The Infinitesimal Dose.

The Infinitesimal Dose.

     In
an early chapter I mentioned that the infinitesimal dose has become in
the popular mind the most characteristic feature of homśopathy, though
the word “Homśopathy” itself in no way includes
“infinitesimal” in its meaning. Its use arose in this way.
When Hahnemann began to employ drugs with the precision his method
required, he found that the ordinary doses acted much too powerfully,
and caused great aggravation of symptoms before the cure took place. He
then by degrees reduced his doses until he could get the curative effect
without aggravating. In some instances he found that the attenuating
process actually developed and increased the curative powers of the
medicine. The method he adopted was dilute tinctures in the proportion
of 1 to 99 of rectified spirit, and to grind insoluble substances with
sugar of milk in the same proportions. For the higher attenuations the
process was repeated, the same proportions being observed at each step.

     The importance of the
invention of this method of preparing drugs is very great, scarcely
second, in my opinion, to that of the discovery of the law of similars
itself. It is highly probable that but for the question of the
infinitesimal dose, homśopathy would have been recognised by the
profession at large long ago. But homśopathy (though it may be
practised by those who never use anything but material doses) never can
be dissociated from a knowledge of the power of the infinitesimal, and
never could have been developed anything like the perfection and power
in which Hahnemann left it, apart from the use of infinitesimals. Hence
the popular association of the two ideas of homśopathy and
infinitesimal is fundamentally true, though it may be etymologically
faulty.

     It will be seen that in
Hahnemann’s centesimal scale, each step of the process divides the
original quantity by 100, and hence each higher number represents a
higher degree of attenuation. But the attenuation is so graduated that
no matter to what high figure it is carried,

something
of the original substances must remain, though it may be far beyond the
power of chemistry to detect its presence.

     Homśopaths have also
used a decimal scale of attenuation. This makes each remove a divisor of
ten. This is noted by the letter “x,” 1X being 1/10th, 2X
being 1/100th, 3X being 1/1000th and so on. Graduated attenuation is the
essence of the method, and the result is development of power.

 
 

     The researches of
Faraday, Tyndall, Helmholtz, Crookes and, later, of the Curies and other
investigators of the phenomena of radio activity, have made it easier to
conceive of infinitesimal quantities and their powers, and the
infinitesimal of homśopathy should not therefore prove such stumbling
blocks to its friends and foes as they have done heretofore. When we
find Helmholtz saying that at the period when our planetary system
consisted of a sphere of nebulous matter reaching to the path of the
outermost planet, it would require “

several
millions of cubic miles of such matter to weigh a single grain ;”
and when Faraday tells us that ” each
atom extends, so to say, throughout the whole of the solar system,”
it is plain that the everyday conceptions of matter and its
possibilities will have to be revolutionised There is nothing more
worthy of investigations by masters of physical science than the facts
connected with the action of homśopathic infinitesimals. The human body
is a much more sensitive reagent than anything known to natural
philosophy, and in conceiving and demonstrating the powers of
infinitesimal quantities Hahnemann was as much ahead of his time as he
was in demonstrating the existence of the law of similars.

     The quotations I have
just made are taken from a pamphlet entitled

The
Science of Homśopathy, by Mr. Buist
Picken, in which the author seeks to apply the known facts of the
phenomena in the world of physics to explain the fact of Homśopathic
cures. To this pamphlet (which the late Prof. Tyndall characterised as
“marked by extreme ingenuity’) I contributed a short introduction,
summarising the argument, and it may be interesting to quote a passage
therefrom. It will serve at once to show the line in which a scientific
explanation of the apparent paradox of “like” curing
“like” may be found, and of the other paradox of a smaller
quantity of the right remedy being actually more powerfully curative
than a larger one would be.

     Here is my summary of
the argument :-

     “The
forces of the human organism are identical with the forces of nature,
and obey the same law. Health and disease are dynamic or spiritual in
nature, and originate in molecular and atomic motions. The law of motion
applies to the phenomena of health and disease, and the action of
remedies is identical with the phenomena of ‘interference’ recognised in
the natural sciences. As equal waves of water proceeding from different
directions intersect each other (‘interfere’), and either increase (as
summit corresponds to summit), or annual (as summit corresponds to
furrow), the motion of the molecules of water, so a medicine (whose
power is dynamic) acts in disease. When the molecular disturbance of the
organism corresponds to the molecular motion of the medicine given, the
intensity of the disturbance is either aggravated or annulled, according
as the action is in the same or the opposite direction. The action of
the curative agent is like in appearance, but contrary in
direction.” This is the main thesis of Mr. Picken’s article, but
there are several other points brought out which well deserve serious
attention. For instance, the author shows that each substance possesses
the property of absorbing any motion which corresponds to its own
molecular motion (illustrating the like-to-like formula). He brings
forward the fact that (in Prof. Tyndall’s words) “the waves which
are most effectual in shaking asunder the atoms of compound molecules
are frequently those of least mechanical power. Billows, to use a strong
expression, are incompetent to produce effects which are readily
produced by ripples” – as showing a possibility of elucidation a
law of dosage on the grounds of physical science. He contends that, as
Boscovich says, atoms are to be regarded as “centres of
force ;” or, according to Faraday, that “force
constitutes matter ;” – that there is no “space”
other than some quality of matter between the particles of vapours,
liquids, and solids alike ; – that, for example, “water is not
two particles of oxygen and hydrogen side by side, but the two spheres
of power mutually penetrated, and the centres even coinciding ;
” or, as he puts it in another place, “Gravitation is a
property of matter dependent on a certain force, and it is this force
which constitutes matter. In this view, matter is not merely mutually
penetrable ; but each atom extends, so to say, throughout the whole
of the solar system, yet always retaining its own centre of force.”
“What do you know of the atom,” asks Faraday, “apart from
its force ? You imagine a nucleus which may be called a, and
Surround it by forces which may be called

m ;
to my mind the a,
or nucleus vanishes, and the substance consists in the power of m :
“- which provides the highest scientific authority for the
suggestion that it may be impossible to reach the limit of the
attenuation to which Homśopathic medicines may be carried.

     The conception of the
action of infinitesimal provides a serviceable working basis ; but
it need not be regarded as either essential or final. It is an attempt
to provide an explanation of the facts, but the facts are in no way
dependent on its correctness.

     Many
old-school authorities have adopted Homśopathic remedies into their
text books but the effect on general practice has not been great,
principally for the reason that they have not had the courage to adopt
Homśopathic dosage. They reduced their own doses very far-as far as
one-tenth or one-hundredth of a grain, or a drop of some remedies – but
they have not gone far enough. Pasteur and Koch, who have been working
on Homśopathic lines, have spoiled their work for the same reason. If
Pasteur had simply taken, the Homśopathic preparation of hydrophobic
virus, which has been in use since 1833, and which was prepared without
any resort to cruelty, he would have gained no kudos, it is true ;
but he might have advanced science, and saved himself from the reproach
of having killed numbers of persons with laboratory hydrophobia. Koch,
again, if he had taken the tuberculin of the homśopaths [See Dr.
Burnett’s

New Cure of
Consumption], and adopted the
Homśopathic dosage, might have spared himself the trouble of
experimenting on guinea-pigs, and have saved Virchow the trouble of
making a number of post-mortem examinations on the bodies of human
beings who died before their time in consequence of his tuberculin
treatment. Koch reduced his dosage as for as he dared -down to
milligrammes – but these doses proved powerful enough to kill, and to
scare most practitioners from ever using the drug again. Homśopaths,
however, use it with perfect safety in their own dosage, guided by the
effects it has produced on persons who took it in the trails that were
made with it at first, and by the symptoms of Homśopathic provings.

>>>>>