This could be titled 'what is a medicine?' as it's related to my last post. Another class demonstration this year had us split into groups preparing remedies, the homeopathic equivalent of medicines. In advance I thought it was a neat idea, and good practice to know how to prepare things myself.
On a side note, this is part of why homeopathy will never be big business- anything where you can and in fact are encouraged to prepare your own medicines will never be hugely profitable. In fact the core texts all expect practitioners to make their own remedies by hand, and to never trust things that were prepared in unknown circumstances. The fact that almost all of the remedies are made from natural items, the cost is quite low- more reason why there are political reasons why homeopathy was shut out of the public eye.
At any rate, this experiment had two components. Both are inert substances. One was lactose, or powdered milk sugars, the other was graphite- the kind that is used in a pencil. These could both be part of the 'inactive' ingredients list on the side of a bottle.
Just looking up the word 'inert' I found these descriptions:
3. Chemistry: Not readily reactive with other elements; forming few or no chemical compounds.
4. Having no pharmacologic or therapeutic action.
So we prepared a trituration of Graphites. In English we took a mortar and pestle, and ground together some lactose and graphite. At first I was primarily interested in the proportions, and watching how it was done.
Soon, however, I was able to see reactions to this process in each of the members of the group. We weren't eating this, or putting it on our skin- and yet there were both mental and physical reactions to watching someone else grind up this powder. Obviously we surely inhaled some dust, but again these were supposedly inert substances.
People started laughing inappropriately, and itching and showing an assortment of real reactions. Initially I felt nothing- and I admit to wondering if this was sort of like watching a bunch of people get a contact high. And then it hit me and I couldn't ignore that I was suddenly feeling just the same. Not only were people exhibiting the same types of behaviors, I could literally see red flushing and patches on people's skin! We compared notes later and also had the same reaction of returning to normal after a few hours away from class.
All from being near a preparation of two inert substances. It really made me question how our bodies react to pretty much everything we are exposed to in our environments. It also demonstrably showed me the power of something I assumed was 'inert' and therefore completely inactive. The more I learn, the more I question a lot of assumptions I've had about how everything works.
