The sensitive, because of the general anaesthesia of his nervous system, is easily frightened; the slamming of a door causes a visible start (k. carb.); for new acquaintances he soon conceives a well-defined like or dislike. Thus one finds the sensitivity of an individual mirrored in his temperament and humors. One can logically determine his sensitivity or non-sensitivity from his way of exhibiting himself and his feelings in the conduct of life.
Hyperaesthesia, liveliness, fineness of feeling mark the sensitive, as well as restlessness, desire for change of work (or play), sometimes capriciousness and a less well-balanced mental equipment. These are the diagnostic points of sensitivity, easily determined in the ordinary examination of the patient, and as everywhere numberless individuals are found in whom these characteristics are united or largely present, the value of such diagnosis in medical practice and homoeopathic treatment cannot be overestimated.
Dahlke says in his excellent “Discourses on Materia Medica” concerning Sulphur, “The potency was always a matter of dispute. That the 30th is the normal seems to me indubitable, but in many chronic torpid eruptions, the lowest potencies are often indispensable.” I would emphasize the word, torpid, and in general maintain: in all torpid, hypoaesthetic diseases of non- sensitive organs or organisms the low potencies must be used. Disease may make a single organ or the whole individual either hyper or hypoaesthetic; probably these are only stages of the same process.
According to the demeanor of the organ or the individual, the potency should be high or low; it is not determined by the nature of the drug nor by the name of the disease, but only by the sensitivity of the organ or the patient. All efforts to declare the 30th or lower potencies alone correct, are vain; one say that for these torpid patients low potencies (in common and frequent dosage) are necessary, while for the sensitives high potencies (infrequently give) are indicated. And exact homoeopathic anamnesis must not only include symptomatology, but also present the degree of sensitivity of the patient.
It is well-known that there are great differences in patients in the degree of sensitivity; from a torpid individual you may without narcosis excise the lip; the other, a sensitive, hysteric suffers cramps and faintness from a breath of air. The “regular” school has bothered itself little with these differences; with us there has certainly been more inquiry into the sensitivity of the diseased nervous system, but hits important law has not yet, to my knowledge, been fully and clearly established.
I believe that if homoeopathic physicians would study sensitivity more carefully for some years or decades, we should gradually gain more exact indications for the potency. How many cures must have escaped us because we did not strike the right potency! Cases are always appearing in our literature, in which it is demonstrated that permanent cures only resulted from the discovery of the suitable potency.
II. The Od.
The most important and useful characteristic of the sensitive is that he is able in a darkened room to perceive a hitherto unnoticed light, with which peculiar warm or cool sensations are connected. This light is found-.
1. On magnets.
2. On crystals.
3. On parts of the body.
4. On rubbed surfaces.
5. On wires exposed to sun or moonlight.
6. On charged metallic electrical conductors.
7. In chemical reactions.
8. On all material substances.
This emanation of light is the Od of Reichenbach. The word is derived from the Sanskrit, and signifies “something that blows or waves,” e.g., breath, vapor, flame.
Reichenbach had, up to 1856, investigated 197 sensitives, and at least 100 others without reducing his results to writing. The fundamental investigations of the Od have, therefore, been carried out in nearly 300 cases with inexhaustible patience and pertinacity. Control experiments were instituted by Professor of Physics von Baumgarten, in this manner: He placed unnoticed in the hands of a sensitive, instead of a magnet, a piece of common iron in magnet form which (the difference) was immediately perceived by the individual. Among his 197 sensitives were at least 100 scientifically trained men (physicians, students of natural science, chemists, mathematicians, philosophers).
Each fundamental experiment was repeated 10, 20, 100 times. The foresight, care, exactitude and circumspection accompanying these experiments permit of no contradiction. Reichenbach;s name, as discoverer of the paraffins, creosotes, etc., and in other matters of medical and technical import, already had weight in scientific circles when he began these difficult experiments. In 1845 he met at Carlsbad the celebrated chemist, Berzelius, the discoverer of selenium, thorium, silicium. As Berzelius was much interested in the Od, Reichenbach looked about for sensitives in Carlsbad, and through the kindness of the local physician, Hochberger, became acquainted with an excellent subject in the person of a Miss von Secendorf, of Sondershausen.
Among other experiments demonstrated by Reichenbach to his illustrious confrere was the following: Reichenbach had stuffed his pockets full of a number of chemical preparations, each carefully wrapped in paper, and without superscription. He spread them upon a table, and directed the sensitive to move the fingers of the right hand about among them without opening the packets. She soon remarked to the two observers that she was differently affected by the various packets; many were without effect, while others exerted peculiar attraction upon her hand.
Reichenbach desired her to separated accordingly the packets into two groups. This done, he took a group in each hand and placed them before Berzelius, one group non-attractive, the other attractive. Berzelius opened and found in the non-attractive group: Sulphur, SElenium, Graphites, Tell., Ox. ac. crystals, Tart ac., Sod. sulph., Cup. sulph., Rochelle salt, and Saltpetre.
In the attractive group: Plat., Nickel, Cu., Zn., Rhodium, Pb., Iridium, Stan., Morphine, Atropin, Caffeine.
Not a little amazed, the father of electro-chemical science beheld in the attractive group only electro-positive; in the non- attractive, electro-negative bodies. The pleased surprise of the great chemist was so much the livelier as in this phenomenon he saw a new and unexpected proof of the dual value of substances, and added guaranty for the correctness of his system, and that from a source hitherto unsuspected, the human nerve. What had cost infinite labor and acuity for a century to accomplish, was done by untutored, sensitive girl in ten minutes. “From that hour,” says Reichenbach, “Berzelius showed a lively interest in my experiments”.
This power, dynamic, by which substances react upon the human nerve and make their presence physically felt, is the Od.
If one further investigates this quality, it will be found that the attractive, positive bodies, feel warm to the left hand, cool to the right, and that reversely, the non-attractive negatives seem cool to the left, warm to the right hand.
The electro-chemical relations, which you will also find in Farrington, p. 386, in his discussion of mineral substances is also the Odic relation, electro-positive or odic-positive, as for example: Hydrogen, Kali, Natrum, Lith., Calc., Baryta, Zn., alumina, etc.; the electro-negative, as Ozone, Nit. ac., Sul ac., Sul., Iod., Brom., Chlor., Graph., Sil., Phos., are also Odnegative.
Compare also our lists of right and lefts side, R.R., and you will find that Ant., ARs., Carbo. F1. ac., Nit. ac., Sul. ac., Sul., Iod., Graph., Sel., purely Odnegative substances, affect the left side, while Odnegative substances, affect the left side, while Odpositive, Alumina, Atropin, Arg., Merc., Aur., Zn., Pb. (Ferr.), are right side, R.R.
The Odpositive R. R. affect, therefore, the Odnegative, right side, and the Odnegative the Odpositive, left side.
But yet more. Since the upper half of the body is Odnegative, we must conclude that Odpositive R.R. which affect the right side will also first and chiefly act upon the head. (Cf., Cuprum, Zinc, Arg>). The Odnegative R.R., first, Sul. then Selen., Brom., Iod., Phos., ARs., begin their work at the other, the Odpositive end of the body.
Farrington remarks: The electro-negative work upon the intestines in the A.M., on the chest in the P.M., i.e., from below upwards; the reverse is true of the electro-positive, which act upon the chest in the A.M., and intestinally later in the day.
One may thus say, according to the seat of the disease or the time of development of symptoms: This patient needs an Odpositive or Odnegative remedy.
I have already stated the right side and upper half of the body are Odnegative. I must add the back is also negative, while the left side, lower half, and anterior surface of the body are positive. Man is, therefore, polarized, in three (3) axes; above, right, behind, stand in opposition to below, left front. Homoeopaths have long known that it is not a matter of indifference if a neuralgia or pulmonic inflammation be right or left-sided. It is an old hygienic rule that the head should be kept cool, the feet warm. Why? To the Odnegative head cold is homogeneous; to the opposite Odpositive end, heat, even as heat is developed at the positive electric pole.
