Application of infrared spectrometry and molecular modeling to investigate the presence of homeopathic water clathrates

Homeopathy has been a controversial and mythical alternative medical treatment, the mechanism of which has not been clearly identified. The treatment is prepared by extreme dilution of the tincture (solute), the agent causing the disease, in solvents accompanied by vigorous succussion (violent shaking). The two major controversies of the treatment are: (1) The use of the solute that causes the disease as a remedy, and (2) the final concentration containing virtually no solute. The limited number of attempts at an empirical-physical experiment proposes that the formation of water clathrates is the most prominently-accepted postulate. The tincture is believed to confer its information onto the clathrates so that the prepared treatment without the presence of the tincture cures disease. Logical elucidation of the role of the tincture is the major obstacle in elaborating homeopathic phenomena. This research will utilize the tools, such as the fourier transform infrared spectrometer, density measurement, and molecular modeling, to illustrate the following: (1) The detection of spectral differences present in clathrates; (2) the role of different hydrogen bond strengths in the clathrates' role of therapeutics; (3) the lack of therapeutic functional difference in the absence of tincture and (4) an active IR wave number calculation using a molecular modeling computational tool to compare with empirical data. This research provides evidence of a lack of clathrate formation with either fourier transform infrared spectra or density/velocity of sound measurements. However at the measurement temperature of 25°C, there were some indications that homeopathic techniques do create differences in the structure of the prepared tinctures: (1) Higher intensities of absorption occur in positive controls (succussed) of homeopathic samples compared to negative control (unsuccussed) samples, (2) the increase in intensities occurred in the homeopathic tincture samples, (cadmium chloride), while other samples, (1, 4 dioxane, water for injection, and deuterium oxide), did not show any increase in intensity, and (3) when the increase in intensities were demonstrated in cadmium chloride positive control samples, higher potency samples (lower concentration) were observed to absorb at higher intensities than lower potency samples (higher concentrations).