Homoeopathic Posology


The nearer the disease approaches the acute character, the smaller are the doses of the medicine it requires in order to disappear. Chronic diseases also, combined with debility and general derangement of the health, do not require larger ones. …


Small doses of mercury given by Hahnemann before his discovery of homoeopathy. After his discovery he gave other medicine in ordinary doses- First indications of small doses-His doses in scarlet fever-Had the apothecaries persecution an influence on his doses?-Reasons for his sudden change to small doses-Rules he gives for the selection of the dose -Later he alleges that the dose cannot be too small-Examples of various doses he recommended of various medicines-Appreciable doses of some medicines given by him-The doses prescribed in the Materia Medica-He did not always go on diminishing his doses, but sometimes gave larger doses than he had previously ordered- Remarkable influence of the psora-theory on his doses-He makes the 30th dilution his standard dose-He often departed from his own standard-Expresses his disapprobation of higher attenuations- Approves of higher attenuations-If the medicine be repeated the dose should be increased-Various doses in a pocket-case used by Hahnemann just before his death- Hartlaub advises small doses for acute, larger for chronic diseases-Wolf recommends a variety of doses-Rau advises small doses for acute, larger for chronic diseases–Werber contends for various doses -AEgidi prefers the lower dilutions, but admits the power of all-Rummel opposes the idea of a standard dose-He says some medicines do not act in the higher dilutions-He attempts to lay down some rules for the doses- He allows that the 200th dilution still acts-Stapf says the insolubles are best in high dilutions-He prefers the lower dilutions in acute diseases-He treats itch and syphilis with low triturations-He approves of Jenichen’s preparations-Gross’s inconsistencies-He finally fails into the Jenichen trap-And recognises the apparent insanity of his conduct.


IN this and the next lecture it will be my endeavour to lay before you the principal opinions that have been expressed by Hahnemann and his disciples relative to the quantity of medicine requisite to be administered in disease, and to ascertain if there is any rule to guide us in the selection of the appropriate dose for each individual case; or, supposing no such rule can be found, if experience teaches us that there is one uniform appropriate dose for each medicine and for every disease, or that some forms or cases of diseases are most appropriately treated with larger, others with smaller doses.

And as I have proceeded in the case of the other doctrinal points of the homoeopathic system, so I shall commence my inquiry into the present question, by laying before you a historical exposition of Hahnemann’s opinions and practice on the subject.

In one of Hahnemann’s earliest works, that, namely, On the Nature and Treatment of Venereal Diseases, published in 1786, accordingly long before he had any notion of a general therapeutic rule for the employment of remedies in diseases; long before he had thought of any of those pharmaceutic processes that he subsequently held to increase the potency of the drug, and long before he thought it necessary, for the sake of obtained a uniformity of result, to advise one uniform dose for all medicines in all diseases-in this work, I say, we already find some peculiarities in reference to the doses of medicine he prescribed, especially in reference to the dose of the new preparation of mercury, to which his name is attached. It is well known that about the time when Hahnemann wrote this work, towards the end of the last century, the common treatment of syphilis consisted in giving enormous and repeated doses of mercury, so as to bring the system, as it was thought, as quickly as possible under the influence of this drug, with influence was believed to be only duly exerted when the patient presented those well-known but now happily more rarely seen symptoms of mercurial poisoning-salivation, spongy gums, foetid breath, swollen tongue, glandular enlargements, extremely febrile and wasted condition, racking pains in the bones, etc. etc.

Hahnemann’s treatment offers a very remarkable contrast to this heroic practice. He tells us that for the complete eradication of lues venerea, he has sometimes not had occasion to give more than one grain of his soluble mercury, and that the average quantity he requires for the treatment of moderately severe syphilis is not more than eight grains. He here talks of half a grain, of one, two, and three grains of this mercurial preparation as large doses, and the doses he commonly employs are a quarter, third, half, three-quarters, and one grain of the remedy. These comparatively small doses which he at this period prescribed, though they relate but to one medicine and to one disease, seem, however, to show the tendency of his mind to rebel against the enormous doses of ordinary practice, to give remedy in doses sufficient to produce its curative but not its pathogenetic action.

In Hahnemann’s earlier essays on his therapeutic principle we do not, however, find that he carried out the principle he had in his allopathic days laid down with respect to the administration of mercury in syphilis to other medicaments and other diseases. On the contrary, we find that his doses, even after his recognition of the great principal with which his name is for ever connected, differed little, if at all, from those in common use. Thus, in his first homoeopathic essay, (Lesser Writings, p. 295 et seq.) published in 1796, that is to say, six years after those experiments of his with bark, which led to the discovery of the homoeopathic law, we find him prescribing arnica root in powder for dysentery, in the following doses: to children of four years of age he gave at first four grains daily, then seven, eight, and nine grains daily; for children of six or seven years old, he began with six grains, and gradually increased the dose to twelve and fourteen grains; to a child of three quarters of a year old he gave first two grains, and afterwards increased the quantity to six grains. An infusion of ten grains of ledum palustre is, he says, a sufficient dose for a child six years old. Three grains of veratrum album, every morning for four weeks, was the dose he prescribed, and with which he cured a case of severe spasmodic asthma. For a case of delirium after parturition he prescribed with success two doses of veratrum, of half a grain each, during the day. The following year, (Lesser Writings, p. 353.) 1797, we find him giving veratrum for a case of colicodynia, in doses of four grains once a day. The same year we learn from another essay (Ibid., p. 369.) that his doses were- of ipecacuanha five grains, of submuriate of antimony and sulphate of copper a quarter of a grain, of nux vomica four grains twice a day.

In two other essays, (Ibid., pp. 382, 395.) written the following year, we find the doses prescribed by Hahnemann equal to those in ordinary use. Thus he gave ignatia every twelve hours, to children form nine months to three years old, a half to two- thirds of a grain; from four to six years, one to one and a half grain; from seven to twelve years, two to three grains; to an adult, as much as eight grains for a dose. Opium he prescribed in doses of one-fifth of a grain to a child of five years; three- tenths of a grain to children of seven and eight years; seven- twentieths of a grain to one of ten years; to an adult half a grain. Camphor he considered he was using cautiously when he gave it to adults in doses from fifteen to twenty grains per diem, but he found it necessary to increase the dose thirty and forty grains. This medicine he gave to a child of twelve, in the dose of fifteen grains a day for a fortnight. Ledum palustre he employed in the dose of six or seven grains three times a day. Cinchona bark he gave in drachm and half-drachm doses.

In his essay On the Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever, m (Lesser Writings, p. 425.) published in 1801, but referring to his treatment in 1799, we have the first indications of the infinitesimal posology which is now vulgarly looked upon as forming as essential part of the homoeopathic system. The preparation of opium he three recommends for the treatment of scarlet fever is prepared by adding one part of pulverized opium to twenty parts of weak alcohol, letting it stand in a cool place for a week and shaking it occasionally to promote the solution. A drop of this tincture is to be added to five hundred drops of diluted alcohol, and well shaken; and of this last, one drop is added to other five hundred drops of alcohol. Of this diluted, tincture, which contains in every drop the five- millionth part of a grain of opium, one drop sufficed for a child for four years of age, and two drops for one of ten years. For still younger children, one drop of this dilution was mixed with ten teaspoonfuls of water, and one, two, or more spoonfuls given.

The mode in which Hahnemann exhibited another remedy for scarlet fever he recommends in this essay, viz., ipecacuanha, was as follows:- A tincture was prepared by digesting in the cold for some days one part of ipecacuanha with twenty parts of alcohol, and of this tincture one drop was mixed with one hundred drops of diluted alcohol; for very young children, one drop of this dilution, containing the two-thousandth part of a grain of the medicine, was enough; older children got more drops, up to ten drops, or the hundredth part of a grain, for a dose.

R.E. Dudgeon
Robert Ellis Dudgeon 1820 – 1904 Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1839, Robert Ellis Dudgeon studied in Paris and Vienna before graduating as a doctor. Robert Ellis Dudgeon then became the editor of the British Journal of Homeopathy and he held this post for forty years.
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.