The eminent physiologist Dr.J.W. Arnold, (Hyg., 489.) whose name homoeopathy is proud to enrol among the list of its most able and intelligent supporters, carried out Spallanzani’s experiments to a still greater extent. He prepared three dilutions of frog’s semen, according to the centesimal scale. In each bottle he put from four to ten unimpregnated frog’s eggs, and allowed to remain twelve days undisturbed. In the bottle containing the first dilution, the eggs were all decomposed by the putrefactive process. In that where was the second dilution, three of the eggs were fecundated; and in that containing the third dilution, one egg was fecundated. From these experiments it appears that the millionth part of a drop of frog’s semen was capable of causing fecundation, a result superior to that obtained by Spallanzani, who had proved that the 42,240th part of a grain was capable of fecundating the eggs. These experiments, however, only show that frog’s semen had still the power of fecundating the egg in a very great state of dilution, and that the diluted semen was better adapted for this purpose than the concentrated, probably because it was not so apt to pass into a state putrefaction as the latter, but it is evident they do not help the dynamization-theory in the least. As an analogy, however, these experiments are interesting, for, as far at least as the living organism is concerned, they refute the vulgar notion that large quantities produce the greatest effects; an idea that has its origin in the known facts of physical science, and not in the actual occurrences of organic life.
Dr. Arnold (Ibid. xiv. 531.) likewise instituted a series of experiments with diluted cowpock-lymph. One part of vaccine matter mixed with twenty parts of water and ten parts of spirit produced no effect when inoculated on a child, probably because the spirit destroyed the vaccine matter, as it is well know to produce a great alteration in many organic substances. One part of vaccine matter was mixed with 100 parts of pure spring water, and inoculated on the right arms of three children, while at the same time their left arms were inoculated with pure vaccine matter with another lancet. In two of the children, only the left arms, where the pure lymph had been inoculated, showed the pustules; in the third child there appeared on the eighth day four pustules on the left and two on the right arm, both equally large and genuine. A mixture of one part of vaccine lymph with 100 parts of spring water was kept for twelve days in a moderate temperature; at the end of that time both arms of a child were inoculated with it, and both exhibited in due course of time a pock of the genuine character. These experiments, like those with the frog’s semen, only show the power of small quantities to act on the organism, and in that way only are they serviceable to us, as analogous to the action of small doses of medicine; they do not, however, throw any light or afford any countenance to the dynamization-theory, and they are of the same character as those familiar instances of the great effects of small quantities, which have long constituted the defensive armoury with which the homoeopathist has successfully repelled the attacks of the allopathic sneerer at his infinitesimals.
Similar in character to the paper of Professor Arnold, of which I have just given you an account, is an elegant essay by the late Professor D’ Amador, who occupied for so many years with the greatest eclat the chair of pathology in the ancient and justly celebrated University of Montpellier, the Edinburgh of France in point of reputation as a medical school, and also, in possessing an avowed homoeopath as its professor of pathology. Professor D’ Amador was forbidden by a decree of the Faculty of Medicine to mention the word homoeopathy from his professorial chair, an infringement of his liberty of action that must have been very galling to a man of his enlarged liberal mind. The essay to which I am about to call your attention, however, shows unmistakably the bias of his mind towards towards the doctrines of Hahnemann, and every now and then he contrived to inculcate the the rational views of our great Master, in spite of the embargo laid upon his words. The essay is entitled On the Action of Imperceptible Agents on the Living Body, and you will fond an abstract of it in the fourth volume of the British Journal of Homoeopathy.
A great array of accredited facts is brought forward to illustrate the power of small and even undiscernible quantities in different departments of nature. The subject of fecundation furnishes him with a fruitful source of illustration. Besides the experiments of Spallanzani, he refers to the occurrence of the impregnation of women where the hymen was still perfect, and the observations of Harvey with respect to the fecundation of bitches and rabbits, in whose wombs not a trace of semen could be discovered. The germination of plants; the terrific powers of certain well-known poisons, in the most minute quantities; the effects of the most infinitesimal quantities of morbific viruses; the apparent purity of the atmosphere, where ague, the plague, the cholera, or epidemic diseases are committing their ravages; our inability to detect any peculiar principle in the poison of the viper, the pus of the plague-bubo, the lymph of the vaccine pustule, etc., etc., are successively brought forward to illustrate his arguments; but these and similar instances have, as you must perceive, more reference to analogies with the infinitesimal doses than they serve as explanations of Hahnemann’s dynamization-theory.
Dr.Rau,(Werth. der Hom. Heilv., 134.) to whom I have frequently referred as one of the most learned and scientific of Hahnemann’s followers, treats the subject of the dynamization of medicines, as he dose every other point of Hahnemann’s doctrines, with much ability and capacity. He says it has been on the one hand maintained -1, that, by the processes of trituration and succussion, powers, that were completely latent or only partially developed are set free, and transferred to other bodies placed in intimate contact with the medicine; and these processes have accordingly been denominated a developing of power, of potentizing. On the other hand, 2, the act of dilution of attenuation has been rather regarded as a mere subdivision of the matter and of the powers united to that matter. He thinks that there is truth in both these views, but hat neither contains the whole truth of the matter.
There are, he says, substances which in the crude state display few or no medicinal powers; the powers they inherently possess are only to be liberated by methodical attenuation. Thus magnesia, chalk, and alumina are in their cured state only useful as absorbent remedies for combining with the fee acid present in the stomach. Silica, baryta, strontia, vegetable charcoal, lycopodium, several metals, and various other bodies, likewise manifest no medicinal action on their crude state. The potentizing of development of the powers of these substances does, he says, unquestionably take place by their attenuation, and in the case of some of them, their medicinal powers attain such a degree of intensity by this attenuation that further attenuation is requisite in order to moderate the violence of their action.
Many other medicinal substances, however, have in their crude from such a violent action that they can only be used in that state in allopathic practice, where a violent contrary effect is sought to be produced, and then only in very small doses. But in this state they cannot be used for homoeopathic purposes, as they would excite too violently the more than usually susceptible nerves of the diseased part with which they have relation, and consequently induce dangerous aggravation of the morbid state. Were the processes of trituration and succussion attended by an actual increase of potency, it is evident that the remedy would be rendered more and more unserviceable for homoeopathic uses, by being subjected to these processes. But as we know the reverse to be the case, we must look on these processes as producing a diminution in place of an increase of power. This is the only way in which the most violent poisons can be used as remedies. But besides poisons, says Rau, there are other substances whose powers are already quite developed in their crude state, so that any further development of them is impossible; such are some of the more easily oxydizable metals, several combustible bodies, such as camphor, phosphorus, sulphur, petroleum, and all ethereal and spirituous substances. With respect to such substances, the attenuations are not to be looked upon as potentizing but as depotentizings.
He further remarks that the cause of the better medicinal effect of dilutions lies in this circumstance, that the medicine is capable of developing two different sets of action- a violent irritation of the parts to which it is applied, if given in crude doses, and a more dynamic action on the nervous system, if given in quantities less than what will produce the irritant action. Thus a large dose of calomel rouses the organisms to endeavour to free itself from the foreign substance, by means of vomiting and purging, and by these violent actions the more specific effects of the drug upon the lymphatic and glandular systems are altogether lost. The more these violent reactions are avoided the more freely can those actions dependent on dynamic excitation display themselves. It is therefore only in reference to these two different effects by medicines that dilutions of substances, whose powers are quite developed in the crude state, can be said to be dynamizations.
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.