A study of remedy relationship has several methods of approach, for the similarity between groups springs from several sources. Just as the similarity and the complementary relationship between Belladonna and Calcarea carbonica originates from the abundance of the salts of lime existing in the earth where the deadly nightshade grow, so is the relationship between Pulsatilla and the Kali group brought about by the wealth of potassium salts in the soil where the wind-flower thrives. Carbon exists in the pure state only as a diamond.
It is comparatively pure in lampblack or carboneum. The source of carbon determines its action. Hahnemann used principally three carbons, Carbo animalis, Carbo vegetabilis and Graphites. The first, derived from the animal kingdom, using bones as the source, contains necessarily some phosphate of lime. Carbo vegetabilis, obtained chiefly from a variety of the beech tree, contains some potassium carbonate. Graphites is contaminated always with iron. Conversely, the Agaricus never grows where there is coal; hence we find no relationship between Agaricus and the Carbons.
Another source of relationship between substances is the transmission, through the product derived from the animal, of the habits and characteristics of the creature, into the prover. Thus the jealousy of the bee, the coiling of Lachesis from left to right, the constricting power of serpents in general, the leaping and running and the sudden surprise attacks and retreat of the Tarentula hispanica, are all carved deeply into the provings. Psorinum, a product of psoric soil, is linked closely with Sulphur, the king of antipsorics.
It is written in the Talmud that “the things above are as the things below.” In a broad sense all matter is related, for fundamentally all matter is proton. The proton proper, nucleus of the hydrogen atom, is primeval inertial mass, while the electron, planetary particle of the hydrogen atom, is matter solely by virtue of its proton content, its component subprotons suspended in the atomic process.
There are ninety-two kinds of terrestrial atoms, hydrogen being the simplest and lightest, uranium being the heaviest and most complex, and ninety others in an ascending scale of atomic numbers and atomic weights between these two. Each atom has from one to ninety-two exterior planetary electrons, and the number of these electrons determines the position of the atom in the table of elements. Thus an atom with one planetary electron is an atom of hydrogen. Eight planetary electrons identify the oxygen atom, nine fluorine, ten neon, and thus on up to uranium with its ninety-two electrons as planets.
Fluorine has an atomic weight of nineteen, being thus a synthesis of nineteen hydrogen atoms, with nineteen protons in the nucleus, and ten nuclear electrons serving with the nine exterior electrons, to keep the atom in a state of electrical neutrality.
The nucleus of the atom contains all the protons, and the total number of protons represents the atomic weight, the weight of a single proton being regarded as unity. Since the weight of the electron is relatively insignificant, the nucleus carries practically the entire mass of the atom.
The nucleus as a whole is positively charged, consisting of two parts; an inert core containing half the protons neutralized by an appropriate number of electrons, and apparently taking no part in the chemical behavior of the atom; the remainder of the protons grafted in some way on the neutral core, active, with their positive charges and contributing to the electrical behavior of the atom. The number of these active protons is always equal to the number of revolving planetary electrons. It is these planetary electrons which determine the chemical properties of the atom.
The atomic number of an element represents the number of active protons in the nucleus, and is usually about half the total number of protons, being sometimes less than half, and there can be no fractions. The atomic number is therefore about half the atomic weight, this number at the same time representing the number of planetary electrons.
The periodic law in chemistry reveals that the properties of the elements both physical and chemical are periodic functions of the atomic weights; so that when the elements are arranged in the order of increasing atomic weights, similar properties recur periodically, as we proceed from one end of the array to the other.
As far back as 1829, Johann Wolfang Dobereiner, a German professor of Chemistry at Jena, had drawn attention to the existence of certain approximate numerical relations among the atomic weights of elements that possess strikingly similar properties. When these similar elements are arranged in sets of threes, and if in each triad the three elements are placed in the order of their atomic weights, the middle element was shown to have an atomic weight almost exactly equal to the arithmetic mean of the other two, and exhibited properties intermediate in character between those of the other two elements.
Thus lithium is 6.94 and potassium is 39.10, the mean of which is 23.02 and the atomic weight of sodium is 23. In the triad calcium, barium and strontium, calcium equals 40.07, barium equals 137.37, the mean of which is 88.72, and the atomic weight of strontium is 87.63. The triads of chlorine, bromine, iodine, and sulphur, selenium and tellurium offer similar evidence.
These facts, of whose precise significance we are still ignorant, forcibly suggest a relationship among the elements similar to that prevailing among the paraffins in organic chemistry, for the paraffins all have analogous properties, and their molecular weights form also an arithmetic series.
In 1862 De Chancourtois conceived the idea of arranging all of the known elements along a helix, each element being represented by a point, whose distance from some fixed point as measured along the helix, was numerically equal to the atomic weight of the element. He chose the unit of measurement, to be used in laying off the positions of the various points, so that a difference of 16 in the atomic weights of two elements corresponded to a complete turn of the helix. He then endeavored to show that similarity in properties in any group of elements corresponds to some principle geometric relation among the representative points. Chlorine, bromine and iodine, for example, are represented by points that lie sensibly upon a straight line parallel to the axis of the helix.
In 1864, Newlands published two papers in which he exhibited the elements in a tabular array, following approximately the order of increasing atomic weights, but not without some slight transpositions. He pointed out that the elements in his scheme fall into groups, and he compared the members of each group to the notes composing one octave in music, referring to the regularities as the “law of octaves.”.
In 1869 Mendeleeff presented a paper before the Russian Chemical Society wherein he disclosed the manner in which various properties of the elements change with the atomic weights. He concluded that the measurable properties of the elements do not, as a rule, increase or decrease continuously as the atomic weight increase, but that they exhibit a species of periodicity, increasing and decreasing alternately, though apparently not with sufficient regularity to admit of representation by a definite mathematical expression.
In 1870 Lothar Meyer, independently of Mendeleeff, published a paper on the same subject in which he demonstrated that the periodicity of the atomic volumes of the elements is especially marked, atomic volume being defined as the quotient obtained by dividing the atomic weight by the specific gravity of an element in the solid state. The atomic weights of the elements in Meyers diagram are laid off along a horizontal line or axis, and the corresponding atomic volumes are placed along a vertical line, a series of points being obtained corresponding to the respective elements, through these points a broken line is drawn, and in proceeding along the line from left to right, the different elements are passed in the order of ascending atomic weights. There are five regions in the diagram for which we possess no acceptable data concerning the specific gravities in the solid state, and for which therefore the atomic volumes remain unknown.
The broken line exhibits a marked tendency to vary in height in a periodic manner, now rising to a strongly accentuated maximum, and again sinking to a minimum. At the highest points in the diagram are the metals of the alkalis, sodium, potassium, rubidium and caesium, which exhibit a striking similarity in their physical and chemical properties. In passing down the line to the right of these elements, the first points located are those corresponding to magnesium, calcium, strontium and barium, which also form a group with marked similarity in their properties.
Moving downward from the highest points to the left, the group comprising neon, argon, krypton and xenon are located in corresponding positions, being characterized by their singular chemical inertness. Beyond these on the left lies the fluorine, chlorine, iodine, and bromine group; and next beyond these lies oxygen, sulphur, selenium and tellurium. Many other singular correspondences are observed on the diagram, and as it highly improbable that these are merely accidental, the conclusion is obvious that some fundamental unity either of structure, material, or internal motion, pervades the substances that we call the elements.
