The Memory of Water

A new paperback edition of the story of French scientist Jacques Benveniste whose career was frustrated when his research led towards an explanation for the working of homoeopathy, exploring the witch-hunt carried out against him, and examining the way people vilified by science are often canonised years later.

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The highly controversial "Benveniste affair" reported in "Nature" magazine, proving that water has a memory, is one of the most significant in the field of modern science. Beneviste believes that water retains the "memory" of molecules it once contained: if solutions of antibodies were diluted repeatedly until they no longer contained a single molecule of antibody, they still produced a response from immune cells. Jacques Benveniste's discovery not only radically questions scientific views but validates the claims of homeopaths that extremely dilute substances can have a physical effect on the human body. Not only does Beneviste's discovery question modern science but it also reopens the discussion that explores the whole psychology of scientific hostility to radical new ideas and the suppression of knopwledge in an authoritative manner.