Impact of succussion on pharmaceutical preparations analyzed by means of patterns from evaporated droplets

The aim of the present study was to investigate if patterns obtained from evaporating droplets of pharmaceutical preparations reveal the impact of succussion on such medicinal products. For this purpose, five pharmaceutical preparations (Echinacea 10(−2), Baptisia 10(−3), Baptisia 10(−4), Luffa 10(−4), and Spongia 10(−6)) were prepared according to the European Pharmacopoeia guidelines for the production of homeopathic remedies, in three variants each: with varying numbers of succussion strokes (i) 100, (ii) 10 (succussed samples), and (iii) zero (gently mixed, unsuccussed sample). System stability was studied by means of systematic positive control experiments. Patterns were evaluated by means of computerized image analysis regarding grey level distribution, texture, and fractality. For all investigated pharmaceutical preparations, significant differences were found between the succussed and gently mixed samples; whereas, all three samples (prepared with 100, 10 and zero succussion strokes) could be significantly differentiated for Luffa 10(−4) and Spongia 10(−6) for one image evaluation parameter each. Control experiments showed a reasonable stability of the experimental set-up.