He thus continued to proceed in the same manner in order to determine what successive levels would reached in therefore said jar by the different quantities of water necessary to prepare the 100th, 200th, 400th, 600th, 1000th, 2000th, 4000th, 6000th and 10,000th dilutions, writing on the outside of the jar the number corresponding to each dilutions.
To make the 10,000 dilution be needed 10,000 times five grampus of distilled water; that is to way, fifty kilograms or fifty liters of distilled water.
To prepare the 10,000 dilution he allowed the water of the siphon to run for about thirteen hours a day, during from seven to eight days.
In order to get along more rapidly, Lembert prepared simultaneously the high dilutions of six remedies, having, at a distance of forty centimeters, six siphons above six vials with lateral orifices, each one above a graduated jar, such as I have described.
In order to prepare these high dilutions, Lembert thus utilized the two factors ordinarily used; that is to say, dilution in a certain quantity of water or alcohol and succussions, He determined, as has been seem, the exact quantity of the diluting liquid and the approximate number of successions.* these are by no means the each quantities of the diluting liquid required for the preparation of Hahnemannian potencies (I; 99); for, practically, the ratio of Lembert’s potencies is I:I; however, this would not interfere with their efficacy. Counting three successions produced by the distilled water, falling from the siphon into the medicated water of the little vial with lateral orifice, during each second thee would have been I,080 per hour, and 14,040 during the thirteen hour occupied each for the preparation of these high dilutions; and as it took from seven to eight days for the preparation of the 10,000th dilution; and as it took from seven to eight days for the preparation of the 10,000th dilution, this was brought about by means of from 88, 280 to 112,320 succussions; in other words, from eight to eleven succussions for each dilution.
The use of these thousands of succussions, in order to chance the molecular state of the remedies and thus bring them into the radiant state-this practice, which at first sight seems, like all new things, so eccentric and ridiculous-is now beginning to be made use of by chemists themselves, in order to educe mater to a species of radiant state which favors certain chemical reactions between different bodies., This is related in the following manner, in his opening lecture delivered in 1876 in the medical school, and Montpellier, by the celebrated chemist, Mr. Bechamp, then the dean of that medical faculty and now dean OF the free Medical Faculty of Lille:
For making alcohol, Mr. Berthelot has taken the carbonated hydrogen produced by the reduction or carbonic acid. He has caused this gas to be absorbed b means of an ingenious process, which consisted in agitating buy a number of succussions sulphuric acid in the presence of mercury. The absorption having taken place, water is added and the whole is then distilled-the distilled product contains alcohol.
……I was, in 1856, at the College de France, in Mr. Berthelot’s laboratory, when Mitscherlich the celebrated berlin chemist and discoverer of isomorphism, dropped in. At once the following conversation took place between the visitor and they visited:
Mr. Mitscherlich-I have tried to repeat your experiment concerning the synthesis of alcohol, but I did not succeed in causing he absorption of the carbonated hydrogen by the sulphuric acid.
Mr. Berthelot-How did you got about it
Mr. Mitscherlich-I put the sulphuric acid into a vial with the hydro-carbonic gas, and the absorption did not take place.
Mr. Berthelot-You did not put in mercury, or shake the whole together.
Mr. Mitscherlich-No.
Mr. Berthelot-Then you neglected an essential condition. In order to case the absorption of thirty liters of bi–carbonated hydrogen by 900 grams of sulphuric acid, in the presence of a few kilograms of mercury., 53,000 succussions re necessary. That is what you neglected to do.
And Mr. Berthelot demonstrated on the reality of the fact to Mr. Mitscherlich.
These 53,000 successions divide the molecules of mercury and separate them more widely from each other. Then these molecules in their turn divide and more widely separate the molecules of the bi-carbonated hydrogen and of the sulphuric acid educe the two latter to the species of radiate state, and permit the sulphuric acid to absorb the bi-carbonated hydrogen. In that case the mercury plays the same role as does the sugar of milk used by homoeopathic pharmacists to operate the trituration of remedies and greater and greater separation of the constituent molecules, which brings them into the radiant state and develops there curative powers. Mr. Berthelot, therefore, and all other chemists like him unconsciously make use of this process of succussions which has been used for half a century by Hahnemann and his disciples-a process considered so ridiculous by the ignorant, but so useful, indispensable indeed, by chemists.
This long digression on the subject of the dynamization of remedies seems at first sight to have no connection with the treatment of drunkenness; and yet this digression is necessary in order to justify and explain the use of use of dilutions in general, and especially of the high potencies, for the cure of certain morbid somatic or psychical conditions, and especially for drunkenness, which is becoming more and more the courage of families and of modern society. In order to remedy these evils, it is urgent to try the curative means which I propose, since none so efficacious are as yet known.
I am very far, I repeat it, from prescribing exclusively the very high dilutions in my practice, for that would be a mistake that would injure the sick. In many cases the 3rd, 6th, 12th and 30th dilutions, and sometimes even remedies in massive doses, are preferable; but in many others the very high potencies are more efficacious, because they have a more energetic, deep and lasting action. I might adduce many facts to prove it. to that end, however, I think it will be sufficient to relate the give following facts: