I shall now proceed to trace out for you the further development of the dynamization- theory.
In the year 1825 Hahnemann volunteers, in a literary Journal, a reply to the question that had been publicly addressed to him in a previous number of the same journal -” How can small dose of such very attenuated medicines as Homoeopathy employs have any action on the sick?”
With some few alterations, this paper is reprinted in the second edition of the sixth volume of the Materia Medica, published in 1827. He begins by stating that question is a foolish one, “as what actually takes place must at least be possible;” not a very bright reply one might imagine, when the taking place of the thing at all was what his questioners denied. In reply to the allegation that a homoeopathic dilution is as though one were to put a drop of medicine into the Lake of Geneva, he says that the comparison does not hold good, for that the processes of succussion and trituration employed in making the homoeopathic dilution are left out consideration. By these processes, he says, there ensues not only the most intimate mixture, but at the same time such a great and hitherto unknown, undreamt-of change, by the development and liberation of the dynamic powers of the medicine, as to excite our astonishment. In the addition of a drop to a large body of water, however, there is no question of even a superficial mixture of the medicine with the water. It would even be impossible to effect a through mixture of a drop of medicine with only a hogshead of water, though our transatlantic and sometimes transcendental friend Dr.Hering, one whose transcendentalisms consists in taking up every point of Hahnemann’s doctrines where Hahnemann himself judiciously left off, and pursuing it beyond the extreme limits of probability, and for some short distance into the domain of absurdity-Dr. Hering, I say, gravely asserts that the addition of one miserable globule will make a whole trough of water medicinal. (Arch., xv.1.)
But says Hahnemann, it is not the mere thorough admixture that is effected by the homoeopathic processes-and here he lays down the rule that the centesimal scale, or 1 to 100, should be the proportion observed betwixt medicine and vehicle-but, by the succussion and trituration employed, a change is effected in the mixture, so incredibly great and so inconceivably curative, that this development of the spiritual power of medicines to such a height, by means of the multiplied and continued trituration and succussion of a small portion of medicinal substance with ever more and more dry or fluid non-medicinal substance, deserves incontestably to be ranked among the greatest discoveries of the age. As analogies to this alleged increase of dynamic power by the homoeopathic processes, he refers to the powerful effects of friction on producing heat, an analogy that would hold good at the time this essay was written, but which would scarcely be adduced in these days of wonderful ideas respecting the correlation of the physical forces. He likewise refers to the odours of certain substances, which are only elicited by friction; but here again similitudo claudicat, for it is only while they are being rubbed that bone, horn, and stinkstone display their odorous properties, whereas the powers of medicines once set free by friction are said to continue free for ever
By trituration and succussion, he says, the medicinal power of medicine may be increased almost to an infinite degree. Hence we are warned against succussing our successive dilutions over-much, and told that a drop of drosera of the 15th or 30th dilution, of which has had twenty shakes, will endanger the life of a whooping- cough patient, from its extraordinary potency; whereas had each dilution only been shaken twice, a globule of the same dilution would cure the disease, without endangering the child’s health in the slightest degree
“The homoeopathic attenuations,” he observes, “so far from being diminutions of the medicinal power of a grain or drop of the crude drug, keeping pace with its extreme fractional diminution as expressed by figures, are, on the contrary, an actual exaltation of the medicinal power, a real spiritualization of the dynamic property- a true, astonishing unveiling and vivifying of the medicinal spirit.” Again, “by these processes the internal medicinal power is liberated from its material bonds, so as to enable it to operate more its material bonds, so as to enable it to operate more penetratingly and more freely on the living organism,” and ” the material receptacle of these natural forces, the palpable ponderable matter, is not to be taken into consideration.”
Thus the simple acts of succussion and trituration, which Hahnemann at first adopted solely for the sake of obtaining a due admixture of the drug with the vehicle, gradually attained in his estimation a novel and important rank. Not only did they completely neutralize the weakening process with respect to the power of the medicine naturally produced by the diminution of its quantity, but they more supplied the loss of quantity, and if carried only a little further than usual, actually increased the power and energy of the drug, or even conferred on it entirely new properties.
In the preface to thuja, in the fifth volume of the Pure Materia Medica, published in 1828, he says that the higher dilutions of this medicine, e.g., the 30th or even the 60th, if each dilution be shaken or more times, so far from being inferior in strength to the lower dilutions, are actually more powerful. Consequently, he recommends that each dilution be prepared only with two succussions. In a note to this preface he takes great credit to himself for this discovery of the increase of power by succussion and trituration, and says that by these processes all the material substance of the drug seems to dissolve and be transmuted into pure medicinal spirit.
So fearful is he of increasing the medicinal potency of a medicine by shaking it too much, that he earnestly deprecates the practice of carrying about medicines in the liquid state, as the mere shaking of walking or driving will, he alleges, increase their potency to a dangerous extent. To show that this dynamization of medicines is purely an effect of succussion and is independent altogether of dilution, he mentions an experiment he made. ” I dissolved,” says he, “a grain of soda in an ounce of water mixed with alcohol in a phial, which was thereby filled half full, and shook this solution continuously for half an hour, and this was in dynamization and energy equal to the 30th development of potency.” A point, I should say, most difficult to prove, nor does he tell us how he proved it. Were it the case, we might well ask, what use is there in diluting the medicine up to 30, if merely shaking the first dilution for half an hour will produce precisely the same effect?
Hahnemann himself, however, saves us the trouble of seriously refuting this statement of his, for a few years later he does so himself. Thus, in the preface to the fifth volume of the Chronic Diseases (second edition), he tells us it is absolutely necessary to dilute medicines in order to be able to potentize or dynamize them; “for,” says he, “the greatest amount of succussion and trituration of substances in a concentrated form will not enable us to liberate and bring to light the more subtle part of the medicinal power that lies still deeper.” In this preface he, longer seems to dread the enormous increase of power in a medicine if the regulation two shakes be surpassed. On the contrary, he now says that by slovenly shaking the dynamization is not effected, and he advises ten, twenty, fifty, and even more succussions to be given, striking the bottle each time against some hard body. In another part of this book he formally retracts the advice he had previously given about the two succussions for each dilution, and states that he cannot now potentize too strongly, and therefore he recommends ten succussion strokes as the rule for each dilution. Indeed, he carries his shaking still further, and no member of the fraternity of shakers can now rival him; for, as he recommends the medicine to be given in solution, he says the potency must be altered by six or eight vigorous shakes of the bottle before each dose. Like the poetical Dr. Bolus, his direction now is-
“When taken,
To be well shaken.”
In a note in the Organon, and in the first volume of the Chronic Diseases (page 181), and again in a note to the proving of phosphorus, we find that among other effects alleged to be produced on the medicine by the dynamizing processes of succussion and trituration, it is stated to be removed completely out of the sphere of chemical action. Thus a globule of Phosphorus 30 contained in a powder of milk-sugar that may have been prepared for a year and more, will at the end of that time have undergone no alteration from the action of the air, but will still act perfectly as phosphorus and not as phosphoric acid. Again, a globule of the 30th potency contained in a phial prepared twenty years before, and used thousands of times by olfaction, still continues to possess its power undiminished, and may be used with perfect confidence for the cure of a disease. Thus, by the process of dynamization it would appear that the medicinal action is rendered almost if not quite inexhaustible.
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.