Homoeopathic Posology



The veteran Stapf (Allg. h. Ztg., xxi., No.18.) records for our benefit the results of his thirty years experience. The right selection of the remedy is he contends the main point; the nose is, after all, but a secondary consideration. The properly chosen remedy will in many cases suffice in the very smallest dose, even the 30th dilution, although it cannot, he says, be denied that much lower dilutions will generally have the same effect. The size of the dose is to be determined by the nature of the medicine, the individuality of the patient, and the character of the disease. Medicines that have no violent action, such as chamomile, valerian, etc., it is always more expedient to give in the medium dilutions from 3 to 12, whilst such violent remedies as belladonna, arsenic, etc., demand much higher dilution as a rule. Medicines which only develop their full power by means of trituration, as, for instance, carbo, silicea, etc., appear to require invariably high and even the highest dilution (Dr. Stapf seems to have forgotten that Hahnemann found gold in the Ist, and carbo and stannum in the 3rd trituration quite efficacious); in acute diseases the lower dilutions (Nos. 3, 6, and 9) seem often to demand the preference. Since he has adopted the plan of giving, in croup, aconite and the other remedies, in the 3rd, 6th, and 9th dilutions, he has, he alleges, been much more and more rapidly successful.Although he generally prefers the higher dilutions (up to 30) in chronic diseases, still he sometimes finds that in deeply rooted constitutional diseases, such as scrofula, strumous ophthalmia, cutaneous diseases, etc., remedies in the dilutions from 12 down to 2, and even 1, often deserve the preference; also in syphilis and scabies, he almost always gives only the 2nd or 3rd trituration of mercury and sulphur. On the whole, Stapf treats the subject of homoeopathic posology very gingerly, and seems anxious to be friendly with both high and low dilutionists, and to say nothing that could offend the susceptibility of either party. He afterwards came out pretty strongly on the subject of the high-potency heresy, and sang a eulogistic ode in favour of Jenichen’s delusive dilutions, but he did not go the lengths of his enthusiastic friend Gross. Whilst the latter worthy was always in extremes, Stapf was much more cautious, and took for his motto “In Medico tutissimus ibis.”

Let us now see what were our old friend Gross’s views on the subject of posology generally. Of course, Gross would be unlike himself if on this point as on others he did not alternately adopt and reject every new notion that was broached by others. Though Gross does not show much inventive genius, he almost makes up for that by the facility with which he adopts and works out every hint thrown out by others. A veritable chiffonier of cast- off ideas and rejected fragmentary notions, he eagerly pounces upon any intellectual rag which others have rejected or passed by unnoticed, and which even its original owner would be ashamed to resume, and decks himself in it most admiringly. Accordingly we find him now sporting the sombre grey of the matter-of fact materialist, now bedesigned with the gaudy party-coloured frippery of the transcendental dreamer, but never long in the same attire; “to one thing constant never.” We have seen instances of his mutability on other points of the homoeopathic doctrines and practice, and as it was with them so it is with the dose question. Starting at first with a preference for the 30th dilution, he subsequently seems rather to prefer the lower potencies, and accordingly we meet with cases of his where the cure was effected by the 30th, others where the 3rd, 2nd, 1st dilutions, and even the mother-tincture, were employed. Subsequently he repents of his defection from the regulation 30th; he writes a eulogy upon the wonderful efficacy of the medicines in that dilation, and declares himself of Hahnemann’s way of thinking, that the dose can hardly be made small enough for curative purposes; this maxim he protests to be the sure result of the most accurate and pure observations, and worthy to be placed side by side, in point of importance as a discovery, with the discovery of the homoeopathic law itself. Still he declares it possible (Allg. h. Ztg., xxv., No,9.) that the lower dilutions may suffice for acute diseases, but the high certainly demand the preference in chronic, and a few months later (Allg. h. Ztg., xxvi. No.4.) he states, the giving of certain remedies in drops, of the 6th or 3rd dilution, once or several times a day to be” downright allopathy, mere treating of disease, and quiet unworthy the name of curing.”

Shortly after this, Gross’s small-dose mania, came to a crisis by his adoption of the Jenichen potencies. When he got hold of them he began to rave in good earnest, declaring that all former cures with all former dilutions were as nothing at all compared to the cures with these mighty preparations. “You will doubtless,” he exclaims, ” say that Gross has gone mad, ” and we must admit that for once he is right, and correctly expresses the idea of the great majority of his readers.

I shall not follow Dr. Gross into the mysteries of the Jenichen delusion, that heresy I have already treated of in my lectures on the dynamization-theory. (N. Archiv, i.3,44).

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.