C O R R E S P O N D E N C E 53

I f there is any opportunity of further trials I do suggest that the first dose should not be given until after the injury. Ideally I feel the injury should also come unexpectedly but I just don't see any way of organizing this!

Yours sincerely, R . M . M O R R I S O W E N

Allergy Clinic The Radcliffe Infirmary Oxford OX2 6HE

To the Editor, T H E B R I T I S H H O M G ~ O P A T H I C J O U R N A L

Dear Sir, Dr. Morris Owen raises a number of very interesting points concerning the relationship between homceopathy and desensitization by means of allergens. This is undoubtedly a field which it would be well worth while exploring in further detail. I did myself run an allergy clinic for an experimental six-month period at the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, and during that time I gained the impression that prick test reactions to house dust, mites, and pollens could sometimes be markedly reduced by the use of homceopathic potencies of the appropriate allergens, but the effect was not consistent enough to form the basis of a proper trial.

As regards Dr. Morris Owen's comments on the Arnica trial itself, I agree with him that it would have been better to give Arnica after the bruise rather than before, and I have adopted this suggestion for the double-blind trial which is at present under way. The point about a possible resistance being induced by the first bruise is, I think, theoretical rather than practical; certainly preliminary experiments on myself while I was developing the apparatus gave no evidence of any such resistance effect. In any case, this possibility should be taken care of by the design of the new trial, since there will be at least a 14-day interval between the two halves of the trial and the order of placebo and Arnica will be randomized.

Perhaps I may take this opportunity to draw attention to another feature of the trial which was not discussed in my original paper, namely, the composition of the Arnica 10M solution used. This was the routine preparation supplied by A. Nelson & Co. Ltd. I am informed by Mr. J. B. L. Ainsworth that potencies above 1M are obtained from the U.S.A., where they are prepared by the Korsakow method or some modification thereof. With this method, the serial dilutions are performed in a single bottle instead of in separate bottles, as in the original Hahnemannian method, and as a result some traces of the original mother tincture can be shown still to be present by spectroscopic analysis. Whether this influences the therapeutic effectiveness of the remedies is a matter of conjecture, but it does suggest that it would be interesting to carry out further trials using Arnica 1M since this potency is prepared by Nelson's according to the classic Hahnemannian method.

Yours faithfully, A N T H O N Y C A M P B E L L

The Royal London Homceopathic Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London W.C.1.