The law, Similia similibus curantur, which is the essence of Homoeopathy, was not an absolute novelty in medicine. Indeed, Hahnemann’s first arguments in favor of it was drawn from the records of medicine. He showed that, in all ages, many cures had been made in accordance with it. He proved that his contemporaries, often unwittingly and sometimes consciously, applied it in treating the sick. To urge its admission as the universal law of cure was, therefore, simply to advocate the recognition, as a universal truth, of that which was already received by medical men as, at least, a truth of partial and limited application.
Accordingly, the opposition to Hahnemann was, at the very first, moderate. It was somewhat of the nature of a demand for more conclusive testimony.
Men of conservative tendencies might very consistently, at this time, have become homoeopathists; for it was not unreasonable to anticipate, at some period in the not distant future, a universal recognition of the homoeopathic law of cure and a consequent reunion with the dominant power.
But the dynamization theory was in irreconcilable opposition to all the notions of Hahnemann’s opponents. It taught that doses inconceivably small were sufficient to effect radical cures in acute and dangerous diseases-that such doses were even more efficacious than larger ones. It taught that instead of the curative power of the drug being directly in proportion to its material quantity, there was reason for believing that, to some extent, at least, the converse was true.
There could be no such things as a compromise on this question. Truth lay either with Hahnemann or with his opponents. It could not lie between them. To maintain this dynamization theory would be to make the separation between homoeopathists and the dominant school of medicine perpetual and irremediable.
It is easy to perceive what sort of a reception was likely to be accorded to the dynamization theory by the Conservative homoeopathists. They could not regard it without unfavourable prepossessions. If compelled at last to admit its soundness, this would not be until irresistible testimony in its favor had been amassed-nor even then without regret for the fact and deprecation of the obstacles which it created in the way of a reunion with the Old School. All their a priori assumptions would be unfavorable to its validity.
The Radicals, on the other hand, would receive with joy this additional element of difference from the Old School of medicine. They would advocate it with enthusiasm. Their a priori arguments would lend it a vigorous support.
Thus in relation to a question that can be settled by experiment alone, and by a course of experiment requiring careful unprejudiced observation through many successive years, we have all the conditions requisite for an ardent controversy at the very outset, before any valid evidence could possibly have been gathered by either party.
We shall be less surprised at the vigorous opposition to the dynamization theory, if we recollect the condition of medicine and pharmacy at the beginning of the present century. The posology of that period was decidedly heroic. Drugs were given in the crudest forms. Pharmaceutical chemistry had not yet discovered the essential principles of drugs, the use of which at the present day has made doses of the one-fourth, one-eight, or one-twentieth of a grain familiar even to practitioners of the Old school. The microscope was still a rude and primitive instrument; quantitative chemical analysis had not attained any great development; much less was there any thought of applying, as is now done, the reactive susceptibility of the living organism to detect, through its specific affinities, particles of matter so small as to elude the microscopist and the chemist. In fact the doctrine of the extreme divisibility of the metaphysician than on the demonstration of the naturalist.
For this very reason, on the other hand, the speculations of the metaphysician had at that period the wider scope and the greater authority. And thus it was very easy for some of Hahnemann’s more radical followers to erect on a figurative illustration used by him in the Organon a “cloudcapped” theory of the transplantation of the medicinal force from the substance of the drug to the substance of the vehicle used for dilution, and upon the basis of this airy hypothesis to explain all manner of supposed action and reaction of drug-spirit upon diseased force, etc., etc.
These consideration will, I think, justly us in passing over with scarcely on the word of comment all that was so copiously written on the subject of the dose, from the date of Korsakoff’s first publication to the date of Dr. Trinks’ public letter to Dr. Stens in 1859.
The principles involved in the question of the efficacy and advantage of high potencies are these:
1. The curative power of a properly selected drug is not in the direct ratio of the quantity of the drug.
2. The process of potentization which Hahnemann invented, develops a curative power in substances, which in the crude form, manifest no such power; and it increases the curative power of drugs which in the crude form do manifest a curative power.
Now, although these principles had been satisfactorily established, one would think, by the successful use of the third or sixth potencies, long before the controversy about the “high potencies” began, yet it will be perceived that almost all the objectors who began to write after Korsakoff’s publication and Hahnemann’s cautious and conditional approval of it, derive their arguments from considerations of the probable quantity of the drugs which these high potencies might contain. Thus we are cautioned, even by those who admit that higher potencies have curative powers, that they are not to be trusted in acute diseases which have a rapid course, because, as Dr. Scott expresses, it, “in these diseases the vital forces act with exaggerated energy and to act upon them, we require a greater anoint of medicinal power, that is, a lower dilution.” This statement, it will be perceived, regards the curative power as directly proportioned to the quantity of the drug, and begs the whole questions at issue.
But when Hahnemann had shown that a more efficient curative power was exerted by the first dilution or trituration, or even by drop doses of the mother tincture of drugs than by massive doses, as he had done to the satisfaction of all homoeopathists, long before the higher dilutions were ever made, he had demonstrated that the curative power of drugs is not in the proportion of their material quantity, and had thus established the principle of the dynamization theory.
When, furthermore, he showed to the satisfaction of all homoeopathists, that substances which in their crude state exert no medicinal power, such as gold, charcoal, tin, common salt, etc., etc., do, after dilution, trituration or potentization, come to possess a medicinal power, he demonstrated, in part, the second principle of the dynamization theory.
These demonstrations removing the questions of dose entirely from the domain of mechanics, in which power is directly proportioned to quantity, left the whole question open for experiment.
The points to be determined were these:
1. The curative power of a drug not being directly proportioned to the quantity of the drug, what relation does exist between this power and quantity? What effect does a continued diminution of quantity exert upon the curative power of the drug?
2. It being admitted that the potentization process does develop the curative power, what are the limits of this development? What varieties in the nature and extent of this developed power are produced by various degrees of potentization?
Obviously these questions were to be solved only by a long course of methodical experiment.
While the controversy on hypothetical grounds was being carried on by the Conservative and Radical homoeopathists, reports of cases were accumulating in the homoeopathic journals, which furnished indisputable testimony to the action of the higher potencies. Among those who published these records, the names of Gross, Stapf, Hering, von Boenninghausen, Aegidi and Nunez are conspicuous.
Their testimony was disputed on various grounds. Against some cases it was urged that they were inconclusive, since it was not clearly shown that the cure resulted from the remedy given and not rather from some hygienic prescription or restriction resorted to at the same time. Such criticism is legitimate, and cases to which it is fairly applicable must be excluded.
Against other cases it was was urged that the data were not so fully recorded as to enable the reader to make sure of the diagnosis. I do not think such criticism as this is admissible, unless in a very few cases.
The value and authority of clinical records always depend on the reputation of the reporter for knowledge, accuracy and integrity. Now, whether, in reporting a case of alleged pneumonia, the reporter simply state that it was a case of pneumonia, presenting such or such characteristic symptoms, or whether he present a minute and elaborate detail of all the rational and physical signs of the patient, obtaining by the aid of auscultation, percussion, mensuration and chemical and microscopical analysis-in either case, we have nothing to depend upon but the scientific capacity and the integrity of the observer.
Dr. Dunham graduated from Columbia University with Honours in 1847. In 1850 he received M.D. degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. While in Dublin, he received a dissecting wound that nearly killed him, but with the aid of homoeopathy he cured himself with Lachesis. He visited various homoeopathic hospitals in Europe and then went to Munster where he stayed with Dr. Boenninghausen and studied the methods of that great master. His works include 'Lectures on Materia Medica' and 'Homoeopathy - Science of Therapeutics'.