If he is unusually excited and sensitive, a teaspoonful of this solution may be put in a second glass of water, thoroughly stirred and teaspoonful doses or more be given. There are patients of so great sensitiveness that a third or fourth glass, similarity prepared, may be necessary. Each such prepared glass must be made fresh daily. The globule of the high potency is best crushed in a few grains of sugar of milk which the patient can put in the vial and be dissolved in the requisite quantity of water.”.
Often have I wished that Germans wrote English more clearly ! I have read this over many times and still I do not understand it altogether. But this much I grasp, and it is remarkable, indeed, that this old man, then nearly ninety years of age, discovered a method of safely and helpfully repeating a remedy in a manner which was absolutely contrary to all his previous teaching.
It happens that this method of giving the remedy in ascending potencies has been used by American homoeopathists for many years, but not exactly in the way Hahnemann described. Years ago Kent prescribed for me and here is how I remember what he told me. “When you get home, take a dose of natrum carb. Skinners 1000. Wait six weeks, then take another dose of natrum carb. 1000. Wait six weeks, then take a dose of natrum carb. 20M. Wait six weeks then take a dose of natrum carb. 20M. Wait six weeks and take a dose of natrum carb. 50M. Wait six weeks and take a dose of natrum carb. 50M. Wait six weeks and then write to me.”.
My plan in using the plus method is as follows: I put the selected remedy in a two-dram vial, fill it nearly of tap water, leaving a little bubble on top so that the liquid can be shaken. Shake vigorously at least twelve times. Give the patient almost all of this liquid, leaving only a little in the bottom of the bottle. Then fill it as before with tap water. Shake vigorously, put it away in the refrigerator.
Next morning repeat the same procedure. I usually give the remedy (as Dishington did) six or seven times, then await further developments. If improvement continues, I do not repeat for several weeks, but when it begins to fail, I direct the bottle to be taken from the refrigerator, possibly run up one potency to freshen it, and repeat the same procedure. Occasionally in acute, cases, I repeat the medicine every 2 hours, plussing each time.
Using this system I am sure that the results are better than before I tried it. In the case of the old lady with arthritis deformans, the original remedy has been run up this way a number of times over several years. And even now, when the symptoms recur, it is astonishingly effective.
My most recent experience with this method was in the case of a charming lady, an active, athletic, tennis playing young woman who had been suffering for several months with a severe sciatica of the left leg which had confined her to bed. With difficulty she hobbled to the bath room, but all other activity was impossible. Her nights were difficult and painful. She got some relief from sedatives but her general condition did not improve.
After one or two false moves, because her sensitiveness to cold damp weather, her cold moist feet and the nightly sweats so profuse she had to change her dress nearly always twice at night the perspiration being especially about the head and neck, calcarea carb was chosen and prescribed in the 200th. The effect was prompt but lasted only about twenty-four hours. She wanted more of the same remedy but I hesitated to give it again because all our old authorities caution against repeating calcarea carbonica.
I finally agreed to give it if she would take it in the plus manner. When I described exactly how I wanted the remedy prepared she demurred at once saying after two or three days there wouldnt be anything left! I replied perhaps not, but I want you to try it. So she did. After using the remedy in this manner for a few days the improvement was so great I directed her to stop it. She said coyly “If you stop that medicine. Im not going to like you!” She has continued to use it, intermittently, whenever she feels the need and recently wrote me a grateful note telling of her steady gain.
The method certainly seems to shorten the course of treatment and is well worth trying in difficult cases. Patients object to taking so much water and it may require some little ingenuity on the part of the physician to overcome the natural reluctance of the sufferer to take so much of “nothing” for a condition that is real and often painful.
Journal of the Ame. Inst. of Homoeo. Vol. 40, No. 6.
