Of these two rules of frequency, the second, or rule of weight, has the greater universality. The first, the ordinal number rule will stop with the increasing differentiation of the world from chaos to the earth and its crust to the organism. With the inauguration of chemical affinities new periodicities, as we have seen above in the groups of periodic system, gain in significance for the selection of elements, in other words: the outer electron ring with increasing differentiation of natural bodies annexes influence on the frequency of the elements.
So far as the cosmos is accessible to human observation on the earth, in meteors, in the atmosphere, the sun and stars, not only is the earthly material found everywhere but also the frequency of the elements everywhere finds extensive agreement. Evidence suggesting that the development of elements from hydrogen to uranium has not ended everywhere in the cosmos or that only lighter elements deviating from the earthly ratios appear frequent, has not been found as yet in spite of extensive astrophysical investigations.
GEOCHEMIC DISTRIBUTION LAW
Type and average frequency of elements in the world may be taken as a constant point of departure. The differentiation of the solid structure, like the earth, depends upon the distribution of the elements. The law for this distribution in the earth has been brought to light particularly through the geochemic investigations of V.M. Goldschmidt. Between the theory of distribution of the elements according to their chemical or physiochemical properties and the analytic and experimental findings there exists a remarkable agreement.
The stratification of the earth is primarily the result of a separation of the original molten fluid according to atom-volume (the relation of atomic weight to the specific weight of an element). Niggli has divided the elements into the petrogenous and metallogenous (stone and ore builders). The petrogenous elements prevail in the outer strata of the earth (as oxides and silicates), the metallogenous belong to the deeper strata (chiefly as sulphides and the like). In the periodic system of elements the petrogenous elements belong almost entirely to the chief group, the metallogenous to the accessory group. This is associated with atom volume which is essentially greater in the elements of the chief group than in the elements of the accessory groups. The metallogenous metals form a condensed type of material and therefore their characteristic position in the deeper strata of the earth.
The outermost shell of the earth which chiefly interests us, the lithosphere, is rich in the elements which have a strong affinity for oxygen. Silicates are the chief constituents, next to bound oxygen, calcium, iron, aluminum, magnesium sodium and potassium (lithophile elements). Among the elements of the earth’s crust there also exists a frequency law to which Niggli has drawn attention; the most frequent elements are oxygen, sillicum, calcium and iron with ordinal numbers of 8, 14, 20, 26. This equal difference of six between the ordinal numbers of the most frequent elements of the earth crust must have some connection with the stability of the nucleus. The nuclear structure, by the addition of three helium particles, has obviously obtained a high grade of stability.
In the deeper strata, the chalkosphere, are predominantly such chalkphile elements as are characterized by their marked affinity to sulphur and whose sulphur compounds are easily soluble in iron monosulphide, sulphates and oxides of heavy metals, particularly of iron.
Finally there is the metal nucleus, the siderosphere, where the earth is characterized by deposits of iron and nickel and by metals which, partly in the free state and partly as iron compounds, are easily soluble in molten iron (siderophile elements).
In the further course of the massive metallurgic smelting operation (V. M. Goldschmidt) of the great chemical laboratory of the earth, the elements in the lithosphere distribute themselves, the stone and the slack of the smelting oven processes according to the law of crystallization. This proves to be dependent upon the atom or ion radii, in that the approximation in size of radii favors the appearance of a common crystalline structure.
There follows then the physiochemical reciprocal actions with the atmosphere which contains the easily volatile atmospheric elements as O, N, H, and the noble gases: then with the hydrosphere which outside of water contains the hydrophilic elements pouring out of the earth crust and their combinations and, finally, the biosphere which will concern us in particular.
The reciprocal actions in the lithosphere most accessible to our observation proceed chiefly from physiochemical processes in water solution (weathering, sediment formation, stone metamorphosis).
If the frequency of single types of atoms in the world was determined through the properties of the atom nucleus, so will the way of distribution of elements be lawfully determined through the properties of the electron shells. In the same way we find also, in the organism, the nuclear structure of the element the ordinal number standard for the specific property and the appearance of the element, but for the way of distribution and the physico-chemical exchange the electron shell is standard, in other words the group kinships of the periodic system of the elements.
THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS IN THE ORGANISM
Lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere in their narrow physical and chemical reciprocal connections are the material basis of the biosphere, the organism. The question, which elements adapted by their circulation in nature are suitable for the biosphere and necessary or promoting for the life of the organism, will be answered through the elementary composition of the organism and its nutriment. In place of describing the progressive material differentiation in a developmental series of organisms in detail, we pass over at once to the status of the elementary composition of the human body.
If, by a subtle investigation, slight traces of any element of the periodic system can be proven in the organism, so there is the peculiarity existing in the living organism for it in that certain elements appear in relatively constant typical proportionate amounts and are characterized by their physiologic importance and necessity. The limits between elements which are necessary for every organism, those which are useful but dispensable for this or that organism, and those which appear in the organism but which are without significance may appear to shift with the progressive penetration into metabolic events. The basic facts which are important for the material composition of the human organism we can touch upon but only very briefly.
FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS
There are primarily four fundamental elements: H O C and N, the basic elements of organic substance. They are characterized by the highest degree of combination variations. It must strike anyone that each of them takes the first place in a group in the periodic system. They are the simplest representatives of the kindred groups of various valences: hydrogen is univalent positive, oxygen is divalent negative, carbon tetravalent amphoteric, forming carbohydrates and fats and the combinations with the trivalent negative (or pentavalent positive) nitrogen is the basis of protein compounds.
WATER
The combining of H plus and OH- to water, H2O, the basis of the hydrosphere and also of the organism, is the most general medium of reaction for physico-chemical processes and in which it remains quite unaltered. As a fluid neutral salt, to certain extent, of the ions H plus and OH – water has a physical function: the spatial approximation or separation of energy carriers. Moreover water by virtue of its capacity for evaporation, due to the internal and external temperatures, has significance even for the regulation of temperature of the organism. Being the least differentiated and most general medium of reaction water possesses an enormous physiologic breadth. And since it enters into the structure of organic molecules and again becomes free through the splitting it possesses a most general nutritional function. But such a mass action is also dependent upon the sensitivity of the organism. So for example, under certain conditions an excess of water can induce a super-regulation, an excessive diuresis; however, such an excitation through physical mass remains outside of a characteristic medicinal range. Only through alteration of the site of the influence (perhaps through intravenous injection) can water bring about nonphysiologic actions; an alteration of the form whereby water would become a drug in the narrow sense is hardly possible, because the alteration of form through temperature for the purpose of activation steps beyond the possibility of internal use. But chemical activation may be ascribed to the materials which water decomposes even though the physical mass action of water(by external use in dependence upon its temperature) is important still it has no place as an energy carrier in the materia medica. On the contrary the water storage is of great significance as an object of drug action. It will be regulated in the main by the grade of swelling of body colloids on the one side, on the salts dissolved in water (particularly sodium chloride, NaCl) on the other side. If the need for water as is signaled by the symptom of thirst is removed by the introduction of water, then this belongs to nutrition, but it is still not a characteristic drug effect. A disturbance of water distribution often steps beyond the physiologic range and then the medicinal influence through increase of bodies, own regulation arrangements (in the places where it fails) is available: but in general not through water itself but only indirectly.
Leeser, a Consultant Physician at the Stuttgart Homeopathic Hospital and a member of the German Central Society of Homeopathic Physicians, fled Germany in 1933 after being expelled by the German Medical Association. In England Otto Leeser joined the staff of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. He returned to Germany in the 1950s to run the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart, but died shortly after.
Otto Leeser wrote Textbook of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Leesers Lehrbuch der Homöopathie, Actionsand Medicinal use of Snake Venoms, Solanaceae, The Contribution of Homeopathy to the Development of Medicine, Homeopathy and chemotherapy, and many articles submitted to The British Homeopathic Journal,