Homeopathic Posology



*The direction of cure is from within outward, from above downward and in the reverse order of the appearance of the symptoms. By this test we may always know whether we are curing or only palliating a disease. The last appearing symptoms of disease should be the first to disappear under the action of curative remedy.

In sub-acute and chronic diseases it is not unusual for preceding groups of symptoms to successively re appear as the later symptoms subside and cure progresses. This orderly change of symptoms should never be interfered with by repetition of doses nor changes of remedy, so long as it continues. When improvement ceases or old symptoms reappear and remain without changes it is time to repeat the dose.

5. The change following the administration of a remedy may be a *quick short, amelioration followed by a relapse to the original or a worse condition. This may be because the remedy was only partly similar, or insufficient as to dosage; but where this occurrence is observed several times in succession and lasting improvement dose not follow carefully selected remedies and it means that the case is incurable. There is not vitality enough to sustain a curative reaction, and dissolution is imminent.

6. In functional disease, or in the beginning of acute organic diseases, accompanied perhaps by severe pain, the administration of the appropriate dose of the indicated remedy may be followed by rapid disappearance of symptoms without any aggravation. This is a cure of the most satisfactory kind, pleasing alike to physician and patient. Remedy and potency were both exactly right.

The Law of Dosage.- Summing up the matter, it appears that the law of dosage is contained in the law of similars, or the law of equivalents, both of which expressions are merely paraphrases, of the law Mutual of Action otherwise known as Newton’s third law of motion.

The law might be stated thus: *The curative dose, like the remedy, must be similar in quantity and quality to the dose of the morbific agent which caused the disease.

Von Grauvogl says :- *”The sole and simple question can only be what quantity of a substance is necessary, in order to induce that chemical or physical counter- motion in any diseased part of the organism which is equal in intensity and opposite in direction, to that (motion) which is induced by the morbific cause, in order to check this latter forthwith, or at least to delay it, and then, by repetition to remove it?” Stated in this form the question conforms to the fundamental principle of homoeopathy, *Similia Similibus Curantur, which is a statement, in equivalent terms of the third law of motion, *”action and reaction are equal and opposite.” Grauvogl goes on to state that ” the task is only to discover the *equivalent of motion between the amount of motion excited by the *morbid matter, and the amount of motion which we have to oppose it by *some drug.” ” For the solution of this Problem he says, ” we have the natural law, according to which the quality contains the measures of the motion and the counter-motion; and hence, for the purpose of therapeutics *the right dose must and can be nothing else than that amount of the force of the cause of the disease, and qualitatively runs counter to its course and motions.” We possess thus, in the very dose, or *quantity of the morbid cause, the measure for the quantity of the dose of the drug to be used.” (And vice versa.)

At first sight, it might be objected that this leaves us as much in the dark as before, inasmuch as it does not indicate how we are to *measure the amount of force of the morbid cause. But a little consideration will show that it does help us, because it suggests that a *measure may be found. Perhaps a measure has been found. Let us see if this be not so.

Grauvogl is careful to warm us that we must not be misled into considering the *quality of an external morbid cause as the measure of the dose, because the qualities of an external morbid agent, acting within the organism cannot be judged by quantities. A *quantity or dose of a morbid substance so small as to be invisible, or imperceptible in any way except by its effects, might set up an action of such violent character in *quality as to lead us to think the quantity must have been great. Under such circumstances the tendency and temptation is to give a remedy in doses the size and power of which correspond to our imagined dose of the morbid cause. In fact this is what is being done all the time, to the great injury of the human race. What violent and destructive actions are set up by the introduction into a wound of an infinitesimal quantity of septic matter from an imperfectly sterilized instrument! or by a single microscopic morbid cell or germ; or more remarkable still, by the influence of sudden violent emotion, purely mental and intangible as to quantity!

How then are we to measure these quantities?

The law of similars or equivalent actions reveals the answer, and mechanical potentiation according to scales gives the unit of measurement. The result is obtained by *simply reversing our rule of similars. The real and efficient quantity of the morbid cause necessary to produce the disease *cannot be greater than the quantity of the medicine necessary to cure it!

This conception, as a logical conclusion, enables us to put the matter upon an experimental basis and draw further conclusions as to the size of the dose. In this way we may test our low potencies, medium potencies, and high potencies, intelligently and logically.

Chemistry has given the clue to the mode of procedure in such cases, in its mode of determining the unit of measurement. Chemistry has established with all the precision of a natural law, what quantity of acid, for example, is necessary to neutralize and saturate a given quantity of alkali.

The principle has thus been established in the abstract, but in a given case where the principle has to be practically applied, the chemist, like the homoeopathic prescriber, must individualize, because he has often to deal with an unknown and undetermined quantity.

Grauvogl illustrates it in this way: ” No chemist,” he says, ” who wishes to ascertain how much potash a certain spring contains, would proceed as if he might assume a given quantity of potash empirically or traditionally, and forthwith add the quantity of acid corresponding thereto, necessary for saturation, to the given quantity of the mineral water; for, to say nothing about the given quantity of the mineral water; for, to say nothing about such a process as disregarding all the laws of the art of experiment, he must consider that, in dry season, all mineral waters are relatively richer in solid constituents than in wet seasons.

“He must, hence begin with *smallest quantity of acid, highly diluted and add it drop by drop and count every drop till the experiment is concluded.”

Precisely after the same rules of the art of experiment might we proceed to find the dose in any particular case of disease.It may be said, however that in subsequent examinations, the results of the first experiment might give a general point of departure from which an approximate determination of the necessary amount in similar cases could be had. Thus we might approximately determine, from a successful experiment with a certain potency of a remedy in a certain type of individual afflicted with a certain type of disease, the general value of that potency in its relation to similar conditions.

Actual experiments of this kind often upset preconceived notion, but the scientific man is always ready to bow to the logic of experience.

I was taught for example, that “low potencies acted best in acute diseases.” I accepted that generalization and acted upon it for some time before I discovered that it was altogether too broad, if not entirely false. It was not long before I witnessed a cure of an acute disease by a two hundredth potency so rapid and brilliant that I was encouraged to put it to the test myself. I succeeded in a number of cases and then I failed in a certain case. When I reflected upon the exception and sought for a reason why the high potency had acted in ten similar cases and failed in one, I found it in the grosser type of the individual and his lower degree of susceptibility, as well as in the lower grade of his disease process. He required a grosser, more material lower form of a remedy to cure him.

I was taught also that infants and aged persons, being of low vitality and feeble reactive powers, required low potencies for their cure. Again I found that the generalization was altogether too broad; for I have cured the most desperate cases of croup, diphtheria, cholera infantum, etc., with a few doses of a high potency after they have been given up to die by those who had been prescribing tinctures and low potencies without avail; and I have seen as brilliant curative effects of high potencies in the aged as in the young, when both the remedy and the potency were indicated. Again We must individualize. Low potencies will not cure all acute diseases, all infants nor all aged persons. Nor will high potencies cure all forms of disease in all persons. *All potencies are required for the cure of disease, and *any potency may be required in any given case.

Stuart Close
Stuart M. Close (1860-1929)
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.

His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.

Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.

In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.

Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.

Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.