Homeopathy number crunching

[Aepervius]

If you are a homeopathic preparation house, you can fill up every bottle of every desired end product with the same plain water. Since there is no known way of verifying what's in a homeopathic "medicine," there's no way of proving that you did that.

Profit with no risk of detection.

They don't do it. The money they would spare would be ridiculously small, and the advnatage NIL in comparison to the risk incurred (legally that would be a fraud ; and their business would be shot if it became to be known).

 

[Aepervius]

Non disclosure agreements, grandfathering in of the process ( in canada anyway.) , and a modicum of vigilance ( real pharmacists have to make sure their compounding areas are free of unwanted people too. And people do have a tendency to try and see what is going on. But they seem to do it just fine.) , all combine to give the no risk of detection. As long as you have the equipment that could do your magic ritual, and its not growin cobwebs , there is literally no way they could be found out.

And to counter " its not worth cheating" comment, doing no work at all, and never having to buy additional stock, not to mention not using any man hours, are all pretty good incentives to cheat. When you put in next to no money or effort, it is very easy to significantly raise your profit margin.

When there is no risk of being caught, people will cheat.

Except that having known somebody working at Boiron, they go through the *act*. Their have no security except to maintain health standard.

Again why would they bother ? They are selling excipient (sugar/alcohol/water) at the price of real medicine ! They are making *a killing*.

 

[Ladewig]

The other method is to fill a bottle with mother tincture, empty it and then fill the bottle with water and empty a bottle 30 times (this is known as the Korsakovian method).

I've been reading SI and Skeptic magazine for 20 years. I've read most of Randi's books. I have attended one TAM. I know exactly where the skeptic books are keep at four different library branches in my city. I am in the 10,000 club here at JREF. Despite all that, I read this line and my immediate response was "you're making that up." I actually looked it up and saw that you are not making it up. I am now kicking myself for thinking, "no one could be silly enough to believe that doing that will improve their health." The old joke is true: the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.

 

[Weak Kitten]

Sorry I'm only responding now, I got distracted by work and couldn't get back till now.

Thanks for all the great answers by the way. I especially like your response geni. I was actually curious about how the true believers could do it when the amount of water needed was just too great.

No mater how bizarre the claim there are those who try to do it by the book. It's interesting to see the contortions they have to do to make their rules work.

 

[dafydd]

There are two methods.

One is to
Take 1ml of the mother tincture and add to 99ml of water.
Shake (1C)
Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (2C)
Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (3C)

...

Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (30C)

This required just under 3 liters of water (you can redude the amount of water you need in future by holding onto the 29C stuff which is good for 10 liters of 30C)

The other method is to fill a bottle with mother tincture, empty it and then fill the bottle with water and empty a bottle 30 times (this is known as the Korsakovian method).

Sounds like the money for old rope method. I am seriously considering giving up telling people what a crock homeopathy is and buying some shares in a company that makes the stuff. Selling water at 3000 euros a liter!

 

[Monza]

There are two methods.

One is to
Take 1ml of the mother tincture and add to 99ml of water.
Shake (1C)
Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (2C)
Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (3C)

...

Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (30C)

This required just under 3 liters of water (you can redude the amount of water you need in future by holding onto the 29C stuff which is good for 10 liters of 30C)

The other method is to fill a bottle with mother tincture, empty it and then fill the bottle with water and empty a bottle 30 times (this is known as the Korsakovian method).

This is an discussion I have had with some homeopaths in the past. I agree that the methods you describe are how they do it. My contention is what is the definition of a 30C dilution? Is it the number of times you dilute your starting ingredient, or is it the final ratio of the ingredient to the dilutant? If it is the latter (the ultimate ratio) then I agree with the OP that it is impossible to have a 30C dilution. In that case, regardless of it's efficacy, the information on the label is false.

So the question is: assuming you had enough water, are you allowed to make a homeopathic dilution in one shot or are you required to go through the steps?

 

[Ladewig]

So the question is: assuming you had enough water, are you allowed to make a homeopathic dilution in one shot or are you required to go through the steps?

Disclaimer: I am not a professional homeopath. However, I believe the answer is that you are not allowed to do it in one shot. Part of the ritual magic behind homeopathy is the successions - you have to shake it just right at every step. While you could put three molecules of active ingredient in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, there is no way to shake it according to the precise rules of shaking.

 

[geni]

So the question is: assuming you had enough water, are you allowed to make a homeopathic dilution in one shot or are you required to go through the steps?

You have to go though the steps.

Where I wrote "Shake" thats succussion which is a vital part of the magic. Traditionaly banging the thing against a leather book 2 to 3 times was considered best.

A slightly odd one is LM remedies which have a dilution factor of 50,000 between steps.

 

[geni]

Sounds like the money for old rope method. I am seriously considering giving up telling people what a crock homeopathy is and buying some shares in a company that makes the stuff. Selling water at 3000 euros a liter!

For the most part they sell pills which the water has been dropped on to. Once you include the cost of the blank pills and the packaging and trasport the actual profit margins are unlikely to be anything special.

 

[fromdownunder]

There are two methods.

One is to
Take 1ml of the mother tincture and add to 99ml of water.
Shake (1C)
Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (2C)
Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (3C)

...

Take 1ml of the resulting mixture and add to 99ml of water
Shake (30C)

This required just under 3 liters of water (you can redude the amount of water you need in future by holding onto the 29C stuff which is good for 10 liters of 30C)

This method implies that in every step of the process, they throw away (or flush down the toilet if you like) 99ml of water, i.e., nearly 30000 ml of water for each 100 ml bottle that they make. All the partly dilated stuff gets back into the water cycle somewhere along the way, so we must be already drinking homeopathic medecine which has dilations so many times 30 that it does not bear thinking about.

In a country that has just overcome a 20 year drought, this strikes me as rather wasteful, especially for a product whuch is totally useless.

Norm

 

[geni]

This method implies that in every step of the process, they throw away (or flush down the toilet if you like) 99ml of water, i.e., nearly 30000 ml of water for each 100 ml bottle that they make. All the partly dilated stuff gets back into the water cycle somewhere along the way, so we must be already drinking homeopathic medecine which has dilations so many times 30 that it does not bear thinking about.

In a country that has just overcome a 20 year drought, this strikes me as rather wasteful, especially for a product whuch is totally useless.

Norm

By the standards of an industrail process the odd 30 liters of water isn't even going to register.

 

[fromdownunder]

By the standards of an industrail process the odd 30 liters of water isn't even going to register.

In some industries 30 litres to 100 ml of end product is probably nothing - Oil Refineries, Aluminium makers, and Nuclear Reactors spring to mind. But, for example, would Evian or an Ice Maker consider this a proper ratio, and we are talking about a product which essentially uses water, or water based derivatives as it's end product.

Norm

 

[Mojo]

A slightly odd one is LM remedies which have a dilution factor of 50,000 between steps.

I've seen a really odd description somewhere of how those are made, involving at each stage dropping the remedy onto pills, allowing them to dry, and then dissolving one pill in a fresh batch of solvent and sucussing that. Or something like that.

 

[Rasmus]

This method implies that in every step of the process, they throw away (or flush down the toilet if you like) 99ml of water, i.e., nearly 30000 ml of water for each 100 ml bottle that they make.

Well, only if they ever only produce one bottle at a time. Why should they do that, though, rather than produce bigger batches or store some of the stuff half way through for later production?

All the partly dilated stuff gets back into the water cycle somewhere along the way, so we must be already drinking homeopathic medecine which has dilations so many times 30 that it does not bear thinking about.

Yes, and some of it would already be at a medical grate ratio of solution, so to speak. I wonder what, if any, the half time here is.

In a country that has just overcome a 20 year drought, this strikes me as rather wasteful, especially for a product whuch is totally useless.