Hahnemann’s First Provings. – Peter Morrell

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Hahnemann’s
First Provings.

by Peter Morrell

Nude – 2005
– Peter Morrell

Hahnemann’s First Provings.

“From the earliest beginnings until now, the
materia medica has consisted only of false suppositions and fancies,
which is as good as no materia medica at all.” [The Organon,
v.110]

“Medicine tests [provings] constitute one of the
most critical points of Hahnemann’s teachings. This grandiose attempt
to acquire unhypothetical medical experience was outwardly justified by
the complete lack of objective methods of investigation and experimental
systems in those days…[Hahnemann had] the courage to break away from
hypotheses and systems

…” [Gumpert, 122]

This essay explores the early provings of Hahnemann
and attempts to place them into some kind of historical and conceptual
context.

Introduction

The first provings of Hahnemann really need to be
measured in two ways… first, against what came after them and the way
homeopathy unfolded forwards from that point, which is the view most
homeopaths adopt. And second against what existed before the provings
and where he got his remedies from. The plain fact is that most of the
remedies initially came from the allopathic materia medica. Without
doubt also, translation work opened up for him “a world rich in
the most glorious prospects,” [Goethe] of medical data,
therapeutic hints, clinical observations and notes about drug actions,
which must have enormously enriched his medical thinking and which
practically no-one else was party to. So, Hahnemann must have been
imbibing a wealth of clinical and therapeutic ideas from his many
translations and historical researches, during the 1780s and 1790s.

Measuring backwards from what followed is an
inherently deceptive approach as it fails to fully illuminate certain
crucial aspects of the project as it must have been conceived in
Hahnemann’s mind. The idea of experimentation on healthy subjects was
more or less floating in the air in that epoch: Haller expressed it
clearly, Stork also and Alexander, for example, made in 1766 a proving
of Camphora some years before Hahnemann’s experiment with Cinchona
bark. The idea of conducting provings probably came to Hahnemann from
Von Haller:

“Indeed, a medicine must first of all be essayed
in a healthy body, without any foreign admixture; when the odour and
taste have been examined, a small dose must be taken, and attention must
be paid to every change that occurs, to the pulse, the temperature,
respiration and excretions. Then, having examined the symptoms
encountered in the healthy person, one may proceed to trials in the body
of a sick person.” [von Haller, 12]

However, four key points seem clear about the first
provings. Firstly, they derived from his studies and detailed knowledge
of drugs in use at the time; secondly, that as the project evolved
empirically he must have been made acutely aware that the number,
subtlety and diversity of symptoms produced by a drug were much greater
than the clinical records had initially suggested; thirdly, that he
involved members of his family and circle of close friends
from an early stage: “the family…and every free moment of
every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest, was made use of for
the testing of medicines and the gathering of the most precise
information on their observed effects.” [Gumpert, 114]
Fourthly, he realised that the instructions to provers had to involve
them recording everything, every subtle change in their psycho-physical
totality and consciousness and not just the main physical symptoms.
Hahnemann gives “pure experiment, careful observation and
accurate experience alone,” [Gumpert, 144] as the sole
determining factors that can generate any authentic medical theory. He “demanded
a complete break with everything,”[Gumpert, 149] that had gone
before.

He sought “to discover the specific relations
of certain medicines to certain diseases, to certain organs and tissues,
he strove to do away with the blind chimney sweeper’s methods of
dulling symptoms.” [Gumpert, 99] He “instituted
“provings” of drugs upon himself, members of his family,
friends, students and fellow practitioners, keeping all under the most
rigid scrutiny and control, and carefully recording every fact and the
conditions under which it was elicited.” [Close, 147-8]

“If one has tested a considerable number of
simple medicines on healthy people in this way… then one has for the
first time a true materia medica: a collection of the authentic, pure,
reliable effects of simple medicinal substances in themselves; a natural
pharmacopoeia

…” [The Organon, v.143]

The second and fourth points meant that Hahnemann was
more or less forced into a deeper appreciation of the reality of holism
in the organism simply by conducting provings, in other words from his
empirical studies. This must have been a wholly unexpected aspect for
him. What started as merely a test of one drug soon became a revelation
as it “ceased to be a little trickle…it became a broad
flood,” [Wells] and an entirely new materia medica took birth,
unfolding before him in incredible and undreamt-of detail. The third
point suggests that he realised at a very early stage that a drug’s
impact upon the female system is rather different from its impact upon
the male, and though complementary to each other, these two aspects of a
proving reflect entirely different dimensions of the same drug. From the
minute details of a proving, a new sense of completeness
eventually developed in his mind, so spawning a synthesis: the drug
picture. Likewise, in accordance with his initial aim in conducting
provings, he obtained for each drug a reliable database, based on
experiment and in which personal responses as well as general effects
were all compiled into the final picture.

The importance of the first point simply means that
he obtained his first hunches about the therapeutic activity of drugs
partly from using them himself, and partly “as he explored the
muttering tomb,” [Auden, New Year Letter, 217] of his
translation work, during which he ‘saw into’ the apparent sphere of
action of a drug from reading the accounts of many others in the past
who had observed their action or seen them cure specific diseases or
symptom clusters. Thus, he probably realised in advance of the actual
provings that most drugs tend to have a multi-faceted action upon the
organism.

Always intimately tied in with his views of drugs was
his interest in and study of poisonings: “I found from the
toxicological reports of earlier writers that the effects of large
quantities of noxious substances ingested by healthy people…largely
coincided with my own findings from experiments with those substances on
myself or other healthy people.” [Hahnemann, 1810, v.110] “He
collected histories of cases of poisoning. His purpose was to establish
a physiological doctrine of medical remedies, free from all
suppositions, and based solely on experiments.” [Gumpert, 92]
The proving is in fact merely a mild and subtle form of poisoning, what
we might term a ‘micro-poisoning,’ during which the power of the drug
‘takes hold’ of the prover and so reveals its therapeutic ‘sphere of
action’.

First Proving

His studies of drugs had led him to the realisation
that ‘single drugs in moderate doses’ offered up the best if not the
only hope of creating a gentle and effective system of curative
medicine. That point implicitly involved a prior and firm rejection of
the Galenic diktat of using mixed drugs in strong doses, because
instinctively and temperamentally he was “a most passionate
opponent of mixed doses that contained a large number of
ingredients.” [Gumpert, 96] This sets the scene for the first
proving, of Cinchona in 1790, deriving as it did both from a translation
work and from his own intimate knowledge and personal use of the drug in
question. Here we have to note a possible peculiar sensitivity
of Hahnemann himself to Cinchona bark, as he had contracted malaria in
his youth, during his Hermanstadt journey.

It is important to recall that the first proving was
not actually designed at the outset to study the effect of a drug on the
entire human system, to prove a drug, as is often claimed. No, rather it
was specifically designed to test a claim by Cullen that Cinchona acts
curatively on fever because of its bitter action on the stomach. It is
precisely this point which Hahnemann set about to test for himself: “in
the following year, 1790, Hahnemann translated Cullen’s Materia Medica.
Cullen (II. 108) explains the efficacy of Cinchona in intermittent fever
by the “strengthening power it exerts on the stomach,”
and adds, ” that he has never met with anything in any book which
made him doubt the truth of his view.” [Ameke, 62] It is this
point which inspired Hahnemann to see if the drug would indeed affect
the stomach as Cullen suggested. To his surprise, he found it did not do
that and his testing of it proved to be a revelation in other ways.

Hahnemann disagreed with Cullen’s theory of the
action of Cinchona upon the stomach and so resolved to test the drug on
himself. He “criticised the opinion of Cullen that the action of
Peruvian bark [quinine] was that of a tonic to the stomach…and
proceeded to argue that quinine acts in malaria because in healthy
people it can produce symptoms similar to intermittent fever.”
[Bodman, 3-4] In this first proving experiment, Hahnemann observed
symptoms broadly similar to those of malaria, including spasms and
fever. [Cook, 59; Haehl, I, 37, 39] With Cinchona, he had “produced
in himself the symptoms of intermittent fever.” [Haehl, vol. 1,
39]

Much has been written about the first proving that
need not be repeated here, but the main consequence of it conceptually
for Hahnemann was that after ‘single drugs in moderate doses,’ the first
proving firmly and irreversibly established his third axiom of
homeopathy: the law of similars, and realisation of its significance
must have finally extinguished any remaining fragmentary attachments
Hahnemann may still have harboured concerning the therapeutic
possibilities of contraries: “dying to embers from their native
fire!” [Keats, line 366] The “similia similibus
principle,” [Gumpert, 96] was indeed Hahnemann’s “brilliance
of idea,” [Gumpert, 97] and was also “the doctrine
which was to redeem him from the medical nihilism of despair.”
[Gumpert, 104] This new principle, “was to him what the falling
apple was to Newton, and the swinging lamp in the Baptistery at Pisa was
to Galileo.” [Dudgeon, xxi] As Dudgeon says, “from this
single experiment his mind appears to have been impressed with the
conviction that the pathogenetic effects of medicines would give the key
to their therapeutic powers.” [Dudgeon, xxi]

With the three axioms comprising the core of his
newly emerging system: single drugs, moderate doses and similars, the
drug proving thus became the fourth homeopathic axiom and around these
axioms homeopathy not only more sharply crystallised and defined its
doctrines and methods, but in this manner it finally separated itself
entirely from its Galenic predecessor, emerging “from the ashes
as a new phoenix,” [Hirsch, et al] and shaking off any
remaining association with the dreaded ‘bleed and purge’ method of mixed
drugs in high doses that Hahnemann had so detested and which had filled
him with horror even from his first medical lectures in Leipzig and
Vienna, for Hahnemann was indeed, “a most passionate opponent of
mixed doses that contained a large number of ingredients.”
[Gumpert, 96]

1790s Provings

Now, it would seem, Samuel Hahnemann towered like a
colossus over the medical past and potentially over its entire future.
It was doubtless at this “a crucial moment,” [Doren, 7]
that he finally becomes a truly great pioneer, engaged in something
momentous, prior to which he was only a potentially important figure. At
this point, he probably first received “a hint of his future
greatness,” [Doren, p.7], because it can hardly have escaped
his attention that here was a magnificent moment, a turning point not
only of solving a huge problem he had first set out to explore in 1783
when he gave up medical practice, but because in those moments had he
not heard the “loud hymns that were the royal wives of
silence?” [Auden, Kairos & Logos, 309] and seen the “shadows
and sunny glimmerings,” [Palgrave, Wordsworth] of a new plan
before him, the germ of an entirely new system pinned out like an
architect’s drawing: “my system of medicine has nothing in
common with the ordinary medical art, but is in every respect its
exact opposite…the new method of treatment, called homeopathy, being
the exact opposite of the ordinary medical art hitherto practised, has
no preparations that it could give to the apothecary, has no compound
remedies…” [Gumpert, 176-7] He had also manifested, “the
courage to break away from hypotheses and systems…zones fatal to the
human spirit.” [Gumpert, 122]

All he now needed were more provings—many more
provings—and the opportunity to utilise these newly proven drugs on
patients, on actual cases of sickness. “Day after day, he tested
medicines on himself and others. He collected histories of cases of
poisoning. His purpose was to establish a…doctrine of medical
remedies, free from all suppositions, and based solely on experiments.”
[Gumpert, 92]

“Many before Hahnemann, from Hippocrates down,
had glimpses of the law [of similars], and some had tried to make use of
it therapeutically; but all had failed because of their inability to
properly graduate and adapt the dose

.” [Close, 1924, p. 215]

The bright prospect that emerged from the provings
meant that everything that had gone before was only theoretical, but now
he stood on the brink of a new practical method and the exultation of
being able to go beyond and take forward the work of his vitalist
predecessors, Stahl, van Helmont and Paracelsus [“Paracelsus’s
system…was a rude form of homoeopathy…but it was not equal in value
to Hahnemann’s system…” [Dudgeon, 14]], in being able to
adapt that previously elusive and will-o-the-wisp ‘law of similars’ into
a practical working method, rather than just a theoretical aim, a
hopelessly wistful medical dream: “he fought with redoubled
energy for the purity of medicine,” [Gumpert, 96] and “strove
to do away with the blind chimney sweeper’s methods of dulling
symptoms.” [Gumpert, 99] The grim and ground-breaking task
before him in the 1790s was therefore to conduct as many provings as
possible. And that is precisely what he did: “undeterred by the
magnitude of the task, Hahnemann set about creating a materia medica
which should embody the facts of drug action upon the healthy.”
[Close, 147]

It is worth stating that very little of a hard
factual nature is known about precisely which drugs he proved and when.
We have to try to piece that together from only “a few crumbs.”
[Adams] Although in 1790 Hahnemann had only proved one drug in Cinchona,
yet he had proved 27 by 1805, when he published his Fragmenta: “Hahnemann’s
‘Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis’…gives us, for the
first time, an insight into the remarkable, and so far unknown, methods
of investigation, which he employed. It supplies reports on the tests of
twenty seven medicines the results of years of experiment on himself and
his family.” [Gumpert, 122]

Given that the Fragmenta probably contained work
completed up to the year 1804, when he settled in Torgau, then he had
proved 27 drugs in only 14 years…almost two per year. Even by modern
standards that is impressive progress. Indeed, such impressive progress
for a “a cautious man, notwithstanding his utmost
circumspection,” [Wollstonecraft, p.12] like Hahnemann suggests
that he knew very clearly in his own mind that he was engaged in
something “supremely important,” [Columbia, 7] and
which demanded his complete attention at all times. Otherwise, such
progress would inevitably have been slower, far less impressive, less
driven and presumably much more haphazard.

The actual situation is complicated by the fact that
in the same decade he was moving about all over Saxony with his growing
family. The decade of the 1790s sees Hahnemann living in many different
places and coincides with his most intense period of “wandering,
yearning, curious—with restless explorations.” [Whitman, line
91] He changed town or residence fifteen times between 1789 and 1805: He
lived in Leipzig, [1789-92], then “in 1791, poverty compelled
him to remove from Leipzig to the little village of Stotteritz.”
[Bradford] In 1792 he was in Gotha [1792], then Georgenthal [summer 1792
to May 1793], nursing Klockenbring; Molschleben [1793-4], Gottingen
[1794], Pyrmont [Oct 1794-Jan 1795], Wolfenbuttel [1795], Brunswick
[1795-6], Koenigslutter [1796-8], Hamburg, Altona [summer 1799], Molln,
near Hamburg [Sept 1800-1801], Machern & Eilenberg, nr Leipzig
[1801], Dessau [1802-4], Torgau [June 1805 to summer 1811]

It is also complicated by the fact that in 1792-3,
for almost a whole year, he was resident in Georgenthal treating the
insane patient, Herr Klockenbring. All such factors reduce the time he
could have devoted solely to provings to something like 12 or 13 years
and means he either proved several drugs back-to-back or he managed to
prove several simultaneously using different groups of people.
Furthermore, the remedies in the Fragmenta do contain a few surprises
and it is very informative for us to scour the 1790 decade for other
hints of what remedies he was scrutinisng at what point. For example,
Bradford mentions [p.57] that Hahnemann was using Hepar sulphuris
c.1794.

In 1796, in his “Essay on a New Principle,”
Hahnemann mentions the following 46 remedies, of which 19 [41.3%] later
appear in the Fragmenta as fully proven drugs: Nux vomica [p.318 p.278]
Mercury [287], Chamomilla [267], Achillea [269], Valeriana [269], Viscum
[269], Conium [270], Aethusa [271], Cicuta [271], Cocculus [271], Paris
[271], Coffee [271], Dulcamara [272], Belladonna [273], Hyoscyamus
[275], Stramonium [276], Tabaccum [277], Ignatia [279], Digitalis [279],
Viola [281], Ipecac [281], Arbutus [282], Rhododendron [282], Ledum
[282], Opium [283], Plumbum [287], Arsenic [291], Taxus [290], Aconite
[291], Helleborus [292], Anemone [293], Geum [293], Drosera [294],
Sambucus, [295], Rhus [295], Camphor [295], Ulmus [298], Cannabis [298],
Crocus [298], Scilla [299], Veratrum alb [303], Sabadilla [302],
Agaricus [303], Nux moschata [303], Rheum [Rhubarb] [303]

That Valeriana, Hyoscyamus, Stramonium, Ignatia,
Mercury and Belladonna, were among the first drugs proved in the 1790s,
might arouse curiosity and raise a few eyebrows. It somehow implies that
Hahnemann regarded such predominantly ‘mental’ drugs, and perhaps mental
symptoms in general, as highly important aspects of health and sickness
in general. The degree to which this might also derive in part from his
treatment of Klockenbring in 1792-3 seems also to be an interesting
point to raise. After the Cinchona proving of 1790 he spent some time
treating an insane man in 1792-3 but no mention is made of
remedies…then in 1795 he mentions remedies like Ignatia and Hyoscyamus
which MIGHT have been needed for his insane case…it is thus tempting
to presume some undisclosed connection between that insane case of
1792-3 and his apparent use of remedies like Hyos and Stramonium and
Ignatia with such very strong mental profiles. It also seems to suggest “entirely
changed points of view,” [Whitman, lines 8-9] with him coming
to regard mental symptoms as very valuable in all remedies around this
time. It implies that he was widening his concept of the nature of
sickness beyond a small compass of physical symptoms, which was at that
time the standard allopathic conception in which he had been trained. It
is difficult to discern exactly when he abandoned specific allopathic
concepts and then placed his adherence solely upon specifically
homeopathic ones. All these conceptual changes arguably derive from the
provings.

The drugs in this list are ones he was using, ones he
had read about and had an interest in, and some that he was proving or
had proved. These were all drugs that stood out as significant to him;
they were clearly all on his ‘shopping list’ for deeper investigation.
It is clear that he was focused at this time on 40-50 drugs which he
believed, when used singly, acted by similars and which he could add to
his growing materia medica.

In 1798, the remedies mentioned in the essay “Antidotes
to Some Heroic Vegetable Substances,” [Lesser Writings,
pp.322-29] are as follows: Camphor, Mezereum, Coffea, Ignatia, Verat
alb, Gamboja, Ant tart, Stramonium, Cocculus ind, Arnica, Opium,
Cantharis, Scilla = 13 remedies of which 9 [69%] appear also fully
proved in the Fragmenta of 1805.

The Fragmenta

The 27 drugs proved in the Fragmenta are as follows
[Haehl, vol 2, p.82]:

[followed by number of symptoms obtained by Hahnemann
and those by others]

Aconitum napellus 138 75 [h got 65% of sx]

acris tinctura (Causticum) 30 0 [he got 100% of sx]

arnica montana 117 33 [he got 78% of sx]

belladonna 101 304 [he got 25% of sx]

camphora 73 74 [he got 50% of sx]

cantharis 20 74 [not listed by Bradford, p.80] [he
got 21.3% of sx]

capsicum annuum 174 3 [he got 98% of sx]

chamomilla 272 3 [he got 99% of sx]

cinchona 122 99 [he got 55% of sx]

cocculus 156 6 [he got 96.3% of sx]

copaifera balsamum 12 8 [he got 60% of sx]

cuprum vitriolatum 29 38 [he got 43.3% of sx]

digitalis 23 33 [he got 41% of sx]

drosera 36 4 [he got 90% of sx]

hyoscyamus 45 290 [he got 13.4% of sx] [104 478
according to Seror]

ignatia 157 19 [he got 89.2% of sx]

ipecac 70 13 [he got 84.3% of sx]

ledum 75 5 [he got 93.8% of sx]

Helleborus 32 25 [he got 56% of sx]

mezereum 6 34 [he got 15% of sx]

nux vomica 257 51 [he got 83.4% of sx]

(Papaver somniferum) opium 82 192 [he got 47% of sx]

pulsatilla 280 29 [he got 90.6% of sx]

rheum 39 13 [he got 75% of sx]

stramonium 59 157 [he got 51% of sx]

valeriana 25 10 [he got 71.4% of sx]

veratrum album 161 106 [he got 60.3% of sx]

As we can see, the number of symptoms which Hahnemann
recorded for each drug ranges from 12 for Copaifera to 280 for Puls.
Perhaps as an insight into his personality, or constitutional type,
Hahnemann himself obtained the maximum number of symptoms from
Chamomilla, Pulsatilla and Nux vomica; and the least number from
Cantharis, Copaifera, Digitalis and Valeriana.

The Materia Medica Pura

This work was published 1811-31, and contains the
following 65 fully proven drugs:

Aconitum napellus, Ambra grisea, Angustura, Argentum,
Arnica, Arsenicum, Asarum, Aurum, Belladonna, Bismuthum, Bryonia,
Calcarea acetica, Camphora, Cannabis sativa, Capsicum annuum, Carbo
animalis, Carbo vegetabilis, Chamomilla, Chelidonium, China, Cicuta
virosa, Cina, Cocculus, Colocynthis, Conium, Cyclamen europaeum,
Digitalis, Drosera rotundifolia, Dulcamara, Euphrasia officinalis,
Ferrum, Guaiacum, Helleborus niger, Hepar sulphuris calcareum,
Hyoscyamus, Ignatia, Ledum, Magnes, Magnetis polus arcticus, Magnetis
polus australis, Menyanthes trifoliate, Mercurius, Moschus, Muriaticum
acidum, Nux vomica, Oleander, Opium, Phosphoricum acidum, Pulsatilla,
Rheum, Rhus, Ruta, Sambucus, Sarsaparilla, Scilla, Spigelia, Spongia,
Stannum, Staphisagria, Stramonium, Sulphur, Taraxacum, Thuja, Veratrum
album, Verbascum

The Chronic Diseases

Contents of the Chronic Diseases [1829]

Agaricus, Alumina, ammon carb, ammon mur, anacard,
ant crud, arsenic, aurum, Aur mur, Bar c, borax, Calc carb, Carb-an,
carb-v, caustic, clem, coloc, conium, cuprum, digitalis, dulc, euphorb,
graph, guiacum, Hepar sulph, Iodium, kali-c, lyc, mag-c, mag-m,
manganum, mez, muriat ac, Natr carb, Natr mur, nitr ac, nitrum,
Petroleum, Phosphorus, phos ac, Platina, sars, sepia, silicea, stannum,
sulph, sul-ac, zincum [48 drugs]

A comparison of the remedies listed in the Fragmenta,
the Materia Medica Pura and the Chronic Diseases is most informative and
“throws a totally different light on,” [Berger] some
interesting questions about Hahnemann’s methods and why certain remedies
seem to ‘come in and then go out’ of favour. This is a very interesting
study and presumably throws to light aspects of his changing views as
the provings progressed. My own tentative view of this is that though he
was initially excited by every new proving, as time wore on he sometimes
saw few applications, or few successful applications, of some drugs in
cases of sickness.

In this sense, his initial excitement for a freshly
proven drug must have given way to a sense of disappointment about, say,
its limited therapeutic application. In such an eventuality he was
forced to downgrade such remedies as ‘lesser’ while retaining his
enthusiasm for those ‘higher’ remedies, which tended to match many
disease states and which had thus shown an ability to produce some
successful cures. This seems be the best explanation of why remedies do
appear to come and go across the visor of homeopathy as it evolved. I
hold this view primarily because he was above all else an empirical and
pragmatic man and nothing seemed to have impressed him more than
results. He wished for a medicine “without the superfluous
rubbish of hypotheses.” [Gumpert, 26] Everything “that
savoured of theory was swept dramatically out of his mind. In his
opinion there was only one criterion: success.” [Gumpert, 24]
It also reveals the basic nature of the materia medica as it exists
today with some 50 or 100 remedies doing most of the work and dozens of
others that are very rarely used. That the materia medica is like this
would simply seem to be an “inexorable law of nature.”
[Harding, 20]

Another issue concerns the provings he published. For
example, why does Hahnemann fail to include the Fragmenta drugs in the
Materia Medica Pura or the Chronic Diseases? It seems strange that he
does not aggregate these separate publications as he goes along into a
growing and expanding work showing all provings in one volume: a growing
homeopathic materia medica. He even updated the MMP and CD as
separate works as time went on and failed to add some of the drugs
in the Fragmenta. This would seem to reflect a mysterious and
undisclosed attitude on Hahnemann’s part in relation to the provings.
Why leave drugs out of later works that were fully proved in earlier
publications? It does not seem to make any sense.

The following analysis of the drugs he proved yields
many interesting facets of this subject.

1. Remedies mentioned in 1796-8 and then appearing in the Fragmenta
are:

acon, bell, canth, camph, cocc, dig, dros, hell,
hyos, ign, ledum, mez, nux-v, opium, rheum, stram, val, veratr

= 19/27 = 70.4% match between previous mention and
proving in Fragmenta

2. Remedies mentioned in 1796-8 and appearing in MMP

acon, arn, bell, cann, camph, canth, cham, cicuta,
cocc, con, dig, dros, dulc, hell, hyos, ign, ledum, merc, nux v, opium,
rheum, sambuc, scilla, stram, taxus, val, veratr

= 27/65 = 41.54% match between previous mention and
proving in MMP

3. Remedies mentioned in 1796-8 and appearing in CD

Dig, dulc, agar, arsen, con, hepar, mez

= 7/48 = 14.6% match between previous mention and
proving in CD

4. Remedies mentioned 1790s but never proved by
Hahnemann:

achillea, aethusa, anemone, arbutus, crocus, gamboja,
geum, paris, plumbum, rhodo, sabadilla, tabacum, taxus, ulmus, viola,
viscum

= 16/51 = 31.4% mentioned 1790s but never proved
later

5. Remedies in Fragmenta never previously mentioned

caust, copaifera, cupr, puls

= 4/27 = 14.8% no previous mention and proving in
Fragmenta

6. Remedies in MMP & never previously mentioned

ambra, argent, angustura, asaraum, aurum, bism, bry,
calc-ac, carb an, carb veg, chel, cina, coloc, cycl, euphras, ferrum,
guiac, magnetis arct, magnetis austr, manganum, mur ac, oleandr, phos
ac, puls, ruta, sarsap, spig, spong, stann, staph, sul, thuja, verbasc

= 35/65 = 53.85% of MMP Remedies never previously
mentioned

7. Remedies common to Fragmenta and MMP

acon, arn, bell, camph, cham, china, coccul,
copaifera, dig, dros, hell, hyos, ign, ipecac, ledum, nux v, opium,
puls, rheum, stram, val

= 22/65 = 33.85% overlap between Fragmenta and MMP

8. Remedies in CD also in MMP

aur, carb an, carb v, coloc, con, dig, dulc, guiac,
hep, manganum, mur ac, phos ac, sars, stram, sulph

= 15/48 = 31.25% overlap between MMP and CD

9. Remedies in Fragmenta and CD

caust, cupr, dig, mez

4/48 = 8.3% overlap Fragmenta to CD

10. Remedies with no previous mention but in CD

agar, alumina, ammon carb, ammon mur, anac, aur-m,
bar-c, borax, calc-c, clematis, coloc, euphorb, graph, iod, kali-c, lyc,
mag-c, mag-m, nat-c, nat-m, nit ac, nitrum, petr, phos, platin, sep,
sil, sul-ac, zinc

= 29/48 = 60.42% CD Rx totally new and previously
unmentioned

This data can be summarised in Tabular form and
presented as a bar-chart:

class

Calc’n

%

status

I

19/27

70.4

prev -> frag

II

27/65

41.5

prev ->MMP

III

7/48

14.6

prev ->CD

IV

16/51

31.4

prev ->unused

V

4/27

14.8

no prev ->frag

VI

35/65

53.85

no prev ->MMP

VII

22/65

33.85

frag & MMP

VIII

15/48

31.25

MMP & CD

IX

4/48

8.3

frag & CD

X

29/48

60.42

no pre ->CD

Interpretation of the data

The data shows the following points:

1. As 70% of the remedies mentioned in the 1790s then
appear in the Fragmenta, this justifies the view that the drugs he was
studying and mentioning in that decade can be regarded as a reliable
foreshadow of what was to appear later in the Fragmenta. Because most of
those drugs he mentioned in 1795-8 later appeared in the Fragmenta of
1805, suggests that the drugs mentioned were ones he knew about and used
within allopathy as well as ones he read about in his translation work.
In both cases, they must have held some therapeutic promise, in his
estimation, and that is why they had drawn themselves to his attention,
were mentioned by him and were then proved.

2. However, this 70% foreshadowing of the Fragmenta
then drops to only 41% when we consider how much influence those drugs
mentioned in the 1790s had for the MMP. Only 41% of such drugs mentioned
then appeared later in the MMP. This shows a diminishing influence of
the 1790s drugs in his work by 1810-1. It shows he was moving on and
extending his interest to other drugs, as would be natural: casting his
net ever wider.

3. When we then compare the drugs mentioned in the
1790s to those in the CD we find only 7 out of 48 or 14.6%. Again this
reinforces the view that the remedies he was studying in the 1790s had
only a short-lived influence and by 1829 that influence had diminished
considerably. This drop from 71% to 41% and then to 14.6% shows a
definite pattern in the decline in importance of the 1790s drugs. This
pattern again reflects his move to examining new drugs not mentioned in
the 1790s.

4. Likewise, we can say that while only 14.8% of the
drugs in the Fragmenta had never been mentioned or were completely new,
this figure rises to 54% when we look at the MMP which contains 35
entirely new drugs out of a total of 65. Arguably this shows that his
search for new drugs had indeed been extended and had revealed many new
ones in the period between the 1805 Fragmenta and the MMP of 1810-11. It
is also an impressive feat to have found and proved 36 previously
unmentioned drugs in only 5 years.

5. As with the shift from 1790s drugs to the
Fragmenta, so there is a similar crossover effect between Fragmenta and
MMP. Some 34% of the drugs in the MMP are also in the Fragmenta which
shows a shadow effect transferred from 1805 to 1810-11.

6. There is a similar overlap of 31% between MMP and
CD, even though only 8% of the remedies in the CD are common to the
Fragmenta [4 out of 48]

7. By the time of the CD we see that almost
two-thirds of the drugs in it [60.4%] are completely new: 29 out of 48
drugs. This shows he was, between 1811 and 1829, investigating entirely
new drugs. However, it seems only fair to add that the CD rests on an
entirely new premise—the miasm theory—and thus it is not so much an
extension of the previous provings as a completely new materia medica in
its own right. In truth, it is a mixture of both. Clearly, most [2/3] of
the drugs in the CD are ones he must have discovered and proved between
1810-11 and 1829, or were ones which brought themselves to his sustained
attention in some way during that period.

8. Finally, there are those remedies mentioned in the
1790s but which never appear in any of Hahnemann’s provings: 16 out of
51 = 31%. That’s quite a high percentage and probably shows that these
drugs, for some reason or another, did not show themselves suitable or
broad enough for his use. Many of them were eventually adopted into
homeopathy or proved at a later stage, for example, Sabadilla, Tabacum
and Plumbum. Such remedies presumably failed to fulfil their original
promise.

Hahnemann’s Empirical Stance

Hahnemann’s venture into the proving of drugs can be
justifiably regarded as an example of his impeccable credentials as a
leading experimentalist of his day. This empirical approach has become
so dominant in the last two centuries that it is easy for us today to
lose sight of the revolutionary nature of this approach in the 1790s.

Hahnemann’s attitude towards knowledge was very
modern; he took a very scientific approach. To be regarded as “fully
successful a scientific theory must provide us with a literally true
description of what the world is like.” [Zynda] The “acceptance
of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is empirically
adequate,” [Zynda] which basically means it must be in accord
with all the observations of the matter concerned, not just some of them
or some of them some of the time. A scientific theory “is
“empirically adequate” if it gets things right about the
observable phenomena in nature.” [Zynda] What counts as
“observable” “is what could be observed by a suitably
placed being with sensory abilities similar to those characteristic of
human beings…” [Zynda] This attitude is called, “Sola
Experientia: any claim to knowledge, any support for opinion, must come
from experience; experience trumps all” [Van Fraassen; 120] “The
empirical sciences do live by the rule of Sola Experientia: nothing
trumps experience. The bottom line is agreement from experimental and
observational fact.” [Van Fraassen; 152] For Hahnemann
experience did trump all. Repeatedly in his writings he mentions
observation and experience as the sole arbiters of truth, in
contradistinction to the received authority and cherished theories of
long-dead revered figures from the medical past.

A ‘good scientist’ should be able to view all
results, all patterns and all outcomes neutrally, willing and able to
accept as valid any result. It is clear that Hahnemann was of this
attitude as he changed his opinion many times and that reveals his
neutral stance; rather than building a new medical system on fine-spun
theories to which he doggedly clung, he built a system on experiment,
experience and meticulous observation.

Having said that, however, Hahnemann’s discoveries
found themselves strongly at variance with the orthodox medicine of his
day. This inevitably placed him in an awkward position, in the position
of a heretic. It is well-known that he soon came to regard mainstream
medicine as “an ossified system,” [Berlin, 1996; 62]
badly in need of revision if not wholesale reform. Rebellion against
such a “formal and schematic orthodoxy,” [Berlin, 1996;
71] was therefore left to persons like himself, gifted persons who
defied such dogma by “a great act of rebellion.”
[Berlin, 1996; 61] He regarded mainstream medicine and its theories of
health and disease as “the integuments of orthodoxies which are
the congealed answers to dead or obsolescent questions,”
[Berlin, 1996; 75] conformity with which he also regarded as a huge
barrier to progress, because such a system not only inherently resists
change, but it also seeks to thoroughly denounce those creative
visionaries and “their capacity to improvise.” [Berlin,
1996; 52] Such orthodoxy sought to have such visionaries “slaughtered
on the altar of some dogma,” [Berlin, 1996; 75] and “brought
into conformity with the new despotism.” [Berlin, 1996; 76]

Hahnemann regarded the ideas of allopathy as “constructions
of the intellect, something that was not found but made…an enormous
fallacy,” [Berlin, 1979; 301-2] and he therefore sought
personally to “break through the orthodoxy…[and] sweep away
the painstaking edifices of their honourable but limited predecessors
who…tend to imprison thought within their own tidy but fatally
misconceived constructions.” [Berlin, 1996, 72] As far as he
was concerned, to “confuse our own constructions with eternal
laws or divine decrees is one of the most fatal delusions of men.”
[Berlin, 1997a; 303] Such pretty formulas are “artificial
constructions, logical figments with no necessary relation to the
outside world,” [Berlin, 2000; 123] which always “leave
out the richest and most important part of human experience…daily
life, history, human laws and institutions, the modes of human self-
expression.” [Berlin, 2000; 110] In such a situation, for
innovative and pioneering people like Hahnemann, then “the Tree
of Knowledge has killed the Tree of Life.” [Berlin, 1997a; 303]
Although Hahnemann can be depicted as a man, “swimming against
the current of his time,” [Berlin, 1997b] not quite in his
empirical stance, but certainly in his disputatious approach to
adherents of mainstream medicine who refused to acknowledge the
importance of his discoveries.

Therefore it is clear that Hahnemann was a rebel. Or,
more accurately, he was rendered a rebel by the refusal of is medical
confreres to accept his doctrines and methods into the mainstream.
People like Hahnemann are born to rebel in a sense because of their
innate pioneering genius. Such “men of authentic genius are
necessarily to a large degree destructive of past traditions…[such
rebellious persons] always transform, upset and destroy.” [Berlin,
1996; 70] Such rebels are “bound to subvert, break through,
destroy, liberate, let in air from outside…” [Berlin, 1996;
67]

For Hahnemann doubtless sought, through his rampant
empiricism, to invalidate “the elegant euphemisms,”
[Auden, Ode to Terminus, 809] of a hopeless theoretical medicine and “cut
the brambles of men’s errors down.” [Auden, Luther, 301] Seen
from without, then, Hahnemann’s work in the creation of homeopathy
mostly from observation and experiment, especially in the provings of
medicines, has to be regarded as a truly scientific enterprise and this
renders Hahnemann a true scientist and homeopathy a true science.

This essay has hopefully provided a good insight into
the 1790s, and shone a light into a previously neglected decade in which
Hahnemann was busy conducting the first provings and compiling his new
materia medica. I have deliberately resisted any temptation to comment
on the methods Hahnemann adopted for the provings, which in any case
have been more than adequately commented on elsewhere.

Sources:

Henry Adams, The
Education of Henry Adams, 1918. XIII, The Perfection of Human Society
(1864) p.21

Wilhelm Ameke, History
of Homœopathy, with an appendix on the present state of University
medicine, translated by A. E. Drysdale, edited by R. E. Dudgeon, London:
E. Gould & Son, 1885.

W H Auden, Collected
Poems, Edited by Edward Mendelson, London: Faber, 1994

John Berger, A
Fortunate Man, 1967, 160

Sir Isaiah Berlin, ‘Georges
Sorel’ in Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, 1979,
p.298-302

Sir Isaiah Berlin, The
Sense of Reality – Studies in Ideas and Their History, London: Pimlico,
1996

Sir Isaiah Berlin,
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, London: Pimlico,
1997a

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Joseph de Maistre and the origins of Fascism. The Crooked Timber of
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Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder, Princeton:
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by Claud W Sykes.

Richard Haehl, Samuel
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Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs,
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Samuel Hahnemann,
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Lecture 17, Scientific
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http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/phil_sci_lecture17.html

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