There are, is Griesselich rightly observes, two entirely different classes of medicines to be taken into consideration, viz., such as have a powerful action in their crude taste, and such as exhibit little or no action on the organism in that state.
Again, as regards the first, if not both these classes of medicines, we are to bear in mind that medicaments (as well pointed out by Dr. Madden in an essay on the different actions of medicines, in the eighth volume of the British Journal of Homoeopathy, to which I invite your attention), have two entirely different actions. 1. An action of a merely irritant character, exhibited when the medicine is given in grossly material doses; and 2, beyond this irritant action a more specific action. These two actions are well exhibited in the case of the drug calomel, which, as you know, in large doses acts merely as a purge, but which, as the experiments of Dr. Law of Dublin have demonstrated to the allopathists particularly, and to the medical would generally, can develop its specific effects on the salivary glands if two grains be divided in twenty-four doses, and one of these twenty-fourth parts given every hour. As the object of the homoeopathist is to avoid the irritant and to secure the specific action of powerful drugs, he stains the object by diminishing the dose to such an extent as to prevent the possibility of the occurrence of the irritant action. Hahnemann found that by so diminishing the dose as that all irritant action was avoided, the specific action of the medicine was remarkably increased, and in place of ascribing this to the real cause, he conceived that his processes for the diminution of the drug, were actually accompanied by a development of new and increased powers in the drug itself; and this circumstance, together with the fact that the diseased organism is susceptible to the action of very small quantities indeed of a medicine homoeopathic to its morbid state, was partly the occasion of the origin of that marvellous mixture of error and truth-the dynamization-theory. Another circumstances that contributed to the same result was the face that many substances, without action on the organism in their crude state, become, when sufficiently subdivided, capable of influencing the organism. That, however, the processes resorted to for their subdivision do nor partake of the impossible and unphilosophical character of a separation of the properties from the substance of which they are the properties from the substance of which they are attributes is confirmed, as far as microscopy can do so, by the beautiful observations of Mayrhofer. It is, however, doubtful if Mayrhofer’s observations are conclusive against the solution of the those substances we commonly regard as insoluble, as Griesselich and others seem to suppose, for it is evident his investigations cold only detect particles of the metals that were undissolved; had any particles been dissolved, the mere fact of their solution would have removed them beyond the sphere of microscopical investigation.
It is obvious that substances that are non-medicinal in their crude state are rendered capable of acting on the organism by long-continued triturated, but whether this depends on an actual solution of them when reduced beyond a certain point of exiguity, or whether they are merely suspended in the vehicle with which they are mixed, and the particles thus suspended are so minute as to be able, by reason of their minuteness, to act upon the organism, seems at first sight an different matter, but it is not so in reality; for if there is no solution, but a mere suspension of particles, the number of these particles must decrease a hundred-fold with every successive dilution, and were we to suppose them ever so numerous when we first began to attenuate, it will not require many centesimal dilutions to make the particles disappear entirely from the dilution vehicle. Thus supposing a grain of the third trituration to contain a billion of particles of a metal, and this to be added to one hundred drops of spirit, this, which we call the 4th dilution, will accordingly contain one billion particles. The next, the 5th dilution, will only contain one thousand million particles, the 6th ten million particles, the 7th one hundred thousand, the 8th one thousand, the 9th ten, and the 10th none at all, unless one or two luckless individuals from among these poor ten particles managed to get into the drop we let fall into the 10th dilution; of course, there is no question of any particles at all, under such circumstances, at the 11th or 12th dilutions. If we suppose even a trillion of particles to exist in the 4th dilution, this would only remove the vanishing point of the medicine three dilutions farther off, and it would not require any very profound calculation to show that the particles of a grain of medicine, divided into a trillion of equal parts, could not be visible by any microscope yet formed by man; indeed, a billion or equal particles is the very outside number we can allow to exist in the 3rd trituration, so that they should still be visible under the microscope, as represented in Dr. Mayrhofer’s lithographs. Under these circumstances, we must take leave respectfully to doubt Dr. Mayrhofer’s statement when he says he detected particles of the metals as high as the 12th and 14th dilutions, and rather believe him to have been deceived than attack credence to a physical impossibility. As, then, attenuations of metals are efficacious beyond the 12th dilution, this is a proof that the process employed, viz., long-continued trituration, must put the metal in a condition to be actually dissolved in the fluid medicine with which it is mingled for the subsequent attenuations. The notion of a separation of the medicinal properties from the material medicine, and their transference to non-medicinal substances and fluids, is untenable; as well might we suppose the elasticity, density, or whiteness of ivory to be transferable to another substance. Certain facts would seem to show that what we call insoluble substances are not all so insoluble as they are considered, thus silica is found dissolved in appreciable quantities in certain natural mineral waters; calcarea or chalk is certainly slightly soluble in water, considerably so in water impregnated with carbonic acid; sulphur we acknowledge to be soluble in spirit when presented to that fluid in the form of flowers of sulphur. A stick of sulphur even communicates a certain taste to water, and has long been popularly used as remedy for certain affections of dogs in that form; and many of the metals dipped in water, in the form of solid plates, communicate an appreciable taste to the water. Such being the case, it is not very extravagant to suppose that when comminuted to the extremest degree by three hours of trituration, these metals, whose solubility in the solid is ascertained by the grossest of our senses, may be rendered still more soluble by such trituration. Now, as regards a soluble substances, there is no conceivable limit to its subdivision; we have no reason to suppose that it does not become equally diffused through any amount of the solvent with which it may be mixed by vigorous shaking, and though I would never adduce this as a reason for giving medicine in extremely high attenuations, I would not hesitate to avow that it is an argument in favor of the highest dilutions still containing some of the original medicine; but experience must be interrogated as to another the little some will act better or worse than the larger portion of the lower dilutions on the living organism. That, however, is a question to be considered in my next lecture. I shall l conclude this by summing up in brief the facts which I consider have led to the notion of a dynamization or increase of potency in medicinal substances by their dilution.
1. The total inactivity of certain substances, as the metals, charcoal, etc., in the crude or solid state, and their power of influencing the organism when extremely subdivided, or perhaps dissolved, and probably combined during the process with oxygen.
2. The irritant, or, as Dr. Madden has it, the genicodynamic action of grosser quantities of active medicinal substances, and their totally different, specific of idiodynamic, action when given in such small quantities as not to cause their irritant action.
3. The hyper-sensitiveness of morbidly affected parts of the organism for the natural specific stimuli of those parts.
In these there maxims will be found, I believed, all the truth that lies at the bottom of the dynamization-theory, and while I deny that there is any absolute increase of power in the preparations attenuated by the homoeopathic therapeutic processes, I am free to confess there is often a relative increase in their power, as far as the organism, and more especially as far as the diseased organism; is concerned; and the dilution of the medicines is rendered necessary, inasmuch as the aim and object of the practitioner is to produce the specific action of the medicine on the more external parts, or primae viae. It is probable that this specific action I have alluded to is obtained by the absorption of the medicine, which is possible when the irritant action is avoided, but impossible when that grossly irritant action is called into play, as the medicine cannot then be absorbed, but is rejected by the parts with which it first comes into contact, and expelled from the body as speedily as possible.
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.