Dr. Hartmann of Leipzic, (Allg. hom. Ztg.) well known to you by his excellent practical works, is totally opposed to the dynamization-theory. By the processes it makes use of, homoeopathy only dilutes the medicines. The dynamic and the material together make up the whole, and the idea of separating the spiritual from the corporeal he thinks quite ridiculous, and contrary to the known phenomena of nature. He decidedly sets his face against the Korsakoff-Jenichen notion of high potencies. (Acute Diseases (Hempel’s trans.), i. 61.)
Dr. Veith is not of opinion that the medicinal spirit can be freed from its material prison by means of “rapid dilution, cruel succussion, unmerciful trituration, and titanic dynamization.” He says that the dynamization-theory is a new application of one of the doctrines of the Persian philosopher Zoroaster, viz., that concerning the alliance of the Ormuzd or superior being with the Feruars or spirit of everything. In every fractional quantity of medicine, the medicine is present a s whole, and not as a fragment. (Hyg., v. 443.) The doctrine of the transference of the power of the matter to an indifferent substance, like milk-sugar or alcohol, is, however, nothing more than the doctrine of the od Persian philosopher.
G.H. Von Schubert, in his History of the Soul, speaks of the efficacy of small doses of medicines. He believes that an unseen world of forces forms the complement of the visible world; that the former manifests itself when the other, from lack of power, ceases to manifest itself. By attenuation the hidden soul of things is made to appear; and this, in the kingdom of so-called dead matter, is equivalent to animal magnetism in the living organism. This, it will be observed, is identical with what Veith tells us is the doctrine of Persian philosophy. Schubert further expresses his belief that the homoeopathists acts, as it were, by means of a psychical agent immediately upon the psychical forces of the body, and, through them, on the grosser materiality of the organism. This idea, however, is unsatisfactory, because material and massive doses of homoeopathic medicines also act quite well.
Dr. Griesselich (Handbuch, v. 208.) says that there is no reason for supposing that the material of the medicine disappears, however high we may dilute, and he says there are two questions to be taken into consideration in reference to this subject, viz.:-
1. How far can the division of a grain or of any other portion of a medicine be carried, so that it shall no longer be appreciable to our-methods of investigation?
2. How does such a particle or fraction act in reference to our organism?
The first, he says, is a question for physical science to answer, the last belongs to the domain of physiology, and both questions can only be answered in their respective departments of science.
It is, he says, unworthy of the present state of disease to talk of a separation of a substance from the force united to it, for the two essentially constitute but one. Accordingly, it is idle phraseology to talk of a digitalis, a silicea, belladonna, etc. power, which has no material substratum. The great forces of nature, such as electricity, magnetism, light, heat, etc., are totally different in their nature, and admit of no comparison with medicinal substances. Thus there can be no doubt that the odour of musk that affects our olfactory nerves is musk itself, and not musk-power separated from the material. In like manner we have every reason to suppose that the dose of medicine, be it ever to so small, which displays its action on the organism, still contains a material portion of the medicine. All notion of a transference of medicinal power to water, spirit, milk-sugar, or beer (Hahnemann’s original vehicle) is mysticism, unproven and unprovable.
It is not, he says, the mission of homoeopathy to cause the general recognition of dynamization and the overthrow of materialism, but to show both, divested of the empty phraseology and wordy disputations of the schools, as on organic unity. By this made of viewing the matter, the scholastic strife betwixt two sects must cease, each of which allege that it alone was in possession of the truth; and stupidities of these kinds, on the one hand the assertion that the 30th dilution is stronger that the 15th, and on the other the grossly quantitative therapeutics of the new chemical stool, when examined by the light of reason and common sense are seen to be totally unworthy of any support.
Dr. Griesselich then makes the following deductions, from a careful consideration of every side of the question:-
1. There are, says he, chiefly two different classes of substances to be considerable.
a. Those in undiluted form, e.g., as powder, tincture, infusion, etc., display their whole efficacy.
b. Those others which in their crude state display no visible action on the organism.
2. In reference to the first class, the object of dilutions is to render their form milder; with the diminution of the dose we make them, as it were, more amicably disposed towards the organism, whereas in their crude state as poisons they were inimical to it. Here there is no question of an increase of power, of potentizing, since it can never be our object to increase the action of arsenic, belladonna, etc.
3. On the other hand, with respect to the second class of medicaments, our object in their subdivision is to break up the crude mass in such a manner that it shall offer many points of contact to the organism; this is the case as regards the earths and the metals.
4. In this last cease we may be allowed to talk of the liberation and development of the medicinal power by trituration, but we do not thereby create anything that was not previously existent in the substance; for in its smallest fraction this substances remains the same as it was originally.
5. All all our further processes in the preparation of our medicines with milk-sugar, water, of alcohol, are a dilution or diminution of the mass originally used, it is obvious that the expression originally employed by Hahnemann to indicate such preparations, viz., “dilutions,” is the right and the natural one, and, at the same time, the one least liable to misapprehension.
6. It is inadvisable to employ terms indicative of the supposed quantity, as billionths, trillionths, decillionths, etc., or, in reference to the potentizing or dynamizing notion, to talk of the millionth potency and the like.
7. All analogies of medicinal qualities with the so-called imponderable and infectious agents, all notions of infection of the vehicle with medicinal power, all calculations respecting the action of medicines according to mathematical laws, all fables concerning the solubility of insoluble substances by means of the homoeopathic pharmaceutic processes, all these have no foundation in fact.
8. It is a remarkable circumstances that the organism possesses a susceptibility for very minutely divided medicinal fractions, but this susceptibility is very various. It is probable that there are minimal of medicines that may be taken into the organism and have no action at all upon it, still we are not in a condition to fix the limits of this active power; but we have no right to say that the susceptibility of the organism for medicinal influence is illimitable.
9. To sum up. The essence of the dynamization-theory may be referred to those two circumstances :–
a. That the medicine is presented to the organism in a state which offers the greatest prospect of causing it to act.
b. The the greatest possible action is developed by the smallest quantity.
Dr. Joslin, in his Lecture on Homoeopathy, refers the increase of power observed to result from the trituration of certain substances with a non-medicinal vehicle to the greater comminution they thereby undergo. “If,” says he, “any coarse and dry substance is triturated by itself, it will continue to be permanently divided and subdivided to a certain but limited extent; for beyond that, the blow would either have the parts so near each other that they would instantly reunite by the power of the cohesive forces and again become one solid body, or it would drive these newly-separated parts against others or against each other, and effect their union by bringing them within the sphere of cohesion.” But, he goes on to say, suppose a grain of this triturated substance to be triturated with ninety-nine grains of milk-sugar, and to be uniformly mixed with it before commencing trituration, in that case each practice of the drug is surrounded by ninety-nine times its bulk of milk-sugar, and when trituration is now performed a much more minute division of the drug is effected than could have been by triturating it ever so long by itself. And so on for each successive trituration, the comminution of the drug is thereby infinitely increased.
I should, I fear, weary you if I were to present to you the views of any more of the authors who have written, some voluminously, on this subject. It is perhaps sufficient to state that I have waded through most of the wordy articles that have been written upon the subject, scattered up and down the homoeopathic literature, and have found nothing better than the specimen I have just brought before you. In the abstracts I have presented you with, some of which have given me an amount of trouble disproportionate to their worth, as their authors seemed to take a pleasure in enveloping their few ideas in an almost impenetrable covering of rapid phrases, as nature wraps up some nuts in such tough husks that the labour of getting through them is not or scarcely repaid by the sweetness of the kernel-in these abstracts, I say, I have given you every possible variety of view upon the subject of the dynamization-theory, and if I have left out some authorities, it is because their notions are mere repetitious of what had previously been expressed. Before concluding this subject, I shall briefly sum up with my won views upon the matter, and leave you to form your deductions as to the truth or otherwise of the dynamization-theory, which occupies so large a space in the Hahnemannian system.
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.