From Mr M. Woodman, MRPharmS
SIR,—It should be no surprise that clinical evaluation of homoeopathic remedies yields equivocal results: indeterminacy is the very hallmark of matter in minuscule quantities.
The problem was first noted in 1935 by Schrodinger who realised that (on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum behaviour) a lethal dose of poisonous gas, administered through the mediation of a single particle, would literally half kill a cat unless and until someone checked on the state of the poor creature.
And Professor Ernst (PJ, January 8, p56) remarks that "trials of top quality will also tend to produce negative results". Does not this sound like the familiar quantum paradox that the more closely a system is watched the more its behaviour is affected?
Determinism in the behaviour of single particles may be rescued by the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, but at a cost which does not improve the prospects for objective evaluation of their clinical effects: positive results which end up in universes parallel to our own may be real enough but inherently inaccessible to observation.
Perhaps the best one can say about whether homoeopathic remedies work is that it is best not to ask.
Michael Woodman
Exeter