Confusion Over Hahnemann's Small Doses - Homeopathy


Confusion over Hahnemann's Small Doses

by Peter Morrell

Because of the confusion in the letters to this article, I present a
series of quotations from reputable sources which convey the essence
of how Hahnemann came upon and developed the whole technique of making
small doses. Those wishing further detail can consult the texts here
cited. Apologies for length.

'When Hahnemann first announced cures of diseases by extremely small
doses of medicine, his statements were received with incredulity and
ridicule...Hahnemann's appeal to the medical profession to test the
new method and publish results to the world was met by active
opposition. He was forbidden to practice and was driven from his home
by relentless persecution....[even though] the use of the
infinitesimal dose in homeopathy was the outcome of experience...' [1]

'[The] principle of the infinitesimal dose [is]...an outrage to human
reason.' [2]

"...the doctrines of potentiation and the infinitesimal dose has always
been the central point of attack upon homeopathy by its enemies." [3]

'In the United States, regular physicians...found Hahnemann's theories
absurd and incredible. Reasoning that no one in his right mind could
believe such arrant nonsense, they concluded that homeopaths must be
either knaves or fools.' [4]

"Hahnemann claimed that a dilution as minute as 1/500,000th of a grain
or even 1/1,000,000th of a grain, could be effective...to orthodox
practitioners, who in many cases prescribed drugs by the spoonful,
Hahnemann's ideas were ridiculous." [5]

"Hahnemann pointed to...classical literature to demonstrate that his
discoverey was known to writers of antiquity and was essentially
rediscovered by him. He also recognised that his doses would be
considered ludicrous by physicians accustomed to heroic therapy." [6]

"Hahnemann argued that skeptical regular physicians should not concern
themselves with the logic of homeopathy, but rather look at the
results." [7]

"Most regular physicians regarded their homeopathic colleagues first
with skepticism, then with incredulity, and finally with bitter
hostility." [8]

"Hahnemann's final views and practice in regard to the dose were
arrived at gradually, through long years of careful experiment and
observation." [9]

"Many before Hahnemann, from Hippocrates down, had glimpses of the law
[of similars], and some had tried to make use of it therapeutically;
but all had failed because of their inability to properly graduate and
adapt the dose." [10]

"Hahnemann's idea at first was simply to reduce the "strength" or
material mass of his drug, but his passion for accuracy led him to
adopt a scale, that he might always be sure of the degree of reduction
and establish a standard for comparison." [11]

"He soon discovered that large doses were very undesirable in
ascertaining the effects of drugs [on the healthy person]." [12]

"The more he experimented with the proper homeopathic doses, the
smaller the dose he recommended." [13]

"His discovery of the principle of potentisation came about gradually
as he experimented in the reduction of his doses, in order to arrive
at a point where severe aggravations would not occur. Gradually, by
experience, he learned that the latent powers of drugs were released
or developed by trituration, dilution and succussion." [14]

"Hahnemann...perplexed by the aggravations resulting from ordinary
doses, seeking to find a dose so small that it would not endanger life
and desiring to accurately measure his degree of dilution so that he
might repeat or retrace his steps, invented or adopted the centesimal
scale..." [15]

'Under certain conditions he found, perhaps to his surprise, that
instead of weakening the drug he was actually increasing its curative
power. In reducing the density of the mass he perceived that he was
setting free powers previously latent, and that these powers were the
greatest and most efficient for their therapeutic purposes...' [16]

"This reduction [in dose] was apparently due to Hahnemann's
observation that medicines administered in substantial amounts
according to the law of similars caused severe aggravation of
symptoms." [17]

"His chief endeavour was obviously to establish a theory of
dosage." [18]

"From [1796] onwards he selected remedies from the standpoint of
similarity, still administering, however, fairly large doses." [19]

"...in 1798...he still prescribed 8 grains of Ignatia and China in
quantities of 1/2-1 grain..." [20]

"In his essay announcing the discovery of a new therapeutic principle,
published in 1796, no allusion is made to any doses different from
those in ordinary use...and in his writings up to 1801 nothing is to
be found to lead us to suppose that there was anything exceptional in
his mode of employing drugs..." [21]

"In his early years of practice Hahnemann used doses comparable to
those of his colleagues...in 1799 he first announced the principle of
the infinitesimal dose, and after 1800 his dose sizes were gradually
reduced." [22]

'We cannot fail to be struck by the sudden transition from the massive
doses he prescribed in 1798 to the unheard-of minuteness of his doses
only one year later, and we can but guess the causes for this abrupt
transition.' [23]

"In 1799 he suddenly announced without particular explanation very
small and so-called infinitesimal doses." [24]

"It is in his little work on Scarlet Fever, published in 1801, that we
have the first forebodings of an unusual mode of preparing the
medicines...the dose of Opium there recommended...is very small
compared with the ordinary dose...the object of this dilution was to
diminish the power of the medicine chiefy...for patients of very
tranquil disposition..." [25]

"For the cure of the first stage of Scarlet Fever [published in 1801]
the dose of Belladonna prescribed was only the 432,000th part of a
grain of the extract, a quantity intermediate betwixt our 2nd and 3rd
dilution." [26]

"He gave her the one four hundred and thirty-two thousandth part of a
grain of Belladonna, with the result that in about twenty four hours
she became well...in Hufeland's Journal, 13.2, January 1801, he
published 'On Small Doses of Medicine in General and of Belladonna in
Particular'...and supports his doses of Belladonna previously
given." [27]

"...the question of doses. Remarkably enough he even passes over them in
silence in his first Materia Medica, which appeared in 1805..." [28]

"...Materia Medica Pura...there are accurate statements in the second
volume appearing in 1816...Arsenicum is recommended in 12th, 18th and
30th dilution; Hahnemann gives preference to the 30th..." [29]

"The year 1817 saw the publication of the third volume of the Materia
Medica Pura...China 12, Asarum 12 or 15..." [30]

"...from 1824 to 1827...he gradually increased the dilution of
remedies." [31]

"Hahnemann himself felt in 1829, the urgent necessity of a limit in
potentisation and declared the ultimate degree of dilution to be the
30th centesimal potency." [32]

"In the year 1829 Hahnemann came upon the strange idea of setting up a
kind of standard dose for all curative remedies...this was to be the
30th centesimal." [33]

"...1/1,000,000 of its original strength. This constituted the third
centesimal dilution; Hahnemann recommended the thirtieth
dilution." [34]

"The materialistically minded [homeopaths] restricted themselves to
the crude tinctures and triturations, or the very low dilutions,
ranging from 1x to 6x...another small class of metaphysical tendency
used only the very highest potencies, ranging from the two hundredth
to the millionth..." [35]

"The efficiency of homeopathic potencies is not to be determined by
calculation, but by actual trial upon the living organism." [36]

'In the Organon, however, he stated that trituration and succussion
release the 'spirit-like power' of the medicine - which is compatible
with his assumption that medicines act through their spiritual
[geistlich] or dynamic impact upon the organism.' [37]

'He...[advised] ...that the liquid medicine, having been made up,
should be slightly succussed between each dose...' [38]

'Only very occasionally is a succussion of the container of the liquid
specified...this appears to be a succussion of the stock bottle, or
main container, rather than of an intermediate glass.' [39]

'But with time there emerges ever more clearly the view that, by
shaking and trituration, a uniform mixing, dilution and weakening of
the medicinal substance is not all that is achieved; on the contrary,
the material part of the medicine is thereby more and more eradicated
and as a consequence the spiritual part of the medicine [not
perceptible to human faculties] is released and extraordinarily
increased. This is dynamization...be possible to increase the power by
succussion; the more the medicine is succussed when prepared, the
stronger its effect...' [40]

'...in regard to the most appropriate number of succussions he altered
his opinion repeatedly within a few years.' [41]

'By trituration and succussion, he says, the medicinal power of
medicines may be increased almost to an infinite degree. Hence we are
warned against succussing our succussive dilutions over-much.' [42]

'Whilst in the earlier periods of the growth of his system he merely
tells us to shake the bottle, to shake it strongly - to shake it for a
minute or longer - he afterwards tells us that much shaking increases
the power of the medicine to a dangerous extent, and therefore only
two shakes must be used for each dilution. Latterly, however, he again
loses his dread of shaking, and after once more appointing ten shakes
for each dilution as the standard, he becomes more liberal and allows
twenty, fifty, or more shakes, and half a dozen shakes to the bottle
before each dose of the medicinal solution. Again, whereas in one
place he says that the shaking is the only agent in the
dynamization...in another he alleges that dilution is essential to the
dynamizing effect of succussion, and that all the rubbing and shaking
in the world will not dynamize an undiluted substance.' [43]

"...in preparation the vial had to be 'succussed'. A simple dilution
was not sufficient; the vial containing the medicine had to be struck
against a leather pad a number of times." [44]

"It is highly probable that during such dynamization...the material
substance eventually dissolves completely into its individual spirit-
like essence and that its crude state can be regarded as actually
consisting only of this spirit-like essence, as yet undeveloped." [45]

'Homeopathy is opposed to the use...of drugs in physiological
doses...it depends for all its results upon the dynamical action of
single, pure, potentised medicines, prepared by a special mathematico-
mechanical process and administered in minimum dose. [46]

"...he would then prescribe this drug in a small dose. In some
patients the symptoms at first increased before there was any
response. He then tried giving progressively smaller and smaller
doses. He always advocated giving the smallest dose necessary to help
the patient...he evolved a method of mixing, diluting and shaking
which he called succussion..." [47]

"He was well aware that some of the remedies in their most
concentrated form were highly poisonous and he had, therefore,
successively reduced the size of the dose. Experimenting in this way
he found that not only was the effectiveness maintained, but even
increased, when the dose was infinitesimally small." [48]

"...it was not long before Hahnemann's persistent experimentation
revealed that dilution and succussion of remedies somehow rendered
them more effective..." [49]

'Yet today in retrospect homeopathy merits a more favorable
consideration for its ultimate influence upon the field of medicine.
First, along with others, it forced the conventional practitioners to
give up the harmful and obsolete practice of bloodletting and the use
of calomel. Second, it proved to be the stimulus which led orthodox
medicine to improve medical education.' [50]





Sources

[1] Close, Dr Stuart, 1924, The Genius of Homeopathy Lectures and
Essays on Homeopathic Philosophy, New York, p.227

[2] Sir John Forbes, 1846, Homeopathy, Allopathy and Young Physic, p.
17; quoted in Nicholls, Phillip A, 1988, Homeopathy and the Medical
Profession, Croom Helm, London, p.121; Forbes was physician to Queen
Victoria, 1840-61

[3] Close, op cit, p.215

[4] Blake, John B, 1981, Homeopathy in American History, Trans. Stud.
Coll. Phys., Philadelphia, Series 5, vol. 3, 1981, pp.83-92, p.86

[5] Kaufman, Martin, 1972, Homeopathy in America, Johns Hopkins Univ
Press, Baltimore, p.26

[6] Rothstein, William G, 1972, American Physicians in the Nineteenth
Centruy From Sects to Science, Johns Hopkins Univ Press, Baltimore, p.
157

[7] Rothstein, op cit, p.157

[8] Rothstein, op cit, p.165

[9] Close, op cit, p.189

[10] Close, op cit, p.215

[11] Close, op cit, p.216

[12] Rothstein, op cit, p.155

[13] Rothstein, op cit, p.155

[14] Close, op cit, p.190

[15] Close, op cit, p.218

[16] Close, op cit, p.216

[17] Coulter, vol. 2, p.400

[18] Haehl, Dr Richard, 1923, Samuel Hahnemann His Life and Work, 2
vols, Jain, India, Vol. 1, p.312

[19] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.311

[20] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, pp.311-2

[21] Dudgeon, Dr Robert E, 1853, Lectures on the Theory and Practice
of Homeopathy, London, pp.337-8

[22] Coulter, Harris L, 1973, Divided Legacy, 3 vols, Wehawken Books,
Washington USA, vol. 2, p.400

[23] Dudgeon, op cit, pp.395-6

[24] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.312

[25] Dudgeon, op cit, p.338

[26] Dudgeon, op cit, p.394

[27] Bradford, Dr Thomas L, 1895, Life and Letters Of Hahnemann, Jain
Indian Edition, p.70

[28] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.313

[29] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.317

[30] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, pp.317-8

[31] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.320

[32] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.321

[33] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.322

[34] Rothstein, op cit, p.156

[35] Close, op cit, pp.183-4

[36] Close, op cit, p.222

[37] Coulter, op cit, vol. 2, p.403

[38] Handley, Rima, 1997, In Search of the Later Hahnemann,
Beaconsfield UK, p.131

[39] Handley, op cit, p.131

[40] Haehl, op cit, Vol. 1, p.324

[41] Haehl, op cit, vol. 1, p.326

[42] Dudgeon, op cit, p.346

[43] Dudgeon, op cit, pp.349-50

[44] Kaufman, op cit, p.26

[45] Hahnemann, Dr Samuel, 1842, Organon of Medicine, combined 5th/6th
edition of Dudgeon and Boericke, v.270, end

[46] Close, op cit, pp.20-21

[47] Blackie, Dr Margery G, 1975, The Patient Not the Cure, London, p.
6

[48] Cook, Trevor M, 1981, Samuel Hahnemann -- the Founder of
Homeopathy, Thorsons UK, pp.95-6

[49] Handley, op cit, pp.7-8

[50] Siddall, A Clair, 1978, History of Homeopathic Medicine at
Oberlin, Ohio, 1833-1933, Ohio State Med. Jnl, 74, pt. 2, 1978, pp.
121-124, p.124



Copyright (c) Peter Morrell 2000
Homeopathe International
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