Doppler on the great and the small in nature- He accounts for the increased power of triturated drugs by the increase of the superficies of the medicine-Fallacy in Doppler’s calculations- Chemical explanations-Physiological analogies-Spallanzani’s experiments with frog’s spawn-Arnold’s experiments with frog’s spawn-Arnold’s experiments with frog’s spawn-His experiments with cow-pock lymph- D’ Amador on the action of imperceptible agents-Rau asserts the possibility of dynamizing certain point- Otherwise attention causes loss of power-He believes in the transference of medicinal power-Schron denies the truth of the dynamization theory- Kretschmar also denies its truth-So also Trinks-Werber, Wolf, Fielitz, Schmid, Lietzau, Strecker, Schneider, AEgidi, oppose the theory-Curious theories of two dilettanti-Gross’s contradictory oracular utterances- Rummel’s attempt to explain dynamization-Terrific effect of too much shaking / Rummel’s recantation-Kampfer admits and denies the dynamization theory-Hartmann opposes it-Veith says it is a revival of Zoroaster’s philosophy -Schubert thinks the medicine becomes spirit-Griesselich ridicules the notion of a transference of medicinal power-His explanation of dynamization-Joslin attributes the increase of power to the comminution of the drug- Foundation of the dynamization theory-By the small dose the specific effects of the medicine are more certainly produced- Improbability of a separation of the medicinal power-Does trituration render insoluble soluble? Doubtful correctness of some of Mayrhofer’s observations-Facts that have encouraged the notion of dynamization-Smaller doses often relatively stronger than larger.
At the conclusion of the last lecture I gave you an account of Dr. Mayrhofer’s microscopic investigations relative to the homoeopathic attenuations, and described the appearances of several of these attenuations when subjected to a high magnifying power. Those investigations and the representations he gives of the microscopic appearance of the dilutions bring the infinitesimal quantities of our preparations within the cognizance of our senses, and severe to realize the imperfect conceptions we are apt to form of the actual nature of a Homoeopathic attenuation.
Mayrhofer having thus, as it were, rescued homoeopathic preparations from the region of the vague and the spiritual, to which they had latterly been consigned by Hahnemann and so many of his followers, and brought them back to the domain of the physical and material, prepares us, as it were, for the views of Professor Doppler of Prague, which I shall next lay before you.
Doppler, professor of natural philosophy in the University of Prague, a distinguished cultivator of the exact sciences, was from the character of his habits and mode of thinking, to likely to take a hyperdynamical or transcendental view of the effects produced by minute subdivision. Professor Doppler’s essay, to which I am alluding, is entitled On the Great and the Small in Nature, and was published in Baumagartner and Holger’s Magazine of Physics and the Allied Sciences, in 1837. In the essay itself there is no mention made of homoeopathy, but from its whole tenor it is evident that homoeopathy is what the learned professor alludes to. He starts by saying that we are not justified in attempting to estimate the effects of substances by the size of their mass, but that their effects are proportionate to the extent of their active superficies. Precisely Hahnemann’s original idea, viz., that his remedies were rendered more efficacious by thorough admixture with an unmedicinal substance, in consequence of their then presenting more points of contact to the living organism.
Doppler shows that the physical superficies of a medicament is increased in a fixed mathematical progression by its being rubbed up with a non-medicinal vehicle; but that this is not the case if it be rubbed up without such vehicle, in that case the increase of the superficial extent soon ceases. I may here give some of Professor Doppler’s calculations. A cubic inch of sulphur broken into a million of equal pieces, each no bigger than a grain of sand, has its surface increased by the subdivision to more than six square feet. Again, if a grain of this sulphur be mixed thoroughly, by prolonged trituration, with ninety-nine grains of non-medicinal matter, this grain, in what corresponds to our third trituration, will offer a surface of two square miles in extent; at the fifth trituration it will be equal to the whole of Austria; at the sixth equal to the united continents of Asia and Africa; and at the ninth to the whole surface of the sun, with all its planets and their attendant satellites. Doppler contends that with this enormous increase of surface there is a proportionate increase of free electricity. This free electricity, Doppler conceives, acts particularly upon the living nerve, which he believes to be a good conductor of electricity in this form.
He further believes that in derangement of health the power of conducting is altered, and that medicines in this peculiar electrical state have, somehow or other, the power of restoring the conducting power of the nerves to the normal condition. Doppler does not, however, assign the curative power of the medicines solely to their electrical properties, but he considers that by their electrical condition they are put in a position to be conducted by the nerves to the parts where they are needed. It is through the nerves alone that Doppler, like Hahnemann, conceives the medicines to act. Hahnemann was more cautious in his expressions at first. Originally he said the medicines acted through the living fibres, the word he used, ” Faser,” signifying both fibres and vessels; and this perhaps was nearer the truth than the idea he latterly broached.
Doppler’s observations bear out the notion we usually entertain of the almost infinite extensibility of matter, and also the doctrine that by the process of trituration matters are not annihilated, but, on the contrary, expanded or opened up. Still, a fallacy pervades all his calculation; at least the excessive increase of superficies he claims for the grain of medicine by the repeated triturations is true in theory only and not in fact, for with the proportion of one to ninety-nine it is evidently impossible ever to triturate the whole original grain; for, to make the whole of the first trituration into the second trituration, we should require to triturate one hundred separate portions, containing in all 10,000 grains of sugar of milk, and to bring all up to the third trituration we should require to use 1,000,000 grains of the vehicle, and to triturate 10,000 separate portions.
By our ordinary method of preparing the attenuations, the whole mass of the second trituration only contains the hundredth part of the grain, the third only the ten-thousandth part, and the fourth only the millionth part, so that though the portion triturated may be opened up and greatly subdivided with each successive trituration, it must always be diminishing, and its superficies, even supposing each successive trituration to be thoroughly penetrated by the medicine, can never exceed what was presented by the first trituration. The only thing that this repeated trituration can effect is probably to make the medicine more assimilable by the organism, or more adapted to its irritability, an advantage that more than counterbalances the loss of material substance. In no other way does homoeopathy drive any advantage from the curious and ingenious speculations of the learned Bohemian professor.
Chemistry has by many been brought to elucidate the doctrine of the dynamization of medicines, but as yet nothing more than some remarkable analogies have been obtained from that purely physical science; nor is it easy to conceive how anything more than analogies could be obtained from it, as, spite of the ideas of the iatro-chemists, ancient and modern, the living organism is not a chemical retort or test-tube, and the operations that take place within it are referrible to quite other laws than those that obtain in the decomposition and recomposition of chemical bodies. All that the most refined chemical analysis can effect is to demonstrate the existence of certain medicinal substances in some of the lower homoeopathic preparations; but when it comes to be a question of billionths;or trillionths of a grain, the subtlest chemical analysis is completely at fault, as such infinitesimal fractions completely elude its research.
All that could be said on the chemical side of the question has said, much better than I could impart it to you, in that remarkable essay by Dr. Samuel Brown, entitled Theory of Small Dose, which you will find in the first volume of the British Journal of Homoeopathy, and in that selection of masterly essays contained in the little volume entitled Introduction to the Study of Homoeopathy.
Physiology has been consulted with somewhat better success, if not to furnish a corroboration of the dynamization-theory, at all events to countenance the opinion of the positive effects of very minute and even infinitesimal doses. The experiments of the Abbe Spallanzani, with reference to the fructifying power of very minute quantities of the semen of the frog, are a very favourite illustration with most writers on the powers of small quantities. This Italian physiologist mixed three grains of frog’s of the mixture possessed the power of fructifying a large number of the eggs. The same quantity of semen mixed with four times the amount of water still possessed the same power. With a pound of water the power was not much impaired. A drop from a mixture of three grains of semen with eighteen ounces of water showed undiminished fructifying power. Mixed with pounds of water, the power was somewhat diminished; and a drop taken from a mixture of three grains with so large a quantity of water as twenty-two pounds still impregnated a few eggs. The smallest quantity of a drop, taken on the point of a needle from a mixture of three grains of semen with eighteen ounces of water, often impregnated the eggs as rapidly as pure semen. He found that the semen preserved its fecundating powers much longer when diluted with water than when undiluted.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.