Although the materials of the earth and its atmosphere are basically the same as those in the sun and stars, they are on the earth in a much more complex state. The mass of the earth is such that the internal heat resulting from its gravitational pressure is low enough to allow the atoms to draw to themselves their full complements of electrons and to retain them in their orbits. The heavy elements condense to the liquid or solid form, while the lighter ones remain as gas. The atoms of most elements have, in their outer orbit, either too many or too few negatively charged electrons to neutralize the positive charge of the nucleus.
The elements with a deficiency of electrons seek those with a corresponding excess and join with them, thus forming the various chemical compounds which compose the earth. A few elements, such as helium, have just the right number of electrons to satisfy the proton, so they are inert, because they can never form compounds with other elements. The heavier material goes to the centre of the earth and the lighter floats on the surface as slag floats on molten metal, In fact, nearly all of the land above water is slag. The gases form a layer outside of all the rest. Because of the great affinity between oxygen an hydrogen, these two elements unite as water when the temperature becomes low enough and this later condenses and runs into all the depressions of the outer crust. It is only when matter assumes the liquid state the solutions can occur.
SOLUTIONS
Scientists are not agreed as to whether a solution is the result of a chemical or of a physical process. For the purpose of discussion of high dilutions, this problem has no significance. It is enough to say that substances having a certain kind of affinity for each other can enter into a solution.
When a solution consists of a solid dissolved in a liquid, the liquid is called the solvent and that which is dissolved is called the solute. Only a certain amount of the solid can be dissolved by a given amount of the liquid and when all that the liquid can hold has been dissolved, the solution is said to be saturated. Certain liquids, such as alcohol and water, can come into a solution with each other in any proportions. Heat will hasten solution and increase solubility. For the sake of clarity in this discussion, consider temperature, pressure or other factors (except the one under discussion) to be standard.
Everybody is familiar with water and with ordinary salt and, as water is one of the most common of solvents, and as, between water and salt, there is a marked attraction, a solution combining the two can represent the principles of solution in general.
There exists between substances in solution and gases a far- reaching analogy. Between the molecules of gas there exists a mutual repulsion which keeps them constantly in motion and uniformly dispersed throughout the volume of a containing vessel. The molecules of a substance in solution are also dispersed uniformly throughout the solvent, although the mechanism of their diffusion is different. There is an inherent expansive force within the gas which causes it to expand but, between water and salt, there is mutual attraction stronger than the cohesive attraction of salt for itself. The result of this attraction is that the salt is dispersed through the water exactly as if there were, within if, an inherent dispersive force.
Another analogy between a gas and a solution has to do with the mathematical laws regarding density and pressure. To wit, the density of a gas at a given temperature is in direct proportion to its pressure and the density of a solution is in direct proportion to its osmotic pressure.
DILUTIONS.
A dilution is made by adding more water to a saturated solution. Although the amount of salt that can be dissolved in a given body of water is limited by the saturation-point, the proportion of water that can be used of dilute a saturated solution is unlimited.
The homoeopathic method of making a dilution by the centesimal scale is to dilute one part of a saturated solution with brings about complete dispersion. The second dilution is made by adding to one part of the first dilution 99 parts of water and this is vigorously shaken. Each succeeding dilution is made from the previous one in the same way.
Going back to our analogy between gases and solutions, if we assume the expansion-force inherent in a gas to be 10 units, 10 units will represent the force which the gas exerts against the walls of its container. If we assume in a standard dilution of salt and water that the cohesive attraction in a slat crystal is 5 units and the mutual attraction between the salt and water is 10 units, the result in expansive force exerted by the water on the salt will be the difference between the two, that is, 5 units.
Now let us take two vessels, one containing gas and the other containing a saturated salt-solution. If a suction-pump be applied to the opening of the vessel which contains gas and 99 percent of the gas be withdrawn, there will be brought about a negative pressure in the vessel which is known as a vacuum. In a vacuum, the molecules of gas, which remain in the vessel move with greater freedom and increased speed and the space within the vessel had different properties as regards electric currents, etc., than it had when the gas was at its original pressure.
If, to the vessel containing the saturated salt solution, enough water he added to dilute it 100 times, in such dilution there remains only one one-hundredth the amount of salt necessary to satisfy the attraction which the water has for the salt, and we have, between the salt and the water, a state analogous to that between the suction-pump and the gas within its containing vessel. The pump causes a vacuum within a group of gas-molecules, while the water causes a vacuum within a group of salt-molecules.
In the salt-solution, that which, at the saturation-point, was a mutually satisfied attraction between salt and water, becomes a 100 to 1 leverage of expansion exerted by the water on the salt, and each succeeding dilution increases by 100 this leverage over the preceding one. Whereas there is a limit to the degree of vacuum which can be produced, the analogous state in a dilution can be carried up to nay desired degree.
The question is at what dilution does it become impossible for us to demonstrate effects attributable to salt? By spectroscopic and other physical means, the limit is somewhere around the 13th dilution.
The experiences of thousands of homoeopathic physicians with high dilutions during the last hundred years, both in provings and in clinical which remains effectual. This experience is based on reactions occurring in individuals who were especially sensitive to he drugs being used. Since no two living beings in the whole world are are exactly alike, it is evident that a person used a as re-agent in an experiment is necessarily a variable quantity. However, drug-provings reveal that there are type-groups which show similar susceptibilities to a given drug and if experimental or clinical results have any scientific value, results based on special sensitiveness should be more valuable than those obtained from heterogeneous groups, many individuals of which yield symptoms only when forced by heavy dosage.
Psychic factors enter into experiments involving the human re-agent. To eliminate these, the Foundation for Homoeopathic Research conducted a set of experiments with high potencies; one on guinea-pigs and another on fruit-flies, which have been reported at previous times.
The guinea-pig experiments were continued over a period of two years, the animals being dosed with ordinary salt in potencies of from the 30th to the 2000th. Altogether, 212 animals were used and the experiments were under strict control. The experiments were begun with animals about two-thirds grown. There were definite generals effects, the most marked being a slowing of the rate of growth, a lessening of the frequency of birth, and the final abolition of virility.
All this resulted in a progressive slowing of the normal increase in numbers of the proving-group until there was no longer an increase, and then a gradual decimation until there remained only a fraction as many as there were in the original groups, in contradistinction to the steady geometrical increase among the animals of the control-groups.
The fruit-fly experiments were conducted by Dr.Mary Stark. There is a strain of fruit-fly (known as Drosophila Melanogastor lethal No.7), the members of which are hereditarily affected by tumour-growths. The tumours occur in one-half of the males, making their appearance in the larval stage and killing the larvae before they emerge into the following state. These growths have the characteristics of cancer.
Various colonies of these flies were doses by Dr. Stark with Arsenic in the 30th and 200th potencies and other colonies were dosed with the 30th and 200th potencies made from a triturate of the tumours themselves. Both the 30th and 200th potencies of Arsenic freed certain colonies of their hereditary manifestations. Potencies of fly-tumours did the same, only not in as many instances.
