Raman spectroscopy reveals distinctive features of drugs at ultra high dilution

Abstract

Background 
             Drugs at ultra high dilution (UHD) have been used in homeopathy for a couple of centuries. The central theme in homeopathic Materia Medica is that each drug has its own distinctive features which need to be matched with the symptoms of a patient for eliciting therapeutic response. However, UHD’s very often (above 12 cH) cross the Avogadro number, and are, therefore, devoid of original drug molecules. How do they maintain their individual identity ? This study aims to address this pertinent question.
  
 Objective :
             The medium of UHD’s is ethanol water. It is thought that water structures in a UHD carry the identity of the drug and its rank of dilution. The objective is to decipher the exact nature of water structure in UHD’s of different drugs by laser Raman spectroscopy.
  
 Method :
             Six homeopathic drugs and their control ethanol, all in 90% ethanol v/v, were used in the study. For Sulphur and Natrum mur, potencies used were 30 cH, 200 cH and 1000 cH, and for Calcarea carb and Sepia the potencies were 8 cH, 202 cH and 1002 cH. In addition to the four drugs we also used X-ray and Magnetis poli ambo which did not originate from any substance by exposure of ethanol water to X radiation and strong magnetic field.For this we could use their mother tinctures as well as ultrahigh dilutions(potencies) like 8cH, 14cH and 32cH. The potencies used for ethanol control were 8 cH, 14cH, 32cH and 20 cH. Raman spectra of all the potencies of 6 drugs, ethanol control and pure water were taken in the wave number region of 2400-4200 cm-1. All the samples were reduced to 25% ethanol by adding appropriate volume of water to each of them before taking the spectra. The mother tinctures MT of X-ray and Magnetis were studied.
 The intensity ratio of vibration frequencies between 3200 cm-1 and 3420 cm-1 (R1) and that between 3620 cm-1 and 3420 cm-1 (R2) were calculated for each UHD of the samples.
  
 Results :
 All the UHD’s of the drugs and the control tested show difference in intensities in the stretching vibrations of CH and OH groups. The three UHD’s from low to high ranks of both Natrum mur and Sulphur show negative relationship with respect to R1 values, and positive one concerning  R2 values. R1 values for 3 UHD’s of Calcarea carb and Sepia show negative and positive relationships, respectively. In case of R2 values the relationship in 3 UHD’s is 81002 for Calcarea carb, and 8>202