Comments on “New Physico-Chemical Properties of Extremely Dilute Solutions. A Conductivity Study at 25 °C in Relation to Ageing”

Abstract

Recently, Elia and coworkers published in this journal a paper entitled “New PhysicoChemical Properties of Extremely Dilute Solutions. A Conductivity Study at 25 °C in Relation to Ageing” [1] and claimed that from the temporal evolution of conductivity observed in extremely diluted solutions (EDS), a new physico-chemical property related to the age of the solutions may stem from modifications in the supermolecular structure of water. They suggested that the succussion process used to prepare the EDS could trigger the formation of dissipative structures in the EDS. Although in the article the authors avoid any reference to the claims made by homeopathic medicine for the action of ultramolecular dilutions in aqueous systems, the term homeopathy is one of the keywords of this paper. Moreover, V. Elia and E. Napoli coauthored a paper published in 2007 [2] in the journal Homeopathy devoted to the memory of water [3] where part of the evidence, which the authors claimed to support such a controversial phenomenon, comes also from the conductivity evolution. In that work they provide data for the conductivity evolution for the same system, covering a longer period and, consequently, yielding more complete information on the phenomenon than that reported in the paper of reference. As is well known, the “memory of water” is an expression, which appeared in the scientific literature after the paper by Benveniste [4] claiming antibody activity after ultramolecular dilutions, with contrary results published by the Nature inspection team [5]. Since then, the memory of water and its connection to homeopathy has attracted the attention of many