The minute dose of potentized drug used by Hahnemannians has for years been considered fanciful and of no more consequence than a placebo. In making this statement I do not wish to underemphasize the beneficent value of the placebo. Hahnemann himself said that a physician should have character enough to give a placebo when needed. Another physician, the late Dr. Stuart Close, called it “the second best remedy”, he, of course, inferring the best remedy in all cases to be the indicated or homoeopathic one.
When in doubt prescribe nothing. Give the patient at least an even break for his life. Remove the obstacles to recovery, correct the diet, improve, simplify and untangle the daily routine, bring him back close to the heart of nature and perchance nature may speak to him and infuse into him again the breath of life.
But to return to the potentized drug. There are two potency scales used in homoeopathic practice, the decimal and the centesimal. In the decimal scale one part of drug is triturated in nine parts sugar of milk, making the 1x trituration. In making the next higher potency one part of the 1x would be triturated with nine parts sugar of milk and so on. Above the third trituration water is used instead of sugar of milk and the vial succussed to insure diffusion of the drug throughout the solution. In the last dilution or potency taken off alcohol is employed instead of water in order to prevent deterioration.
In preparing potencies on the centesimal scale the process is exactly the same except ninety-nine parts sugar of milk or other vehicle or diluent is used each time instead of nine parts.
Potencies are marked 1x, 3x, 6x, 12x, 30x, and so on in the decimal scale and 3rd, 6th, 30th, 200th, 1000th, 10M or 10,000th and so on in the centesimal scale.
It can readily be seen that the 200th, 1000th, 10M and higher potencies contain and inconceivably small amount of the original drug substance, although mathematically absolute zero could never be reached though the process were carried to infinity.
Now theoretically just process were carried? the real power of the drug was never the crude material per se. An invisible intangible, yet specific drug energy is imprisoned as it were in the material encasements which we see and handle. The process of potentizing merely serves to remove the limiting material envelope thereby setting free to an ever increasing degree the specific chemical, electro-chemical or medicinal energy. I say specific for the energy or vibration of Digitalis differs from that of Belladonna, each as it were being an entity in itself.
Now why does not the liberated drug energy contained in he higher potencies escape altogether and vanish into space? That potencies retain their virtue or power undiminished for many years in corked bottles kept under ordinarily suitable conditions has been vouched for by many reliable observers and in recent years confirmed by delicate laboratory tests.
These medicines have acted so promptly, so decisively as to leave no room for doubt as to their inherent energy. How can this be explained? Recall that no mater how far the potentizing process be continued absolute mathematical zero cannot be reached even in respect to the material drug substance. The least possible even an infinitesimal portion of the material will continue indefinitely to act as a focus, centre or retainer, if not actually a container of the specific medicinal energy.
The high centesimal potencies use in homoeopathic practice are not things to be trifled with. Correctly used according to the principles and the rules laid down by the great masters of the homoeopathic art they are tremendous forces for good and have saved countless lives from an untimely end. They have restored health and vigor in thousands of cases pronounced hopeless by medical experts they may do irreparable harm; they may bring on a terrific reaction or aggravation which it may be impossible to control. Use these high potencies intelligently and handle them with care.
In considering the action of the potentized homoeopathic remedy the question of susceptibility must be taken into consideration. a person must be susceptible to measles for example, or he could not contract the disease. Just how large a dose of what does one receive when he is exposed to measles and contracts the disease? It is nothing that can be seen, touched, weighed or measured, again we find ourselves in the realm of the infinitesimal.
A number of years ago a German woman came into the clinic and said, “Doctor, I half never been well since I had die influence.” I had never thought before about the derivation of the word influenza, but it comes from the Latin “in” and “fluo” to flow into-hence an influence, and the lady was right after all. Again an elusive, imponderable, infinitesimal something but it does the business in epidemic years wherever it contacts those who are susceptible.
Now if an infinitesimal can make the susceptible sick, why should not a highly potentized remedy capable of producing symptoms similar to those of the individual sick patient make him well? I affirm that it does and furthermore that any earnest, sincere and unprejudiced physician can prove it for himself to his lasting satisfaction and with ever-increasing joy and success in the practice of his profession.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
A true chronic disease may be ameliorated for a time by diet, hygiene, etc., and these aids to cure should never be omitted, but the vitiation of the Life Forces in true chronic disease is too intense to permit of healing by these methods alone. They are usually not sufficient. Some one or more vital functions of the body are acting wrongly, and if the evil is not merely superficial, it requires a proper and deep acting stimulus to correct the wrong acting function. FRASER MACKENZIE, C.E.I.
Eugene passed away at his country home on Spring Hill, Tuscarora Township, Bradford County, PA. He had been in ill health for several months. His wife, the former Caroline Davis, whom he had married in Philadelphia in 1910, had passed away in 1961. They spent most of their marriage lives in Swarthmore, PA.
Dr. Underhill was a member of the United Lodge of Theosophy, a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, and the Pennsylvania Medical Society. He was also the editor of the Homœopathic Recorder.