Theory of the Dynamization of Medicine



In the Medicine of Experience, published in 1805, the forerunner of the Organon, there is a good deal of talk about the purely dynamic action of drugs, the incredibly small quantity of them that will suffice for the cure, and the absolute superiority i n point of power of the weakest medicine over the severest disease; but all this is insisted on chiefly in relation to the exalted susceptibility present in disease, for it is stated that the same doses have no effect on the healthy or on those patients for whose disease the drug is not suitable; but there is in this essay no allusion to an increase of power by the processes of trituration and succussion, indeed no particular mention is made of any peculiarity in the homoeopathic pharmaceutical processes.

Up to this period the diminution of the dose was advised nominally for the sake of preventing the too violent action of the remedy given according to the new therapeutic principle, the sensibility being so much exalted for such medicines in the diseased state; and this doctrine is again precisely and explicitly and expressed in a short essay published in 1809.

In the first edition of the Organon, published in 1810, the dynamization-theory is not yet mooted; on the contrary, Hahnemann says that while an incredible small dose suffices to overcome the disease, it must not be so small as to be inferior in strength to the disease, and hence it is impossible to fix on a standard of exiguity that shall be applicable to all medicines; “for,” says he, “the medicines themselves vary so much in power,” Further, as a proof that he considered the diminution of the drug, he adds, that in these very small doses there must still be some of the substance of the drug; no portion can be made so small as that it shall not contain something of the medicine, and this something partakes of all the properties of the whole drug. No change is here spoken of as taking place in the properties of the drug by the processes employed to procure its subdivision, such as we find he subsequently conceived to take place by his pharmaceutical manoeuvres. The diminution of the dose has for its only object the prevention of aggravation and of the development of accessory sufferings. The expressions he employs are diminution, subdivision, and attenuation, and the thorough admixture, the strong succussion of the medicine and vehicle are intended to diffuse the medicine equally in the alcohol, water, or other vehicle.

In this first edition of the Organon, Hahnemann does not mention how far he was in the habit of diluting the medicines; he does not speak about millionths or billionths of a grain. It is probable, however, that he had already begun to employ the medicines in pretty high dilutions.

Here, however, we already see the tendency of his mind towards the dynamization-theory his later days. Thus, after stating that a dose divided into several parts, and taken at intervals, produces a much greater effect than if the whole dose were to be taken at once-for example, eight drops divided into eight portions, and taken at short intervals, will produce at least four times greater action than if the whole eight drops were taken at once-he proceeds to observe that we may readily produce a great excess of action, viz., if we dilute the eight drops and give them to the patient in dilution, so that he shall take a drop every hour or two. The cause of this excessive action he states to be that by the dilution the medicine obtains a greater power of extension. He particularly insists that there is a great difference whether we give the eight drops simply divided, or uniformly and thoroughly mixed with the vehicle. He alleged that one single drop of a tincture intimately mixed by vigorous shaking with a pint of water, and given in doses of two ounces at a time, every two hours, will produce four times as much effect as eight drops of the tincture taken at one dose. He says it is a maxim of experience that the power the medicine is considerably increased by being intimately mixed with a larger volume of fluid, hence, he says, in order to make the dose of the homoeopathic remedy as small as possible, it should be administered in the smallest possible volume, in order to come in contact with the fewest nerves; and hence it is inexpedient and unnecessary to drink water after taking a small dose. Formerly he had advised the medicine to be given in water, and we shall find, when we come to the consideration of the modes of exhibiting the medicine, that in his later years he again counselled the giving of the medicine in water.

In the next paragraph he endeavours to fix by arithmetical scale the effects of diluted medicines. He says a mixture of one drop of tincture with ten drops of non-medicinal fluid, and one drop of this taken, will not produce ten times the effects of a drop ten times more diluted, but scarcely twice as great an effect, and so on. Supposing, says he, one drop of a mixture that contains one-tenth of a grain of medicine to produce an effect=a, one drop of a diluted mixture containing one-hundredth of a grain will produce an effect=a divided by two, if it contain one-ten- thousandth of a grain=a divided by four, and so on. I may remark, en passant, that he retains this ridiculous calculation throughout all the editions of the Organon, though he entirely altered his views on the subject of dilutions, and affirmed the higher dilutions to be higher strengths. Another proof of his unwillingness to cancel the litera scripta, even though its retention rendered him open to the charge of completely contradicting himself.

It is obvious that to render an arithmetical calculation of this sort in the slightest degree plausible, one of the elements in it, viz., the susceptibility of the organism, should be a fixed quantity, whereas we all know it varies not only in every different individual and in every different disease, but in the same individual and the same disease at different periods. In this absurd calculation, Hahnemann would almost appear as an imitator of John Brown with his scale of excitability, though Hahnemann, on several occasions, ridicules Brown beyond measure for this very scale. Hahnemann’s excellent critical powers and logical acumen unfortunately did not extend to his own doctrine.

To be sure, Hahnemann might have shielded himself under the vagueness and indefinite character of this wonderful calculation, for you will notice that he offers no explanation whatever of what he means by one effect being only half, a quarter, or an eighth of another effect of a medicinal dose; he does not say whether he alludes to the effect on the healthy or on the diseased, or whether the effect he implies was a quantitative or qualitative effect, or both. Besides retaining this extraordinary attempt at calculation in the fifth edition of the Organon, published in 1833, he there darkens counsel by stating that he has very often seen a drop of the decillionth dilution of tincture of nux vomica produce pretty nearly just half as much effect as a drop of the quintillionth dilution under the same circumstances and in the same individual. This is a very curious statement, read in conjunction with the allegation that the power of the medicine is vastly increased by the processes of homoeopathic attenuation, as we shall presently see was Hahnemann’s idea. Thus it is evident that this and all similar computations of the action of homoeopathic medicines, without taking into consideration the different susceptibilities of the organisms in different individuals, in the same individual at different periods, and in the same individual even in apparently the same circumstances is perfectly inadmissible, and, in fact leads only to delusion and contradictions. Indeed, we all know that the argument of arithmetical computation is that most frequently employed by the allopathists against homoeopathy, and the counter-argument of all homoeopathists has ever been that such numerical computations have no bearing upon the subject, that the dynamism of the organism is not affectable by quantity in the same manner as physical bodies.

From what I have stated as the position of the question in the first edition of the Organon, it will be evident that Hahnemann’s notions at that time were as follow:-

1.By diminishing the size of the dose he intended to avoid aggravation, and the accessory effects of the medicine.

2. By the process employed in diminishing the dose, viz., by the intimate mixture of the medicine with a nonmedicinal vehicle by means of vigorous shaking, an increase its activity is alleged to be produced.

3.In order to diminish its power, the medicine must be taken not dissolved in water and without drinking thereafter, from which it would seem that he believed its power would be increased by mere solution, without any shaking or intimate mixture.

From the above, the natural and logical deduction would be that, in order to produce mild medicinal action, the ostensible object of Hahnemann’s diluting processes, we should, in place of diluting the medicine, rather give it undiluted and unshaken, and rather give one larger dose at once than the same dose in divided quantities.

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.