In the desensitization practice of protein therapy, (asthma, skin test) when a disease is at its height we give a small dose (evidence of the sensitization of disease), gradually step it up as time goes on which is evidence of decreased sensitiveness due to declining diseased state (body approaching health and normal reaction). Thus, it is that Homoeopaths cannot accept the arbitrary rule of the U.S.P. Council regarding drug activity, because it takes no notice of the susceptibility of the disease process. Another reason of equal moment is the exaggerated importance given to animal experimentation. Such experiments can only be of gross physiologic type, which, of course, is quite sufficient to define the scope of their medicines but entirely inadequate for our Homoeopathic uses. This will be discussed further in the chapters to follow.
Brief rules for drug proving are here given :
1. Use a pure preparation and nothing else of a medical nature should be taken at the same time.
2. Keep a written record.
3. Dosage : usually appreciable doses of the tincture or low potencies are taken first followed by a reproving with the middle and higher dilutions. In this way the whole effect of the drug is exhibited – both functional and pathologic changes.
4. Repetition. The drug is taken at different intervals usually every two hours until definite symptoms develop. As soon as this takes place, these symptoms should be allowed to show themselves without further medication.
Original Provings and Sources of the Materia Medica – The first work embodying such record is that of Hahnemann, entitled, ” Fragmenta de Viribus Medicamentorum Positivis.’ It is a Latin work, and published in Leipsic in 1805. Twenty-seven drugs are treated of, containing symptoms Hahnemann himself had observed as effects of poisoning or from excessive dosing, and of provings on himself. ” I have instituted experiments,” he says in the preface, ” in chief part on my own person, but also on some others whom I knew to be perfectly healthy and free from all perceptible disease.
” In those experiments which have been made by myself and my pupils, every care has been taken to secure the true and full action of the medicines. Our provings have been made upon persons in perfect health, and living in contentment and comparative ease. When an extraordinary circumstance of any kind – fright, chagrin, external injuries, the excessive enjoyment of any one pleasure, or some event of great importance – supervened during the proving, then no other symptom has been recorded after such an event, in order to prevent spurious symptoms being noted as genuine.
When such circumstances were of slight importance, and could hardly be supposed to interfere with the action of the medicine, the symptoms have been placed in brackets, for the purpose of informing the reader that they could not be considered decisively genuine.” Five years now elapsed before Hahnemann published anything more in the line of drug pathogenesy.
Then appeared the first volume of that great classical work, the ” Materia Medica Pura,” containing the symptomatology of twelve medicines, six of which had already appeared in the Latin treatise published before. Five years later appeared the second volume, containing the symptomatology of eight medicines which was soon succeeded by the four other volumes, containing in all the pathogenic effects of sixty-one drugs. It is a monumental work, the result of Hahnemann’s matchless penetration, wonderful insight and accurate observation, of which he was a master. He was most ably assisted in this work by thirty-five fellow-provers, among whom the names of Franz, Gross, Hartmann, Herrmann, Hornburg, Ruckert, Stapf, and Friedrich Hahnemann are the conspicuous and deserve to be remembered by all students of Materia Medica.
In 1822, appeared a second edition of this work, with considerable additions to the symptomatology of all the remedies and some new medicines besides. A third and fourth edition were published after some years.
In 1828, Hahnemann published his ” Chronic Diseases,” containing the symptomatology of a completely new series of medicines, a series of deeply acting drugs, like Calcarea, Sulphur, etc., the so-called Antipsoric remedies. The symptomatology of these remedies was not wholly pathogenetic, but included observations at the bedside, so-called clinical symptoms.
A second edition, greatly enlarged and now containing the symptomatology of twenty-five remedies, besides the twenty-two of the first edition, appeared between 1834 and 1838. A peculiar feature of the provings in this work is that the bulk of them must have been obtained with the thirtieth potency, and often are observations when given to the sick, differing entirely, therefore, from the pathogenetic effects of the Materia Medica Pura.
Besides Hahnemann and his immediate workers, Constantine Hering, of Philadelphia, contributed the best provings to the Homoeopathic Materia Medica, some of his drugs ranking in importance with Hahnemann’s own. Of these, Lachesis, Glonoine, and Apis take first rank.
Another large contributor to the Materia Medica was Dr. E.M.Hale, not so much by proving as by introducing American remedies that had been in use by botanic physicians, and gathering all that was known as to the therapeutic properties in one volume, called, “New Remedies.” We have, then, as sources of Homoeopathic Materia Medica :
1. Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, published in 1811, containing the pathogenesis of the great polychrests-i.e., remedies of many uses and wide and frequent application.
2. Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases, published in 1828, containing the so-called Antipsoric remedies, those especially adapted to the cure of chronic diseases.
3. Dr. Jorg’s Provings – a professor at the University of Leipsic and contemporary of Hahnemann, but not one of his followers. He proved, among others, Camphor, Digitalis, Opium, Arnica, Hydrocy. acid, Ignatia. Some of his symptoms are quoted and included by Hahnemann in the second edition of his works.
4. Dr. Hering and the American Provers’ Union.
5. Dr. E.M. Hale’s contributions in his ” New Remedies.”
6. Various provings and reprovings under the auspices of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, various State societies and individual provings published in our journalistic literature. Also, Hartlaub and Trink’s pathogeneses, Stapf’s additions, provings by the Austrian Society, etc., etc.
There records are at present collected in four great works :
1. ” Allen’s Encyclopaedia,” in ten volumes.
2. ” Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy,” in four volumes. These two works contain the symptoms obtained by provings, and from records of poisoning, i.e., pathogenetic symptoms.
3. ” Hering’s Guiding Symptoms,” in ten volumes, which also contains clinical or curative symptoms-i.e., observed on the sick.
4. Clark’s ” Dictionary of Homoeopathic Materia Medica,” in four volumes.
American homeopath - Ann Arbor - Michigan.
Son of William Boericke.
Books:
A Compend of the Principles of Homeopathy.
Homoeopathy