably strong 6X preparation to the active doses of the most active toxins like botulinum and ricin. For the preparations likely to be found in real homoeopathic life (whatever that is) you could probably scarf 100 times that and not notice it.

This is actually only spelling out step by step what BSM said much more elegantly, but as I hadn't quite appreciated the point earlier I thought it was worth elaborating on.

Kudos to the EU idiots who decided to allow homoeopathic preparations under the wire for one thing anyway. They chose their minimum potency with care, to ensure that nothing was going to get through that had any chance of being hazardous.

Unless - did I hear someone say "plutonium"?

Rolfe.

 

[Hawk one]

Sorry, BSM, I've been a bit slow on the uptake of what you've been saying. This is an elegant and universally applicable way to debunk just about any remedy in principle, never mind solubility or molecular weight.

Dammit, Rolfe. This post is even more simplistic (as in making it easier for complete laymen like me to understand) and elegantly written than the post I already nominated for the language award. What on earth am I supposed to do now?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Unless - did I hear someone say "plutonium"?

Rolfe.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that.

It's hardly the most auhoritative source, but the LD50 of plutonium is "0.015 mg of plutonium/kg of body mass", i.e. 15ug/kg so the 6X would be about 1/1500 of that.

I think that, like you, I'd had a vague notion of 6X translating into 1ppm in the body, or 1mg/kg, but that overlooks, as you comment, the small size of a dose and the large size of the body it is diluted into, giving another factor of 100,000.

 

[Rolfe]

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that.

Well, if plutonium wouldn't do it, then I take it that nothing else radioactive could, by virtue of its radioactivity rather than its actual substance?

We've been brainstorming silly things round the lab this afternoon, like someone said it only takes 4 organisms of E. coli O157 to infect (and potentially kill) a human. And what about FMD virus? But I ruled these out in principle before we even figured out what they weighed, as being infectious agents having their infectivity residing in their capacity for reproducing inside the body. And the absolute zero chance of anyone being allowed to market a 6X preparation of any infectious agent. One fibre of asbestos can kill - but then that takes 20-60 years, anyway. And who knows which fibre has your name on it?

If ricin, botulinum and plutonium can't hack it, then I think we're on safe ground declaring that there is zero possibility of any 6X homoeopathic remedy having a physiological effect by virtue of its content of the mother tincture. Which rather kills 12X and 18X as well.

OK, MAS collective, you were saying...?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Just working my slow way through this lot, bear with me chaps....

You're starting from the pure compound, and assuming a notional concentration of 1kg/l, in effect. Quibbling about densities isn't really worth it, because none of that would alter the calculations by anywhere close to an order of magnitude. It's the most concentrated mother tincture imaginable.

Now compare that, with this.

If one purchased a 5ml bottle of a mother tincture, and gently evaporated it, one could then weigh the residue no matter what it was.

The starting point of the notional mother tincture which gave us a whopping 0.1µg/kg dose for a tiny person taking a whole 5ml spoonful of the 6X, was a whole kilogramme of the active ingredient.

In contrast, what is actually being sold as "mother tincture" is little 5ml bottles of solution, with God-alone-knows how little solid residue if you were to evaporate it. A few µg at best.

You know, realistically, we're not even in the ng/kg region, we're looking at pg/kg.

Does anyone have the url for that cool "powers of ten" web site?

Rolfe.