The assistant now picks up a remedy, steps three or four feet away from the rest of the vials and then lifts it until he has reached up the full length of his arm. During this upward movement, the percussion-note, with an occasional exception, suddenly becomes higher in pitch, the change taking place at different heights for different drugs. The only important drugs in this test are the occasional exceptions where there is no change in the percussion-note. These are always the drugs which cause the pupil and pulse-effects.
These three tests are thus a check on one another and can be used as a check on prescriptions made by means of symptomatology. When using all three tests for remedy-selection, the percussion-method is the most practical to use first and then it can be confirmed by means of the pupils and the pulse.
ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA.
The foregoing experiments are more like “Alice in Wonderland” experiences then like every-day happenings. Alice awoke from her dream to every-day life, but we wake to find ourselves entangled in these weird phenomena and must attempt to find where they fit into the orderly scheme of nature. Here is an energy with peculiar qualities. What laws govern it? The pupil-effect likens it to light but reveals nothing further. It passes through the glass vials, thus likening it to radiation-phenomena. The pulse- effect indicates that it causes physiological responses but reveals nothing more than its presence.
The percussion-effect is more promising. When the remedy is first picked up by the assistant, the percussion-note has a quality of flatness. As the remedy is lifted, the note becomes higher in pitch. These sounds have been analysed by competent persons. The lower tone is due to a damping effect. The higher pitch when the drug is lifted higher results because that which damped the note is no longer operative. What kind of influence can possibly damp the sound- vibrations caused by percussing the chest when a vial of medicine is picked up and what destroys the influence when the vial is raised three or four feet higher? We must have more data before answering.
Stand the subject at one side of a room, preferably facing East or West; percuss his chest at the point described before. The assistant is at the opposite side of the room with the remedies. When he picks up one, the note (with a few exceptions) is not damped as it was in the previous experiment. Have him move slowly with it toward the subject and the damping suddenly occurs at varying distances, depending upon the drug which is held. In the exceptional cases, the damping effect occurs as soon as the vial is touched or even before, while the hand is several inches above. These exceptions occur with drugs to which a subject is very sensitive. This experiment makes it appear that the one who handles the drug is mixed up with the effect. To settle this question, tie one of the vials to the end of a wooden rod a few feet long. Let the assistant pick up the pole by the other end and move the drug toward the subject. The effect will not occur until the vial is within less than a yard.
CONCLUSION.
The one who handles the remedy apparently functions as a variable condenser. The variable factor occurs in the first experiment when he lifts the hand which holds the remedy and in the second experiment when he moves from across the room toward the subject. In the first, he is close enough to the subject for all of the remedies to cause the damping effect when they are picked up. In the second, he is sufficiently far away to permit only the drugs to which the subject is most sensitive to cause the damping when they are touched.
The subject responds to more remedies when sitting than when standing. After a group of drugs have been tested while he is seated, have him stand and test those which came through and several more will be eliminated. Thus, the distance of the assistant, the position of the assistant and the position of the subject are factors for ascertaining the sensitiveness of the patient to a remedy.
Try this experiment. Take the small group of drugs which have been worked out on the subject; seat the subject at one end of an apartment. While he is being percussed, have the assistant take one of the drugs and walk as far away as he can, through different rooms, always holding the remedy toward the subject. If the remedy is one to which the subject is very sensitive, the percussion-note will remain damped for an indefinite distance, regardless of the walls between. The remedies to which he is less sensitive will lose their damping-effect at a lesser distance. At times, the damping-effect goes but it returns as the assistant gets further away. I have observed the damping-effect to hold when the remedy has been carried as much as two hundred feet away. The effects occur equally with higher or lower dilutions, which leads to the question: “How can we account for the occurrence of such phenomena with dilutions as great as 100th, 200th and higher?” This answer belongs to the future.
OBSERVERS OF THE PAST.
The discovery of this energy is not entirely new.
In 1849, Dr. Burk, a French physician, discovered that, when persons with hysterical anaesthesia were touched with certain metals, sensation was restored. He considered the phenomenon highly important and reported it to the faculty in Paris in 1851. For twenty-eight years he importuned the profession to investigate his findings and finally, in 1878, the Societe de Biologie of Paris appointed a Commission who confirmed Dr. Burks observation.
Different patients were affected by different metals and it was found that each patients anaesthesia was permanently cured when a preparation of the appropriate metal was given as a medicine. The observers considered the phenomena to be a peculiarity of the hysterical state instead of a peculiar quality of the metals and the investigation went no further.
Reichenbach, in 1851, claimed that there are emanations from objects such as magnets, crystals, the human body, metallic bodies, etc., which, brought into relation with certain sensitive persons, cause sensory reactions. He called this an odic or odyllic force and believed it to have a negative and a positive phase. Only subjective methods were available to demonstrate this theory so it was accepted by only borderland scientists. In 1867, Dr. Baylies of Brooklyn observed that he had ability to feel the energies of some remedies when the vials containing them were held in his hand and told this to Bernard Fincke; Fincke grasped the reciprocal fact that potentised drugs give off an energy and that some persons have an awareness of this energy.
He sought out such sensitive individuals and made records of the effects upon them caused by drugs held in the hand. He called this “proving by induction”. Neither Baylies nor Fincke had an inkling of any recognized energy with which to compare their observations and their fellow-physicians, although acknowledging these two men to be deep students and careful observers, thought their findings so revolutionary that they lacked the temerity to endeavour to verify them.
A few people have this which we term “awareness” and they can always tell which is the best of several remedies when they hold them in the hand. They all describe the sensation in about these words: “As though the vials were slightly sticky”.
Early in this century, Doctor George Starr White noticed effects when drugs were brought into relation with a person and he showed these effects to Albert Abrams Abrams experimented with the phenomena and evolved his theories and method of diagnosis and treatment.
The above-described tests are the outcome of research which had its inception in the efforts of the Committee appointed in 1922 by the International Hahnemannian Association to investigate Abrams methods. We are only at the threshold of a new science.
NEW YORK CITY.
DISCUSSION.
CHAIRMAN UNDERHILL: I am sure we have all enjoyed this very interesting and enlightening discussion and I think this type of investigation and study holds great possibilities for the future in regard to new means for selection of the remedy. It is going to be difficult to put homoeopathy in practice for the average person. They dont want to work the old gray matter too hard, but I think the time will come when some mechanical, electrical, or other means will be established to pick out the correct homoeopathic remedy.
We have several members of the Associations who are, I know, informed on this subject and I should like to hear discussion from them. Dr. Grimmer, Dr. Baker, Dr. Olds, Dr. Miller and any others who may wish to speak.
DR. C. R. MILLER: You say that “it will be discovered”. It is discovered. The instrument is made and it is to be had in Chicago. Dr. Ellis has prepared an instrument which we always use in selecting the remedy. I am doing it every day. This method is new to me and new to you, but all the emanations coming from the remedies can be read on a visible scale in front of the instrument. You can see the indicator move back and forth. You put the remedy there and put it near the patient and down goes the scale to normal if you have the right remedy.
