This book review is reprinted from the British Homoeopathic Journal Vol 85, Number 3, July 1996, with permission from Peter Fisher, Editor.
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The Memory of Water: Homoeopathy and the Battle of Ideas in the New Science.
Michael Schiff: Thorsons 1995.
Pp. 164;
ISBN 0-7225-3262-8.
14.99 pounds. [Editor's note: As of December 1996 Minimum Price Books' price is $29.95]

Michael Schiff is a physicist who does research at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He has worked closely with Jacques Benveniste and much of this book is concerned with Benveniste and his ideas, which Schiff believes have been distorted and maligned by scientific orthodoxy. Benveniste himself contributes a foreword.

In spite of its title, the book is not primarily concerned with the properties of water but rather with the 'political' aspects of Benveniste's research. The first part, which is quite short (45 pp.) summarizes work done by Benveniste and his colleagues at INSERM before the Nature fiasco and also looks at subsequent research by Benveniste. Schiff has taken part in these later studies and it has to be said that they are even more contentious than those published in Nature. They concern claims that it is possible to transmit information about biological preparations electronically, via a 'black box'.

In outline, the set-up is as follows. A tube containing the test material, for example the white of an egg, is placed in a test-tube enclosed in a coil. This is connected to the black box, which in turn is connected to another coil enclosing a second tube. Water from this second tube is assessed for biological activity in what is called a Langendorff apparatus, which contains the heart of a freshly killed guinea-pig or rat immunized against egg albumin (in this example); measurement of activity then depends on estimating the rate of flow of the test fluid through the coronary vessels of the heart.

Schiff maintains that it is not important to know what the black box actually contains or how it works and no details are given. In fact, it seems that more than one kind of transmission apparatus has been used. The original machine was provided in June 1988 by a homoeopathic physician called Attias; this was just before the visit by the Nature delegation. Later, Benveniste had his own machine built; all we are told is that it was 'essentially a low frequency high gain amplifier'. On the basis of numerous double-blind experiments, Benveniste (and Schiff) became convinced that it is indeed possible to transmit biological information electronically in the manner outlined above.

Having summarized these studies, Schiff goes on to discuss at some length why it is that the scientific community at large has not accepted the validity of the work in question. His argument, in brief, is the fairly well-worn one that science is a closed shop and rejects any new ideas that do not fit into its current world picture. Dismissal of Benveniste's claims about the memory of water is, he says, merely one aspect of a wider refusal to consider the possibility that contemporary science could be wrong. This is essentially a conspiracy theory.

How well do Schiff's arguments stand up? Certainly it is not difficult to think of numerous instances from the history of science which support the thesis. One of the most recent and striking of these was the rejection for many years of Wegener's theory of continental drift; it has now become the cornerstone of geology. It is also, however, easy to think of claims for dramatic discoveries that have not been substantiated. Which of these categories Beneveniste's work will finally fall into is still uncertain, but I cannot think that Schiff's book will do much to hasten its acceptance by orthodoxy.

The use of mysterious electronic boxes to transmit biological information has a long history in homoeopathy. Early in the century Abrams was marketing an apparatus of this kind; the idea was taken up by William Boyd, who based his emanometer on it (though this was quite different from Abram's machine). Boyd's work was investigated by the Horder commission, which concluded that there was certainly something to it; however, no one else was able to get the apparatus to work after Boyd's death. Will Benveniste's black box have a similar fate? It seems possible, especially if no information is provided about what it contains or how it is supposed to work.

As Schiff himself remarks, the question whether water has a memory is not of world-shaking importance and it is unlikely that many scientists will wish to involve themselves in trying to answer it, especially after Benveniste's experience. There are at present engineers in the USA who claim that it is possible to extract energy from water, so that it would in principle be feasible to run your car on water or generate electricity from it. These people are not obviously cranks and some of them have done seemingly sound research over many years. Yet in spite of the huge potential economic importance of this work they have had little success so far in getting it taken up commercially. If they cannot succeed in attracting attention and funding, how likely is it that homoeopathic researchers will do so? Water is certainly a fascinating substance and there are undoubtedly many things we do not yet know about it, but I doubt that uncommitted scientists are likely to be persuaded to study it by Schiff's arguments. As for homoeopaths, they will find interest in his book but they should be careful in quoting it to outsiders, for it is definitely a piece of special pleading.

ANTHONY CAMPBELL

British Homoeopathic Journal
Volume 85, July 1996