In enables us also to give a probable affirmative answer to the first question, and to say that the higher are, at least so far as pneumonia is concerned, to be preferred to the lower dilutions.
The second question, viz., whether higher dilutions will oftener succeed in curing than lower dilutions, is left unaffected by this great experiment.
Let us now recapitulate the points at issue. I think we may safely state that, up to the present time, experience has established these facts: that the continued diminution of the material quantity of a drug through the process of potentization does not diminish the curative power of the drug when homoeopathically applied; that, on the contrary, the process of potentization does positively increase the curative power of a drug when homoeopathically used; that this increase of curative power is progressive, as far at least as the fifteenth centesimal dilution, and is demonstrated in the treatment of both acute and chronic diseases.
It was incumbent on the advocates of the higher potencies to demonstrate not only that these preparations are efficacious, nor simply that they are equally efficacious with the lower potencies, but that are superior in efficacy.
This has been shown by the Vienna experiment up to a certain degree. The seventh centesimal has been shown to be superior in the treatment of pneumonia to the third, and the fifteenth to the seventh. There is a natural desire to find the limit of potentization. The Vienna experiments gives us no reason to suppose that this limit has been attained in the fifteenth potency.
Many most eminent practitioners assert for what are technically termed the “high potencies”, as great a superiority over the fifteenth and thirtieth as the latter have been shown to possess over the third. Cases are accumulating in our journals which go to corroborate these assertions. We cannot refuse to believe these narrations. While they have not yet established a general superiority of the “high potencies” (sixtieth to two hundredth) over the fifteenth and thirtieth for the treatment of all cases, acute and chronic, they nevertheless prove beyond dispute that the rapid and permanent cure of both acute and chronic diseases is within their scope.
They establish, moreover, the fact that in many cases these high potencies (the two hundredth, for example) cure disease in which the lower potencies of the same drug have failed.
The determination of absolute superiority and of definite limits of increase of curative power, is impossible from our present data.
Among those who have long the high potencies (in particular the two hundredth), Dr. Con Boenninghausen stands pre-eminent. It is true that his practice lies chiefly among chronic diseases. Nevertheless, many acute diseases are treated solely in accordance with his directions. He has for many years used exclusively the two hundredth potencies. His increasing fame and practice attest the validity of the services which he renders to those who consult him. The high character which he has always borne as an acute and sagacious observer of natural phenomena, the unblemished reputation which he has sustained throughout his long and evenful life, cause his observations and his statements to be received with implicit reliance and belief by all who are at all congnizant of his social positions. He does not hesitate to express a decided conviction o the great superiority of the high potencies over the lower, in both acute and chronic diseases.
Dr. Aegidi, who, after having, on their first introduction, spoken favorably of the high potencies, retracted to some extent this good opinion, has recently announced as the result of a long course of experiment in his private practice, embracing the history of more than 4,000 cases, a clear and unequivocal preference for the high potencies in both acute and chronic diseases.
Dr. Battman has, within the last two years, published a series of cases of severe membranous croup, and of very dangerous acute pulmonary affections, cured in a marvelous manner with the two hundredth potency; and basing himself on these narrations, he makes a warm protest against the irrational conduct of those homoeopathist who, at the same time that they object to the illogical conduct of the allopathists in refusing even to listen to any evidence in favor of Homoeopathy, obstinately close their own ears to all that is alleged in behalf of the high potencies.
Of six physicians of Austria and Hungary who presented written essays on the question of the dose to the Vienna society, none denied the curative action, often prompt and surprising, of the high potencies (one hundredth to the three hundredth) in both acute and chronic diseases. Only one expressed a doubt that they were in any case superior to the lower potencies. Two did not hesitate to claim such superiority for them in decided terms.
Dr. Wurmb, the head of he Leopoldstadt Hospital, states (1 Oest, Ziet., I.158, 1862) that often remedies in the higher dilutions act, where the lower dilutions of the same remedy had failed to act. He gives an instance in which Belladonna (100) effected a cure in chronic migraine, in which a lower potency of the same remedy had failed to do any good. The one hundredth and two hundredth potencies are now not infrequently administered in he Leopoldstadt Hospital. Dr. Wurmb remarks (2 Loc. cit. 3, p. 137) that “since he has had experience with the one hundredth dilution prepared by Dr. Eidherr, and has satisfied himself of the wonderful effects which often result from them he prescribes them in suitable cases with greater preference than the thirtieth or any other potency.” He does not state what he considers to be “suitable cases.” It is probable that he does not consider his experience to be great enough, as yet, to justify him in laying down any general rules on the subject. It is likely that he decides for each particular case, according to his view of probabilities, and that he cannot always give a clear reason for his preference of one potency over another. Each case thus treated may be regarded as in some sort an experiment- a contribution to that multitude of instances from an analysis of which we may hope to deduce, at some future time, a general law of posology.
If, after this general view of the evidence on the subject of the high potencies, it be appropriate for me, on such an occasion as the present, to state my own experience and methods, it may be done very briefly.
Before I had fairly entered to any great extent upon the responsibilities of the practice of medicine, I had the advantage of observing the practice of some very eminent physicians and of listening to the counsel of others.
Not to mention American physicians, I heart in England chiefly the advocates of the low and the lowest potencies. The high potencies were at that time rarely mentioned in England except in terms of ridicule. And the contempt which the assumed non-material nature of these potencies inspired in the matter-of-fact mind of that taurine nationality, whose devotion to the pound avoirdupois is even greater, if that were possible, than to the pound sterling, was cordially extended to the intellectual acuteness and the scientific acquirements of all who believed in these potencies and who used them. Since that period the cause of the high potencies has been nobly advocated in England, by a few of those strong men, who are the true glory of the nation.
Passing from England to Westphalia, I enjoyed free and full and long-continued opportunities to observe the practice of Dr. von Boenninghausen, who used the two hundredth potency exclusively. There was, certainly, in his practice, less parade of scientific auxiliaries than I had seen at the English hospitals or in the English dispensaries; but I do not think the diagnosis was less accurate on that account. I am very sure that the success of the treatment left but little to be desired. Though some acute diseases were here treated with high potencies under my observation, yet the majority were chronic cases, and, deeply impressed with the great responsibility involved in my judgments, I was hardly ready, from these observations, to conclude on the advantage of using high potencies in a general practice. Nevertheless, the effect of these observations was such as to
satisfy me of the efficacy of the higher potencies in all forms of diseases. The question remained, “Are they superior to the lower?” Stapf, who was then living in retirement, counseled me to use the high potencies in chronic diseases, and thought the medium potencies were all that could be desired in acute diseases. He had no statistics of comparative observations by which to justify his opinions.
In Vienna, Wurmb and Kaspar were in the middle of the first epoch of the decennium of which Eidherr has given us the analysis. They were treating all diseases with the thirtieth decimal dilution. Their examinations of patient were minute and masterly, their prescriptions careful, their success very striking.
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'.