FURTHER REMARKS ON PLUS DOSAGE


Doubtless it is a sign of incompetent prescribing, but from time to time it has seemed profitable to search for yet more variations of the plus method, and one such has proved to be of undoubted value when ones range of potencies of a well indicated remedy is limited.


[Presented by title before I.H.A., Bureau of Materia Medica, June 22, 1934.].

Since April, 1931, when my paper on Plus Dosage appeared in the Homoeopathic Recorder, I have used that method more and more, though not entirely deserting the single dose or the other variants of the plus, double and triple dosage.

Doubtless it is a sign of incompetent prescribing, but from time to time it has seemed profitable to search for yet more variations of the plus method, and one such has proved to be of undoubted value when ones range of potencies of a well indicated remedy is limited.

I remember a comment on my previous paper in a letter from Dr. H. A. Roberts. He feared that Americans would not have the patience to follow with accuracy the detailed instructions. That difficulty is obviated now.

Suppose that, having picked the similimum, one finds only the 30,200 and 1M. potencies available. Give a single dose of the 30 but, when the time comes for a repeat dose, instead of giving the 30 again, subsequently rising to the 200, potentise the 30 one degree, that is, give a single dose of the 31. When the next dose is required, potentise the 30 to 32 and give a single dose of that, and so on.

In that way the action of any one potency can be considerably prolonged, postponing to a much later date the necessity for a change of remedy, and ensuring that the potentising is correctly done. [ (Did not Hahnemann himself advocate raising the potency one degree when the remedy required repetition ? We cannot question this authority.–ED.)].

I have found this particularly helpful in diseases of marked chronicity and slow improvement such as rheumatoid arthritis in which one requires remedies of prolonged as well as deep action.

It may be asked how high any potency can be raised for good results. This usually settles itself because, after several doses– the number varying with remedy and patient — a much longer period of improvement intervenes, and I consider it advisable to begin with the next higher stock potency on the patients return.

On testing the activity of successive potencies, Dr. W. E. Boyd of Glasgow found that negative phases occurred but that with further dynamisation, a positive phase reappeared.

There are times when one is tempted to say that as long as the similimum is prescribed, it does not matter a how it is given; for instance, an old lady with coronary thrombosis is still improving steadily seven weeks after taking Verat. vir. 30 three-hourly (four). But on the other hand there are patients who will not respond to a remedy given in one way, yet will react well if it be exhibited in a different manner. Failure to obtain results does not invariably indicate change of remedy.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.

C. Gordon