It is but natural that many prescribers at first stay close to the mechanical and chemical stages, for the material always first attracts our attention; but in order to grasp this truth of dynamization we must apply the same means of approach and travel the same road that Hahnemann and his followers have travelled, recognizing the dynamic in health and in disease and applying the same line of thought and reason to the study and development of the power and action of drugs.
It is well to note the care and thoroughness of Hahnemann’s work and the methodical way in which he developed the potency, using the centesimal scale in preparing his divided dosage, and giving each step in the process vigorous succussion. This process was continued until all trace of quantity had vanished, beyond the recognition of all possible physical tests; yet in these higher potencies the dynamic qualities or potential qualities survive. Upon applying these potencies upon man or animals we find a far more delicate organism or apparatus than is provided in any possible physical instruments as yet developed. Possibly the furthest development of the radioactive power may in time give us a measuring instrument that may partially reveal this ability, but the human organism will always be the most delicate instrument, for the susceptible subject is quick to respond to this dynamic force.
We are dealing here in the realm of the imponderables, and encounter problems beyond the reach of men’s analysis, a realm where we can only observe effects alone. However, all we can see and all we can hope to know in our observation of human beings is the effects of growth and development; and it is so with our a study of medicinal action. This is so not only in the study of the potency, but it is so almost entirely in the study of the crude drugs and their action, as well as our study of foods and their action. the effects are there to be seen, but the imponderable nature of the *modus operandi is beyond our comprehension. The very same line of evidence is produced in all these fields: it is the effects only that are manifest to us. The observations must be recorded, and only by deduction can we comprehend their innermost meaning. Many mistakes have been made by failing to follow rules laid down by Hahnemann in his *Organon of the Healing Art. Follow these rules and the results will be in order and observable.
Many of the graduates from homoeopathic colleges do not grasp the dynamic concept of drugs, and for that reason always stay in the material plane, using only the crude drug or venturing in to the low potencies occasionally. This is unfortunate for the efficacy of their work, for one this concept is grasped they realize that all potencies are valuable and useful, and they soon obtain a knowledge a power over disease little realized when viewed solely from the material plane. Especially is this true in chronic troubles, for the test of real skill is in the cure of chronic patients and the eradication of the chronic miasms,
The use of the attenuated potency varies with each individual because of this interpretation of the law of does,. Hahnemann’s question as to “how far the dose of a homoeopathic remedy in any given case of disease ought to be reduced in order to derive from it the best possible cure?” is one we may well ask.
It may be readily conceived that no theoretical conjecture will furnish an answer to this problem, and it is not by such means that we can establish, in respect to each individual medicine, the quantity of the dose that suffices to produce the homoeopathic effect the accomplish a prompt and gentle cure. No reasoning, however ingenious will avail in his instance. It is by pure experiments and precise observations only that this object can be obtained.
*Organon, 278. Here the question arises as to the proper degree of reduction at which a medicine will procure certain as well as gentle relief? That is to say, how small must be the dose of each homoeopathically selected medicine, in order to fulfil the requirement of a perfect cure. To determine the dose of each particular medicine for this purpose, and how to render this dose so small as to accomplish its purpose, gently and rapidly at the same time, is a problem which, obviously, is neither to be solved by theoretical conjecture, nor by sophistic reasoning. Pure experiments, and accurate observation alone can solve the question; and it were folly to adduce the large doses of the old school (destitute of homoeopathic bearing upon the diseased portion of the body, and affecting only the sound parts), to disprove the results of actual experience in regard to the minuteness of doses requisite to perform a homoeopathic cure.
279. Experience proves that *the dose of a homoeopathically selected remedy cannot be reduced so far as to be inferior in the strength to the natural disease, and to lose its power of extinguishing and curing at least a portion of the same, provided that this dose, immediately after having been taken, is capable of causing a slight intensification of symptoms of the similar natural disease (slight homoeopathic aggravation, 157-160). This will prove to be the case in acute, chronic, and even complicated disease, except where these depend on serious deterioration of some vital organ, or where the patient is not protected against extraneous medicinal influences.
280. This incontrovertible principle, founded on experience, furnishes a standard *according to which the doses of homoeopathic medicine are invariably to be reduced so far, that even after having been taken they will merely produce an almost imperceptible homoeopathic aggravation. We should not be deterred from the use of such doses by the high degree of rarefaction that may have been reached, however incredible they may appear to the coarse material ideas of ordinary practitioners; their arguments will be silenced by the verdict of infallible experience.
Since Hahnemann’;s time potentization has been greatly developed,. and we are often able to avoid these slight aggravations which Hahnemann refers to as almost a necessary accompaniment to the cure. When we get these aggravations now it is because the remedy it has been given too low or repeated too often, or because the patient is particularly susceptible to the powers released by the potentization. When this slight aggravation of the natural disease appears after the administration of the remedy it is an indication of the correct choice of the remedy.
All authorities agree that the proper dose is found in the degree of susceptibility. Fincke says, “That dose is appropriate which will be proportionate to the degree of susceptibility of the patient.”
The closer the relationship between the disease symptoms and the drug symptoms, the grater the susceptibility and, consequently, the higher the potency required; but his makes it a comparative problem of relationship; therefore the answer lies in our individual exercise of the interpretation of this law.
It is a hopeful sign when the younger physicians begin with the user of the fairly low potencies, say the 30th or 200th, and then progress upward. In this way one learns for himself the use of potencies and their dynamic action, and he will soon learn to use the higher potencies with skill and with much satisfaction.
Fincke explained the action and efficiency of the infinitesimal dose by applying the law of Maupertius, the French mathematician, and fully accepted by scientist, “that the quantity of action necessary to effect any change in nature is the least possible”; and added, “according to this principle the decisive moment is always a minimum, an infinitesimal”, and when applied to therapeutics the last possible or the highest potency, sufficient to bring about reaction, would be homoeopathic.
The law of least action is a necessary complement to the law of similars. STill quoting Fincke.
According to this principle, the curative properties and action of the homoeopathic remedy are governed by its preparation and application; in other words, *the quality of the action of a homoeopathic remedy is determined by its quantity, consequently the law of the least action must be acknowledged as the posological principle of homoeopathy.
The whole range of potencies may be used by any physician, yet if he understands these principles he will fell his way to the correct potency. There is no greater fallacy prevalent than the fear of using the higher potencies, for fear the lower would be more effective; the same indications are present for one as for the other.
The knowledge of potentization was of gradual growth, and, indeed, the last word is not yet said; but this discover ranks among the highest of Hahnemann’s work and makes the question of the use of these potencies the one great thing that is due to Hahnemann’s mind alone, and will be his greatest lasting contribution in the evolution of this system of applying drugs to the cure of disease.
It has remained so far unexplainable, but a fact. The effect is manifest to all, but in its mode of action it is a mystery. the principle of similars was of little practical use until the principle of the dynamic use of drugs and the minimum dose were discovered to complete the trinity; then all three angles were complete, each equally important, yet each supporting the other to make a complete system of cure; then and only then, homoeopathy became practicable.
