Homeopathic korsako dillution method

[Aepervius]

Dear all

Do any of you (rolfe for example?) have got a reference on comparing the precision of a normal dilution process with known laboratory instrumentation method (which all have a known precision and allow to estimate the precision on the final dilution), and the precision offered by the korsakov method. I mean I read a lot like "it is estimated to be 1/100" but is really 1K=1/100 with a good enough precision ? Was this studied ?

I dutifully not that it is not fully relevant anyway when you have 200K or 200C dilutions, but still I would be interested into knowing if this method of dilution was checked.

THX in advance.

[Rolfe]

So far as I know, nobody has looked. It's not as if the dilution factors in homoeopathy were ever really meant to be exact, and when Korsakov had the "rinsing" idea, Hahnemann just said, that's OK. I think it was supposed to be a "quick and dirty" method for use on the battlefield.

I didn't realise Boiron used that method. If you compare this with people like Hahnemann Laboratories (who do the whole routine as per Hahnemann but use ethanol as the solvent) and King Bio, who use water but again I think use the Hahnemanian method, there's an amazing variety of methodology.

Also in the succussion. I've seen film of a homoeopathic hospital pharmacy where they were using vortex mixers, but Hahnemann Laboratories insist you have to bang the bottle on a leather pad. And at one point Hahnemann declared that ten strikes on the pad was too many and it was making the remedies too powerful, so he decided it had to be reduced to two. God alone knows what the vortex mixers are doing to it!

And as BSM pointed out, isn't it amazing that we have almost exactly the same degree of evidence for every one of these methods!

Rolfe.

[Zep]

The one and only advantage of the Korsakov method is that it can be fully automated because it all happens in one container/flask. Filling, shaking and emptying one flask is a relatively straight-forward mechanical setup. Consequently, the process can be run from scratch (i.e. from MT) by continuous feed of solvent.

I have seen some setups putatively using this method that simplify this even further. The flask is laid on its side and rotated continuously, while solvent is fed in from above. Think of a concrete mixer: The solution pours in the top, mixes (sorry, succusses), coats the inside of the flask, and pours out in a continuous stream. The only criteria it would seem to need to determine the potency arrived at is how long the process is allowed run for. And in one particular setup, the effluent was then pumped back into the top, to be fed in again, so Lord only knows how potent the resulting remedy was! ;)

[Aepervius]

Thanks for the answer. It is interesting that the method used to prepare the product vary so much.

I am off now to take evidence based medicine for my flu...