For the preparation 10,000 you take one grain of the degree 100 and add to it thirty-three grains of sugar of milk. Stir up this mass for a moment with the spatula and proceed in the same manner so that such a third is triturated twice for six minutes and after each trituration of six minutes it is scraped up (perhaps after four minutes) before the second third is added, and (after this has been treated in a similar manner and scraped up) before the last third of sugar of milk has been mixed it is also triturated twice for six minutes and then scraped and stored in a well-corked glass vial marked 10,000 as containing a medicinal substances which has been diluted or potentised 10,000 times.
In a similar manner we proceed with one grain of this powder (marked 10,000)if we wish to bring our potency up to 1, the potency of a millionth dilution.
In order to obtain a uniform preparation of the homoeopathic and particularly of the anti-psoric remedies in the form of powders, I advise, as I usually do myself, to prepare all these medicinal substances, neither higher nor lower than the millionth potency, and from these make a solution from which the necessary potencies can be prepared.
The trituration must be made with force but not so vehemently that the sugar of milk powder adheres too firmly to the mortar, so that it could not be scraped up within four minutes.
In a special annotation (page 182) he deals with dried vegetable substances and the triturations prepared from juiceless plants:
Vegetable substances which can only be obtained dry for instance Cinchona bark, Ipecacuanha, etc., are triturated in a similar way. The millionth triturations may be dissolved like all the other substances either in water or alcohol without losing any of their peculiar power. In this state they may be preserved better and for a longer period than the common tinctures, which easily spoil. Of the juiceless vegetable substances, such as, Oleander, Thuja, Mezereum, etc., you may take one grain and a half of the fresh leaves, bark, roots, etc., and reduce them by trituration with three hundred grains of sugar of milk to the millionth trituration. You take one grain of this trituration and continue the process of potentising from vial to vial with water or alcohol to the necessary degree, to its full strength by shaking each vial twice. The same process of trituration may be resorted to with the recently obtained medicinal juices. Squeeze the juice out of the plant, triturate one drop of it with the necessary quantity of sugar of milk to obtain the millionth trituration. Of this you take one grain, dissolve it in a mixture of half water and half alcohol in order to further develop its strength by diluting it through the process of the twenty-seven small alcohol vials to bring it to the necessary degree of potency, shaking it twice each time. The latter (the fresh juices) seem to develop their virtue better than by simply mixing the juice with alcohol without previous trituration and passing it through the thirty vials with alcohol by means of two shakes. I know this from experience.
For certain medicinal substances such as Phosphorus, Causticum, and others, Hahnemann gives special instructions which we will not mention here.
In 270 of the “Organon,” instructions are given which differ in some of the less important details from those of the “Chronic Diseases”; he also gives special directions for the preparation of the small globules, and for potentising the “medicaments aux globules” (see Vol. I, Chapter XXIV), as also for the necessary shoggings (percussions), etc.
The care he wished to see employed in handling the necessary implements for this work so that no contamination of the sensitive medicinal substances could take place, he describes in an annotation on page 183 of “Chronic Diseases.” He considered it indispensable that after the three hours trituration of each medicinal substance, the mortar, pestle and spatula should be scalded several times with boiling water, and in between washed clean and dried, so that no suspicion of any contamination should remain for any further medicine that was to be triturated. To satisfy the most exacting mind that there was not even a suspicion remaining of the last medicine that had been triturated, the mortar, pestle and spatula could be exposed to a red heat after the cleaning.
SUPPLEMENT 226
OPINION OF AN EXPERT ON HAHNEMANN’S TEACHING ON THE PREPARATION OF MEDICINES.
Dr. Willmar Schwabe, who founded the Homoeopathic Central Pharmacy of Leipsic, which is known throughout the world, has advocated most strongly the accurate adherence to Hahnemann’s instructions for the preparation of medicines, has repeated Hahnemann’s tests at great expenditure of time and money, by following his instructions, and has drawn up a pharmacopoeia so thorough that it has not yet been equalled (it has now been published in several languages). He says regarding this branch of Hahnemann’s life’s work and the necessity of accurately following all instructions of the master, (“Internat. hom. Presse,” 1872, Vol. I, page 328):
It is to the credit of Hahnemann that he has been the first to put applied pharmacodynamics on a firm basis, and all true disciples of homoeopathy are called upon to further develop it. The corner-stone of this foundation is the Law of Similars, and the physiological proving of the medicinal substances upon the healthy organism. The key notes is the introduction of the method for preparing the medicines, given by the founder of homoeopathy. Both are capable of further perfecting and improving, but never on the lines of hypothetical speculations, as have always been customary in allopathy. The sphere of action of the medicinal substance is revealed clearly upon the healthy human organism, more or less so, according to the reaction from the stimulus. This has been shown by the repetition of certain of Hahnemann’s provings. They have brought to light some new points; but they have also shown that some of the symptoms accepted by the prover in his tabulation of symptoms, are untenable. But it has also shown Hahnemann to be the most accurate observer, of the symptoms which appeared, of all who have undertaken the proving of medicines. His provings are far in advance and more classical than those of his followers.
His doctrine of the medicinal stimulation and of the specific action of simple medicinal substances upon the diseased tissues, is his own invention. The medicinal stimulation is caused by medicinal substance, the preparation of which Hahnemann has prescribed in a very definite form. The disease picture presented by the symptoms of Hahnemann’s provings and those of the original provers form the basis for the manuals and books of homoeopathy used for the treatment of patients. An enrichment of these is constantly taking place. The structure of homoeopathy has been pre-eminently erected upon the ground of pharmaco- dynamics and it cannot easily be denied that there is still much work to be done. But the condition is that the provings must be carried out with medicinal remedies prepared in the same manner as those of Hahnemann. In this we must be conservative. Hahnemann’s words “imitate me, but imitate accurately” must be written in letters of fire in his works, especially for those who deal with the preparation of medicines-a living “mene mene tekel.” An error only harms two people at the bedside; the patient and the physician; the rage for improvements as far as it strives to alter the kernel of Hahnemann’s teaching for the preparation of medicines harms the whole of homoeopathy. The carrying out of Hahnemann’s rules is, therefore, the chief condition for the pharmacist, not the “desire to improve”. That, in conclusion, the tincture, etc., prepared according to Hahnemann’s prescriptions, are considered the best is probably most easily proved by the active business carried on in those establishments which work according to his ideas. The same applies to the preparation of potencies.
In his closing remarks Schwabe says of the duties which the homoeopathic pharmacist should fulfil in the preparation of homoeopathic remedies (page 334):
Homoeopathic pharmacy allows of no arbitrary methods because the preparations which it produces are used according to principles which are totally different from the method of treatment of their opponents.
Homoeopathic pharmacy must be conservative; it can only progress when the activity of a remedy has, owing to renewed thorough proving, been altered by some different mode of preparation.
That homoeopathic pharmacist who sets himself firmly upon Hahnemannian ground and rejects all innovations which have not been tested and established by physiological provings, is not a reactionary.
The Kernel of Hahnemann’s teaching, in spite of all the advances in chemistry, remains simplicity, durability, and uniformity of the contents of medicinal preparations-this trinity alone gives uniform results in the experiments made on the healthy organism, when the precautions defined in homoeopathic provings have been observed, as well as practised, at the bedside (page256).
Richard Haehl was also an editor and publisher of the homeopathic journal Allgemcine, and other homeopathic publications.
Haehl was responsible for saving many of the valuable artifacts of Samuel Hahnemann and retrieving the 6th edition of the Organon and publishing it in 1921.
Richard Haehl was the author of - Life and Work of Samuel Hahnemann