Talk:Homeopathic dilutions

French dilution table
There is a nice table on the French homoeopathy page which gives information about the dilutions. Maybe this could be developed a bit here? --SesquipedalianVerbiage (talk) 23:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

For those interested to discuss SesquipedalianVerbiage's suggestion. This table is at:


 * https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_hom%C3%A9opathique#Illustration_des_cent%C3%A9simales_hahnemanniennes
 * https://archive.md/sCAeH#selection-1711.0-1706.2

Francewhoa (talk) 20:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Promote to article
With an extension to the header this could be promoted to a full article. Any objections or suggestions? I suggest "Homeopathic dilution," which already redirects here. Verbal  chat  13:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well as this has now been done, it seems the lead does need extending. Verbal   chat  20:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

What are the units C and X
I.e. how is a 15C remedy prepared. Is it dilute the product, take 10% of it, add 9 parts water, and repeat this process C number of times? Perhaps this should be explained better in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.51.75.50 (talk) 15:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * C indicates a 1 in 100 dilution, X is a 1 in 10 dilution, and the number is the number of times the dilution has been repeated, so 15C would indicate a 1 in 100 dilution repeated 15 times (with shaking at each stage, of course), resulting in a 1 in 1030 dilution overall. This basic information should certainly be in the article.  Brunton (talk) 16:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "basic information should certainly be in the article" <-- It would be if the people who created the page really wanted to have the page be about "homeopathic dilutions". It seems that providing an account of how homeopaths perform and describe dilutions was not why this page was created. There is a discussion in the section "Dilution and succussion" and some references for "dynamization" given at Homeopathy. --JWSchmidt (talk) 17:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This page was originally created as an appendix to the main article, which is why it doesn't contain information also in the article, and makes such assumptions. It was then spun off into article space in the hope that it would be improved. WP:AGF This article should be improved so that it functions better as a standalone article, yet editors have been busy with the main article. Suggestions for improvement etc are surely welcome. Verbal   chat  17:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Deletion proposal
why in the name of God was i notifeid by robot abou thits nonsense? i have only a tangential relationhip to this article and i do not appreciate being accused of creatin g an agenda or cheating in this article!! Smith Jones (talk) 04:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That was Whig, not a robot. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * oh okay. i dont mind if it was Whig or antoehr GENUINE USER but ir efuse to be talked down to or conscentraded down by a mere BOT that is misprogrammed or harrasive. I also strenunously struppose deletion as to the nature fo related homeopathic articles being a relevent linkage as to clear and convincing information Smith Jones (talk) 05:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey ease up bro, ease up, that was homeopathic articles, not homosexual articles. Sheeeesh...Myles325a (talk) 06:29, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * There was no robot and no accusation. It was merely a notice to you as a past editor of this article of the proposed deletion so that you could express your opinion as you have done. &mdash;Whig (talk) 05:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The deletion template contains the following text:


 * Article appears to be original research/synthesis to advance a position


 * If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to deletion for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced.

Well, I object and am removing the template, and per the instructions "it should not be replaced".

Whig, why should it be deleted? You have provided a reason/accusation, but have not discussed it here or explained your reasoning. An accusation is not proof. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Smith Jones mentions one very good argument for keeping this article. It is linked to by many other articles here, IOW it is recognized as a good reference here. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry Bull, but an internal wikilink is not a reference, and certainly not a commendation of the target. We even make wikilinks to nonexistent prospective articles. It's an invalid argument.LeadSongDog come howl  07:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * My view is that the prod was invalid. However, this article does need work to update it from the appendix it was, or it should be returned to subspace. Most attention is focussed on the main article, but hopefully some editors can take time to improve this page without removing the valid material. I'll try and have a go when I have time, and I hope others will too. Verbal   chat  09:27, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Verbal...I created the content here (much of it moved from the original homeopathy page) as an appendix to deal with the overly extensive coverage of homeopathy's often extreme dilutions. Since the main article has always suffered from bloat, this was, I think, a good IAR way to move important but lengthy content off the main page. The guideline cited in moving this to article space, Subpages, exists almost entirely because of Wikimedia software issues that couldn't handle slashes, a problem that seems largely solved. There are plenty of sources that discuss the topic of extreme dilutions in the context of homeopathy, an aspect crucial to homeopathy's dismissal as pseudoscience by the medical & scientific mainstream, so I think this could be made into a distinct subarticle. &mdash; Scientizzle 16:21, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Given the general consensus of the poor state of this article, I have tagged it accordingly. I do not see how it can be made into a good article but if there is consensus not to delete then it should of course be kept. &mdash;Whig (talk) 05:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see any OR or SYNTH problems justifying a tag. Perhaps add to bits of text you think are problematic.  Verbal   chat  16:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I won't disagree that, as an article, it's not up to standard. I think the basic reason for that is that the content was not meant to be a standalone article and was not properly expanded in conjunction with its move to article space. I think it has the potential to be a very good and useful collection of material, as an article or an appendix, but to do either properly would necessitate determining which path is preferred. &mdash; Scientizzle 17:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it is important that this article be tagged as not being up to standard, and individual sections may be tagged for improvement as well. There seems to be consensus on these points and a reader should not have to come to the Talk page to know that. I will try to choose an appropriate tag and feel free to change it. &mdash;Whig (talk) 19:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I find that it's a concept that is encyclopedic enough that it can have its own separate article. Also, lack of space at Homeopathy, and extremely low possibility that it ever becomes a WP:FORK, so there are side reasons to keep it separate. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:18, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * As a concept, it doesn't actually pertain to anything in the real world unless it includes succussion. As an article about serial dilution, it doesn't really relate to homeopathy without more context. &mdash;Whig (talk) 21:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

This article has had a cleanup tag for several months with essentially no activity. I think deletion should be reconsidered. The article is not about Homeopathy but is some nutshell fork to package criticism. This should be merged back into Homeopathy criticism subsection, and in fact, it is far better and more balanced described there. As a stand-alone article it has no value and I don't see point in asking people to clean it up. Just to be sure: I am myself critical of Homeopathy after having read the original Samuel Hahnemann book, but, criticism based on the dilution-absurdity argument should not be forked into a different article. Gschadow (talk) 04:11, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I, Gschadow (talk), have added this tag:

after having made a serious effort to expand this article to be more useful. I have copied a large chunk of the far better maintained main Homeopathy article into this one.

I now maintain that this article should be merged, instead of deleted, and simply to reference the respective section in the main Homeopathy article. According to Help:Merging, the actual discussion about the merger apparently has to happen in the main Homeopathy page. So, please have the merger discussion there, or correct me and the tag reference if I am wrong. Thanks. Gschadow (talk) 05:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

--- I know a random anonymous user won't have any sway, but I don't think this article should be merged or deleted. It is a very useful resource in explaining the nature of homeopathic dilution. It is *not* criticism, merely explanation of what homeopaths believe. (Not our fault that they believe wacko things...) But they really believe that diluting things makes them more 'potentized', thus having an article on homeopathic dilution as a topic in itself makes sense. Homeopathy involves a lot more than just the dilution, and the mathematics and nature of such dilutions is an interesting subject in its own right. It should be summarised and linked to from the homeopathy article, and of course a NPV maintained throughout. -Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.83.237 (talk) 10:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"Proposed Scientific Explanations"
The "proposed scientific explanations" section had no scientific explanations. Did the author know what "science" meant? All it has is stuff about healing properties and spiritual energy. I move to rename or delete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.220.216 (talk) 02:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

How much is D4?
How much diluted is D4? --188.99.185.19 (talk) 17:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1 in 10,000 (i.e. a 1 in ten dilution carried out four times). Brunton (talk) 10:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Darwin's book on his experiments with Drosera and Ullman's article
Is this useful for the article. According to Ullman it is related to homeopathic dilutions. I will ask homeopathy editors as well.

"It is also fascinating to note that Darwin himself conducted several experiments evaluating the effects of small doses on an insect-eating plant (Drosera rotundifolia, commonly called sundew) that is commonly used in homeopathic medicine. He found that solutions of certain salts of ammonia stimulated the glands of the plant's tentacles and caused the plant to turn inward. He made this solution more and more dilute, but the plant still was able to detect the presence of the salt. On July 7, 1874, he wrote to a well-known physiologist, Professor F. C. Donders of Utrecht, Netherlands, that he observed that 1/4 000 000 of a grain had a demonstrable effect upon the Drosera, and Darwin was shocked and dismayed to write, ‘the 1/20 000 000th of a grain of the crystallised salt does the same. Now, I am quite unhappy at the thought of having to publish such a statement’ (11).

Astonished by his observation, Darwin likened it to a dog that perceives the odor of an animal a quarter of a mile distant. He said: ‘Yet these particles must be infinitely smaller than the one twenty millionth of a grain of phosphate of ammonia’ (21). Darwin said about this spectacular phenomenon:

The reader will best realize this degree of dilution by remembering that 5,000 ounces would more than fill a thirty-one gallon cask [barrel]; and that to this large body of water one grain of the salt was added; only half a drachm, or thirty minims, of the solution being poured over a leaf. Yet this amount sufficed to cause the inflection of almost every tentacle, and often the blade of the leaf. ... My results were for a long time incredible, even to myself, and I anxiously sought for every source of error. ... The observations were repeated during several years. Two of my sons, who were as incredulous as myself, compared several lots of leaves simultaneously immersed in the weaker solutions and in water, and declared that there could be no doubt about the difference in their appearance. ... In fact every time that we perceive an odor, we have evidence that infinitely smaller particles act on our nerves (p. 170) (21). In Darwin's book on his experiments with Drosera, he expressed complete amazement at the hypersensitivity of a plant to extremely small doses of certain chemicals: ‘Moreover, this extreme sensitiveness, exceeding that of the most delicate part of the human body, as well as the power of transmitting various impulses from one part of the leaf to another, have been acquired without the intervention of any nervous system’ (p. 272) (21)/'--BeatriceX (talk) 05:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Please, either provide another source that shows this is significant to anything or stop posting your original research all over wikipedia. Your original research belongs in your blog. Or you can get it published in reputable journals, then get it talked about in other journals and books, then get it in wikipedia courtesy of someone else. An encyclopedia should be other already researched and well-supported and compiled results from elsewhere. --Kleopatra (talk) 08:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There is nothing in Darwin's writings to indicate that these experiments had anything to do with homoeopathic dilutions. Specifically, there is no indication that the solutions were prepared by serial dilution with succussion.  Brunton (talk) 10:21, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The article you want to include is a commentary. It's speculation. Please do not continue to seek a place to add this to wikipedia. Your interpretation of Darwin is original research (WP:NOR). Original research does not belong on wikipedia.
 * I include a quote from the journal you cite describing commentaries, such as Ullman's, in their pages: Hypotheses, Conjectures, Comments: Evidence-based CAM will publish in the section Hypotheses-Conjectures-Comments papers proposing hypotheses that are interesting but still lack certain evidence. The paper can be purely speculative, but authors are requested to thoroughly discuss existing data related to the hypothesis and also to propose a methodology (experimental, epidemiological or statistical) as to how the hypothesis can be tested.
 * --Kleopatra (talk) 10:25, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

M potecies?
"In addition, some homeopathic products on the market today, also use the "millesimal" (M) scale. A potency of 1M means a dilution of 1 part in 1000." Is there any source for this? All sources I find claim that 1M equals 1000C. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolhabetu (talk • contribs) 10:51, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

How to read a homeopathic label?
I have a tube of a homeopathic ointment made in Germany, and some of the ingredients are listed like this: Millefolium 1X 0.15g, Hepar sulphuris calcareum 8X 0.125g. Would these be equivalent to 0.015 grams and 0.125 x 10^-8 grams, respectively? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.74.228.175 (talk) 22:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Suggesting renaming this article
To me NPOV, I suggest the title of this article be renamed "Homeopathic potensies", as homeopaths do not approve of the word "dilution". I am a critic of homeopathy, but the title of this article is biased against homeopaty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.67.45.178 (talk) 11:29, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Well I oppose the renaming of the article, and I'm a proponent of homeopathy, so there. I will also leave my post unsigned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.161.45.133 (talk) 05:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not thrilled with the phrase "is biased against". The current page title might well be as close as we can get to a neutral title, for exactly the reason that I wouldn't automatically cede authority to the title of every page concerning Dianetics to L. Ron Hubbard: unfortunately, the practitioners of a subject matter have no innate claim to superior neutrality, and are sometimes the least neutral parties of all.  "Dilution" is rooted in a simple metaphor of material conservation and diminishment.   What homeopaths seem to claim about this method is that the initial reagent functions analogously to a catalyst in chemistry: it doesn't partake in the net reaction.  That suggests the page title "homeopathic cataclysm".  Sometimes you can't win.  I don't think much weight should be placed on claims by commenters that they are inherently "pro" or "con".  This can't be verified.  In a minefield there are only choices.  It doesn't help to yell out that one path forward might explode, if so too might another.  &mdash; MaxEnt 14:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Potency scales -- C vs c
The fourth para uses "c" but the rest of this section uses "C". Would someone care to resolve this? Should there be a note that both cap and small have been used? Same for X and x. AFAICS, M seems to generally be M. humanengr (talk) 03:06, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Dilution analogies
I recently reverted an IP editor that removed the entire section discussing the problem of homeopathic dilutions. However, looking at the list of analogies, I wonder if it isn't overkill to have this many analogies. Perhaps it would be better to trim this down a bit and remove the ones that don't really help the average reader explain just how diluted these things are. I personally feel the salt in the Atlantic oceans one and the duck liver one are the best of the lot. the swimming pool one might be good as well to give a smaller scale example but I think it is currently worded in a confusing way. The poison/Lake Geneva one is unsourced and rather unspecific, the 1/3 drop one i think is similar to the Atlantic ocean one and seems less specific in the original amount that is being diluted, and the light year one i don't believe is a helpful analogy as a light year is a pretty incomprehensible distance and wouldn't help someone picture the scope of the dilution. Cannolis (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The five sections are way UNDUE. I'm gonna try to combine them into one paragraph.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 17:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The swimming pool analogy makes no sense whatsoever. For that 63% chance you'd have to consume 25 tons of liquid, period. That's completely independent of whether you filled a tanker truck, a swimming pool, or the Atlantic Ocean with that 15C preparation before drinking it. Mbethke (talk) 03:31, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Source of Hahnemann's Joke
This is somewhat relevant to the last poster's comment but not a direct reply. I was looking at the unsourced reported analogy 1 bottle of poison in Lake Geneva. This analogy had two citations in 22 June 2011 until removed by JzG in a citation cleanup. There's one book and one new age site which I couldn't find the reference at that URL (restructured?). I had a look around the web for something better, I found a credible-sounding source (News Medical) but unfortunately that's circular as it seems to have gotten it's info from Wikipedia! I did spot one site which gave a primary attribution (In Plain Site) which was Bambridge AD (1989), Homeopathy investigated, the same book who's citation was removed in 2011. I believe this is probably the primary source, but I have no way of accessing the book to verify directly, and only see it mentioned on unreliable-sounding secondary sources. Comments? — Lee A. Christie (talk) 10:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

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Citizendium

 * Citizendium in its article on "memory of water" has this to say:-
 * In 2010, a team of scientists from India found that some commercially manufactured metal-derived homeopathic remedies in fact contained nanoparticles of the metals and their aggregates, despite the claimed high-dilution.[27][28] In 2015, a study in India found that homeopathic remedies in fact contained nanoparticles of the resource medicine, despite the claimed high-dilution.[29] Another team of scientists found that Quartz, Sulfur and Copper Sulfate-derived homeopathic remedies in fact contained nanoparticles of those substances and their aggregates, despite the claimed high-dilution.[30] Traditional homeopathic preparation methods are very different from the controlled microchemical procedures used for serial dilutions in scientific laboratories, and the assumption that homeopathic remedies are in fact diluted to the extent claimed may be wrong. As pointed out in an editorial in Homeopathy, "The skeptics have gotten the homeopathic world so busy trying to defend various theories of water memory that we have overlooked the possibility that some of the material somehow actually persists in highly diluted homeopathic medicines."[31]
 * Wikipedia should copy that matter here into this article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.76.45.126 (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't see sources here. However the article already mentions that some preparations are not extreme dilutions.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 00:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Adding this comment since I recently saw the material added and removed. This was added to other articles such as water memory where it was off-topic and removed.  However, this article is a better target for any related addition.  There are a few problems.  The reasons this would be included are unclear.  Is the goal to say that some dillutions may be more effective because they are not only water?  Metal contamination of products could be considered harmful too.  If the goal is to say that not all dillutions result in only water, as previously noted, the article already says so.  Of course, there is still a difference between a dillution that contain traces of a plant and a medicine that contains a selected molecule at a precise dose to achieve a specific effect.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 16:44, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Pseudoscience
"The concept is pseudoscience because, at commonly used dilutions, no molecules of the original material are likely to remain"

Wrong because the active ingredient is the solvent, not the solute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:2A32:D600:E9AC:6463:988B:184D (talk) 13:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)


 * No it isn't. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:33, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Suggested helpful addition.
I've been trawling the internet and cant find a solution, maybe a motivated editor could help out?

A useful addition to the 6C line of the dilutions would be an example of the actual dose of a drug. Knowing that "if a mole was used, there is a 60% chance...etc" is good, but not practical.

6C is a commonly available preparation.

A line such as "A 6C tablet of digitalis could be estimated to contain 6x10-8 micrograms of digitalis, so taking a million would be similar to a 62.5mcg dose of digoxin" I made those numbers up, except the digoxin dose, that's a common one.

This all started because a patient in hospital has been taking 6C digitalis and not telling anyone. If it was 12C I could safely not care, but this is 10^12 times as concentrated. I did some math, and I think the above made up example is correct within x1000, which is enough. But it would be good to be more sure.

Anyway, thanks in advance if anyone takes this on. Bendav (talk) 14:59, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * It is likely that a 6c dilution will contain just a few molecules of the initial substance -- far to few to have any effect on the human body. Even the highest quality distilled water has other substances in it at higher -- but still tiny -- tiny concentrations. More so with whatever they are using to make those tablets. Saying that 12C is "10^12 times as concentrated" as 6C is meaningless. Both are so close to zero that there is no real difference.


 * This page may be helpful. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree and understand. But there is a point where your last statement stops being true, and that is what is useful to know. Because exponents are hard to intuit, it isn't obvious where that is. In a literal (mathematical) sense, 6C is 10^12 times more concentrated than 12C (I think, it's so stupid I'm not checking). So if 12C has a 60% chance of 1 molecule, what does 6C have? It is 10^12 times more concentrated, but I did the math, and it is still essentially zero (as you said). But when does it start to matter? You'd need to know how much of the "compound" by mass was in the final tablet, or the starting preperation. I did it by starting out with 10 grams of digitialis (1/78th of a mole), a massive overestimation but doesn't matter. And that came out to "only" a million tablets, and luckily is still absurd. But what about 3C? or what about a skipped step or 4 in the manufacturing process. Bendav (talk) 19:55, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If anyone is preparing homeopathic treatments with enough active ingredient that taking the whole bottle has any effect at all other than that of the binder (lactose, according to the article) they should be reported to the MHRA/FDA/DAWR, who will shut them down. Doing that would also royally piss off all of the other homeopaths. As far as I can tell nobody is doing that anywhere in the world. You would have to go to an Ayurveda practitioner if you really wanted some medicine with poison in it. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Needs expanding
I came here looking for definitions oh "Then Hepar is definitely indicated at the 200th or preferably at the XM" at. The article does not seem to cover those terms. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:36, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 01:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (...Chirp...)
 * This is odd. With all of the homeopaths and skeptics watching this page, nobody is interested in getting the basic definitions right? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:19, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe try the reference desk if you are looking for answers to questions. I would assume they are dilutions. XM is the incorrect roman numerals for 990 and 200th is possible diluted 200 times. How they apply to your article I don't know. It is homeopathy so much doesn't make sense. Aircorn (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2021 (UTC)