Classical homeopathy is a medical system with individualised treatment of patients. An ascending paper chromatography test, known as the Kaelin blood test, was adapted to investigate the effects of homeopathic preparations on human blood in vitro with an emphasis on possible inter-individual differences in response rate.

Thirteen patients to whom homeopathic remedies had been prescribed were enrolled in the study; EDTA blood samples were collected from each of them prior to remedy intake. Portions of each sample were treated in vitro with the patients' individually prescribed remedy, Pulsatilla, Natrium muriaticum at either 30c or 200c potency, or placebo. All samples were analysed using the Kaelin blood test. To assess the stability of the experimental set-up, 13 analogous systematic negative control (SNC) experiments were performed. Additionally, 16 untreated blood samples were analysed to correlate the chromatographic pattern features with blood parameters. Chromatograms from both experimental series were scanned and evaluated using computerised image analysis.

Two-way analysis of variance with patient and treatment as independent factors revealed statistically significant interactions (p < 0.05) in 10 out of 10 pattern evaluation parameters; only three parameters showed significant main effects (p < 0.05). The SNC experiments did not show any statistically significant effects, being indicative of a robust and stable experimental set-up. These findings suggest that the response of the blood samples to the homeopathic treatments was contingent upon the individual patient, indicating patient-specific effects. Strong correlations were found between pattern features and blood parameters related to haemoglobin and liver function.

The Kaelin blood test may be considered a potentially useful ex vivo, in vitro model for investigating individualised responses of human blood samples to homeopathic treatments.

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

D.W. performed the experiments, data evaluation and statistical analysis. J.L. recruited the patients and collected the samples and patient information. S.B. and M.O.K. planned and supervised the workflow and contributed to the data evaluation and statistical analysis. The study was run under U.W.'s supervision. D.W. wrote the manuscript draft, which M.O.K completed. All authors reviewed and corrected the manuscript.

Received: 13 August 2025

Accepted: 15 November 2025

Article published online:
13 May 2026

© 2026. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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