Doses
and Signatures: Robert Cooper as
Homeopathic Rebel and Innovator
by Peter Morrell
Mental particles – 10 June 2002
– Peter Morrell
Doses and Signatures: Robert Cooper as
Homeopathic Rebel and Innovator
Briefly, my task is to show Dr. Robert Thomas Cooper
[1844-1903] as a key member of late 19th century British
homeopathy and a little-known reformist of the movement, along with his
colleagues Thomas Skinner [1825-1906], James Compton Burnett [1840-1901]
and John Henry Clarke [1853-1931], who between them comprised the
leading members of the so-called Cooper Club [6]. Yet, unlike
these colleagues, he rooted his entire medical practice in two
innovations unique to him the use of single drop doses of tincture,
fresh plant juice or 3x potency, very widely spaced; and the use of
obscure field-plants whose healing properties he divined through a
somewhat unorthodox approach [7].
Skinner
Burnett
Clarke
The Vexed Matter of Dosage
Cooper bares his teeth and reveals his truly
reforming character when he states that “all great improvements
in science are made by men who throw off the trammels of previous
teachings and begin by a complete and radical overhauling of the entire
subject,” [1; 389]. This is clearly what he feels Hahnemann did
in his first formulation of homeopathy based upon the experiments of
proving drugs on the healthy. In this way, “Hahnemann went to
work
and I claim the liberty to follow in his footsteps,” [1;
389]. This declaration of Coopers acts like a bench-mark by which he
hopes his own work will be judged against that of the Master, and this
is a commonly employed trick found in many radical homeopaths who seek
such validation for their pioneering work. They evoke the spirit of
Hahnemann as a supporter of their own work. Cooper sought such
validation for his decision to “give drugs in single doses in
chronic and obstinate forms of disease
especially of single doses of
the undiluted juices of plants,” [1; 389], which soon became
the hallmark of his unique method of therapeutics, which he liked to
term arborivital medicine a medicine based upon the life of
trees, or the life-force of plants. The basis of his declaration is also
that “in an experience of nearly thirty years I have never seen
results so pronounced and unquestionable from repeated dosing,”
[1; 391].
Cooper maintains that the reason homeopathy often
fails to cure is because “we have not allowed a sufficient time
for the appropriate remedy to act,” [2; 13]. We need to give
the remedy sufficient time to act; “a single solitary dose with
a sufficient interval allowed for the manifestation of its curative
effects,” [2; 13]. We need to remember, “that the
reaction it sets up in the organism is a reaction which goes on working
to the ultimate dispersion of the infirmity,” [2; 14]. In his
quest for therapeutic enlightenment, Cooper personally resolved “to
throw aside all provings and repertories and to rely simply upon the
action of the uninterfered-with curative principle of plants, which I
believe to be none other than growth-force,” [2; 14] and to
employ “tinctures
made by myself from ordinary field plants in
accordance with indications such as occurred to me from the habits of
the plants, their appearances, and other apparently unimportant
features,” [2; 14]. And the success he achieved has been “much
greater than I have ever been able to secure by the methods usually
pursued,” [2; 14]. These are what he terms “glorious
results
obtained from the prescription of single doses,” [2;
15]. And he basically contends that homeopathys failures nearly
always arise “from the too frequent repetition of the
dose,” [2; 15] and that this reason alone though often
overlooked – is easily the most important.
Cooper reviews the search for laws relating to “the
much-vexed question of the dose,” [4; 115] and concludes that “these
attempts it must be confessed have been very barren of result,”
[4; 115]. However, he then goes on to proclaim that “there does
exist a law of the dose
[which] has reference not to the quantity of
the dose, but to the frequency of its administration,” [4;
115]. According to Cooper, this law states that the “single dose
must
[only] be repeated in a measure proportionate to the duration of the
disease,” [4; 115]. In practical terms, this means that recent
and acute illnesses can benefit from receiving justifiably frequent,
repeated doses of the right remedy, but that long-standing chronic
conditions require much greater spaces of time to stand between each
single dose of the remedy. Stating that “no topic of discussion
has created greater excitement or given rise to more warmth of feeling,”
[4; 114] in homeopathy, he then contends that the dose law has been
focused far too much upon the size or level of dilution of the dose of a
drug, while few have even considered the matter of frequency.
He also distinguishes between what he terms “the
dynamic force,” [4; 116] of the drug in question, as compared
with “the material particles of the drug,” [4; 116]. He
regards them of having very different effects, claiming that the dynamic
force is responsible for its curative action, while the toxic effects
stem solely from the material particles: “this force has nothing
whatever to do with the material particles of the drug,” [4;
116]. This view would seem to be akin to Hahnemanns lengthy
convolutions about primary action of a drug being due to the toxic
impact of the drug upon the organism, and the secondary [= healing]
actions being due to the reactions to it by the vital force. Such an
interpretation of Cooper is reinforced when you consider his comment
that, “the homeopathic physician ought to
study the laws and
the behaviour of the true curative principle of drugs quite
apart from
the action of the gross particles of which the original drug substance
consists,” [4; 116], which he also regards as a promising area
for future research.
His main contention regarding “the single,
solitary, uninfluenced, uninterfered-with dose,” [3; 67-8] is
that the very best results come slowly and that we should exercise much
greater patience to see the remedy do its work entirely at its own pace.
Thus, “in one dose of a remedy rests its curative power,”
[3; 68] and that “this power does not exhaust its influence
within a short time,” [3; 68], but should “be allowed
to continue acting till all manifestation of its operation has
ceased,” [3; 68]. One can take that to mean a minimum of 2-3
weeks after a single dose, and in many cases several months. Such an
approach stands in stark contrast to those who repeated remedies
frequently, changed remedies often and employed higher potencies, such
as 6, 12 or 30, when the tincture or 3x in single dose would, in Coopers
view, suffice.
The Value of Provings
What is even more remarkable is the following
contention that Cooper then erects against too heavy a reliance upon
provings as being of much use in such investigations of the effects of
drugs: “if the dose requires to be repeated in proportion to the
duration of the disease
[then] we cannot prove it by administering
drugs to the healthy,” [4; 116]. He also regards what he calls,
“the present temper of the profession,” [4; 116] as a
major obstacle to such research, because they find it difficult to
acknowledge the reality of medicinal action two or three weeks after the
dose, as it is, and “yet such symptoms constitute a large
proportion of our provings,” [4; 116-7]. What Cooper means is
that the provings do contain symptoms that have been accrued over 2-4
weeks after the dosing, or even longer in some sensitive individuals,
and yet such lengths of time are not generally allowed to elapse after
each dose when given to the sick. He therefore maintains that this
mismatch between the data of the provings and the observations of cases
being treated supports his view that for chronic disease, doses should
be much more widely spaced so as to allow the healing action on the
organism to become exhausted by its own power, rather than be hampered
by giving repeated doses that must, of themselves, over-stimulate the
innate healing powers.
Maintaining that obtaining such real knowledge of how
remedies cure sickness, “is impossible by provings upon the
healthy,” [4; 117], Cooper then contends that homeopaths should
“fall back upon experiences deduced from acquaintance with
disease and its treatment,” [4; 117]. Cooper then proposes that
by looking at chronic diseases of the most stubborn and longstanding
character, we can begin to advance our knowledge of how change can be
induced in such conditions by very widely spaced single doses of drugs.
In choosing first deafness and then cancers as being precisely such
diseases, he then devotes the rest of his career to investigating the
power and effects of such a strategy upon such diseases. This he felt
would then provide “as strong a proof as it is possible to
obtain that such regulation of the dose is absolutely required,”
[4; 118]. He then goes on to declare that “experience has
abundantly shown me that the high dilution is not really the important
agent in the cure
it is
the single dose, and the single dose alone,
that is the important factor,” [4; 118]. He goes on to state
that he has enjoyed “ample opportunities
within the last year
or so,” [4; 118] to test this hypothesis and the results have
been “so strikingly in favour of giving the remedy in single
dose and at long intervals,” [4; 118-9], thus allowing him to
assert without hesitation that “the interval is of more
importance to the cure than the dilution,” [4; 119].
Provings and Signatures
The basis for Coopers views on dosage are very
interesting in their own right. For example, like so many would-be
rebels, he traces much of his pioneering attitude back to Hahnemann
himself, maintaining that, “Hahnemann insisted, during the whole
of his life, upon the necessity for giving one dose at a time and
allowing it to act,” [3; 65]. Though Cooper accepted the great
detail and value of provings, he also maintained that there were other
useful methods for determining remedy action as well. In this regard, he
was certainly a bit of a rule-breaker. He believed that “the
practitioner ought also to be able to go amongst any variety of plants,
or any variety of medicinal agents, and determine their actions as
weapons for the dispersion of disease in a manner undreamt of by any
code of rules enunciated previously to homeopathy,” [3; 65].
Such a view is of course highly contentious even today, and in the 1890s
certainly amounted to a high order medical blasphemy within the
homeopathic movement, where codes of rules were highly treasured
possessions that were seen to demarcate homeopathy from the unprincipled
medicine they habitually condemned as allopathy.
Cooper obviously decided that one should “allow
oneself some latitude,” [3; 66] in deciding upon these matters,
and that one should seriously question the view that “all
medicine is contained in the repertory,” [3; 66]. In this
manner, he claimed to be “returning to the methods which, in the
early days of homeopathy, Hahnemann undoubtedly employed,” [3;
66]. In this manner, he justifies his original methods by reference back
to the Master, especially regarding his views on “the solitary
dose of substances,” [3; 66]. He boldly drives very close
indeed to the doctrine of signatures employed in previous medical
systems [herbalism] when he states that he takes “advantage of
all kinds of indications such as occur to me from the habits of the
plant, their appearances, and apparently unimportant features,”
[3; 66]. In his observations of how drugs act, he copies Hahnemann very
closely; believing that the power of the remedy to aggravate symptoms is
the same as its curative power, he then resolves that “this
aggravation be changed from being pernicious into being curative,”
[3; 66]. Resolving to use only single doses, he claims this approach “has
been abundantly shown by Hahnemann and his warmest disciples,” [3;
67].
Yet, in due course, he candidly admits to making some
deviations from the straight and narrow. However, “any departure
that I may be guilty of from the beaten tracks is to be judged of simply
and solely by result,” [3; 67]. He then blames too strict an
adherence to dogma as being one of the most pernicious forces in
homeopathy that has held back progress for far too long. In particular,
he denounces the desire in some quarters to mix homeopathy with
allopathy. “The great yearning displayed among members of our
profession to unite with orthodox practice has done much to damp the
zeal for homeopathy that once existed,” [3; 67], which has
rendered homeopathy into “the same languid, indifferent state,”
[3; 67]. His criticism suggests that the excessive indulgence of what
Clarke called pandering to allopaths weakened British homeopathy
and made it less capable of conducting bold and original research into
its core principles, purely for fear of upsetting allopathic colleagues.
Dr Robert
Thomas Cooper
Having cast doubt already upon the reliability of
provings data for the employment of medicine in sickness, Cooper then
goes into more detail about his alternative method of obtaining reliable
information about drugs in the field. He feels at the outset that “the
doctrine of signatures
[ought to be brought] into accord with modern
thought,” [5; 265], especially considering that “the
appearance of the roots or other parts of plants very often serve as a
guide to their administration in disease, owing to
[their] resemblance
to the diseases they cure,” [5; 265]. Clearly, regarding such
clues as gifts from ever-bountiful Nature, Cooper gives some fine
examples. These include the “virtues of Hydrangea in Diabetes,”
[5; 270] which everybody knows is “the thirstiest shrub known,
especially in the act of flowering,” [5; 270]; the leaves of Ledum
palustre are “somewhat spear-shaped,” [5; 270], and
thus its use for “penetrating wounds, bee and wasp stings, must
have been guided
by a special morphological feature of the
plant,” [5; 270]. As Cooper questions, such notions could never
have been derived from drug provings upon the healthy.
He does not regard this employment of signatures to
displace provings, but merely to supplement it, to flesh out more
details. He also maintains that the imperfect nature of all provings
must inevitably mean that some symptoms are missed and thus “these
symptoms cannot always be available for the purpose required,”
[5; 267] in treating the sick. The signatures that plants contain must
be seen as “any feature connected with plant life that suggests
the use of such plant as curative for any form of disease,” [5;
268]. While “modern thought has discarded it in toto,”
[5; 266] the idea of signatures, Cooper would have us “take
advantage of such knowledge,” [5; 269] and encourage the keen
student to “depend upon his recognition of these sign-boards and
his ability to decipher them,” [5; 268]. Even though such an
approach “depends entirely upon specialised vision,”
[5; 271], which keen students should endeavour to refine, this “should
not excite the ridicule of those whose vision has not been exercised
thereupon,” [5; 271]. In other words, we should be open-minded
in our approach to gaining deeper knowledge of drugs from all sources,
including both provings and signatures.
Sources
[1] R T Cooper, Some
Results of Single Doses, Homeopathic World, Sept 1 1894,
389-393
[2] R T Cooper, Calcarea
carbonica a Warning, Homeopathic World, 2 Jan 1893, 11-15
[3] R T Cooper, One
Dose – One Value, Homeopathic World, Feb 1 1893, 64-68
[4] R T Cooper, The
Dose-Frequency Law, Homeopathic World, March 1 1893, 114-123
[5] R T Cooper, Arborivital
Medicine, The Doctrine of Signatures, Homeopathic World, June
4 1898, 265-271
[6] Peter Morrell, From
Cooper Club to Flower Essences, Homeopathy Online 6, August
1998
[7] Peter Morrell, Robert
Thomas Cooper, Galway, Ireland: Homeopathic Times, Summer
2002