Of substance

[John Harvey]

The intent of Hahnemann's use of the word substance in the phrase "one single, simple medicinal substance" has come under scrutiny in determining what it is that he was saying that homoeopathic practice obviously cannot use when he said that it cannot use "more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time".
Clearer conversation on that subtopic may be possible if we're aware of all the ways in which the word is used in English. Here are three, but before going into them, I'll clarify the meaning of homogeneous as I use it below: not simply thoroughly mixed, but consisting of entirely the one kind of particle (atom or molecule) throughout.
Substance (i)
The first sense of substance is the most generic and the least meaningful. It refers to any apparently well-mixed mass of atoms and compounds. A person ignorant of the origin and content of some white goo on a tree might refer to the entire mass of goo as a "substance" without intending the term to limit how various it might be at the molecular scale. Another person might call some goo that appeared in some parts green and in others grey a mixture of substances, or might refer to it too as a substance. Neither person will intend that the mass be necessarily homogeneous, that is consisting of particles all of the one kind: only that it in some way belongs together. In this sense, then, the word strictly means little more than "sample".
Substance (ii)
The second sense of substance is somewhat narrower: it refers to a well-mixed mass, again not necessarily homogeneous, that has derived from one source: a plant, for instance, or a chemical reaction. This sense has all the properties of the first sense of the word but requires in addition that the mass under consideration not have been mixed from two sources.
This may seem confusing at first, when one considers that the product of burning hydrogen with oxygen, water, has come about only by bringing together the hydrogen and the oxygen: it appears to have been mixed from two sources. In fact, it has not: the hydrogen and oxygen making up the water no longer exist as separate entities with any of their own independent properties, and the water that has resulted from the reaction has its own properties, entirely different from those of its constituent elements.
[See separate post, "Of compounds, compound remedies, and purity".]
Substance (iii)
The third sense of substance is narrower still, and is particularly relevant to modern chemical analysis and synthesis. Not referring to a single sample of matter at all, it denotes instead a single type of matter: matter of a single type of atom or molecule. This sense of the word refers to a type of matter (for instance, "arsenic") but not to any particular sample of it, just as the words element and compound do.
It may be useful in discussing questions concerning "substance" to refer to these respectively as substance (i), substance (ii), and substance (iii), and I shall do so in discussing that question.
Cheers --
John
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)

[muthu kumar]

However you want to call it - we have all substances 1 , 2 ,3 in homeopathy -including the white goo in the tree..

it is difficult to separate out substances 1 and 2, most of the organic matter has a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly...

All of our nosodes, various milks, insect medicines ( coccus, robinia) can be called substance 1 or 2

We separate out the venom and milk from animals, but insects get ground altogether -

Lachesis is snake poison ; what would be the medicine if we grind the whole snake including the poison ducts? Substance 1 or 2 ?

That would contain bones, neural tissue, muscles and everything included...would we get a proving from it or not - sure we would...
Whereas insects and spiders ( since easy to soak them up) we just get the medicine from the whole body ( mind it - these also have their own musculature, exoskeleton etc.)

What is rabid dog saliva or just the lung of a wolf ( pulmo vulpis)

John - I truly think we are beating a dead horse to the ground - I think it is time to move on with "something with substance" than about substances...

Medicines can be made from anything- we know that it is not where it comes from but based on what law it is given that makes a medicine homeopathic - base it on clear cut symptoms generated out of a proving - we all agree that is the ideal homeopathic course -

we also know that one time or other we have used medicines with more clinical cured symptoms than pathogenetic symptoms- esp, when the old masters- even when the medicines are administered clinically - still got a good symptom list of the symptoms that got cured and not just based on disease names - and that is okay when we know what we are getting into;

I said almost all I wanted to say on this and I believe you have too
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, John Harvey wrote:

[Joy Lucas]

Thanks John, I have still to read your other post but when H says '2 substances opposite each other but united neutrally ........ etc. What does this mean. I have another question but this one for now

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[Joy Lucas]

I don't think the issue is whether we get a proving from a substance or not, the issue is about understanding what H meant by simple, single, and substance.

I also realise that 273 is about combinations and advising that it is not allowed to give, at one time, 2 different medicinal substances but I still haven't got my head round it (no surprise there).

Pedantic this might be but so what, go for a walk round the block and it might be done by the time you get back

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

This is from the fn of Aph 11
Substances, which are used as medicines, are medicines only in so far as they possess each its own specific energy to alter the well-being of man through dynamic, ...
This comes mainly from provings.
Rgds
Soroush

________________________________

From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Joy Lucas
Sent: 13 July 2009 15:51
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re: Of substance
I don't think the issue is whether we get a proving from a substance or not, the issue is about understanding what H meant by simple, single, and substance.

I also realise that 273 is about combinations and advising that it is not allowed to give, at one time, 2 different medicinal substances but I still haven't got my head round it (no surprise there).

Pedantic this might be but so what, go for a walk round the block and it might be done by the time you get back

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[Joy Lucas]

That's dead easy to understand and he uses that word 'energy' that some have been talking about.

That will be quite a 'big' stanza when we get to that.
Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[John Harvey]

Hi, Joy and H2002 --

Joy, I don't know the term "Naturn". It could be a misprint for "natron" (a term used elsewhere in homoeopathy), which is hydrated sodium carbonate, Na2CO3.10H2O.

More likely, "Naturn" is an adjectival form of natrum, denoting sodium salts.

Either way, the effect of the entire phrase,

"Two substances, opposite to each other, united neutral Naturn and middle salts by chemical affinity in unchangeable proportions",

is to speak of the chemical reaction of an acid and an alkali to form a salt. A classic example would be the reaction of hydrochloric acid (H+Cl-) with sodium hydroxide (Na+OH-) to form the salt sodium chloride (Na+Cl-) and water (H2O). What he's talking about here is that, as in this instance, the positive ions (here, Na+) and the negative (here, Cl-) are united into a salt in a fixed proportion (here, one to one), indicating a chemical combination rather than a mixture.

The reason I think it more likely "Naturn" is an adjectival form of "natrum" is that he says "neutral Naturn and other salts", and it's my understanding that natron, sodium carbonate, is not a neutral salt but a basic salt: slightly alkaline in solution in water. But the examples he gives appear to be intended not to particularly illustrate neutral salts but to illustrate compounds that can be reliably produced without great variation in impurities.

If I've left any of that sounding murky, just say so...

H2002, far from having said what I intended to say in relation to substance and what Hahnemann intended in § 273, I haven't even begun. Distinguishing these three common senses of "substance" -- and leaving aside a fourth, which we may call substance (iv), meaning "the qualities of matter" as opposed to anything nonmaterial, as when we say that something is of substance -- was merely a way of setting up the discussion to follow, in which I intend to show once and for all that Hahnemann's § 273 cannot possibly have been intended, in referring to "more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time", to exclude mixtures, no matter how many potentisation steps one may subject them to. I'll do that on another thread, though, as this thread is intended to clarify only the senses of "substance" that anybody is likely to claim he may have intended in that aphorism.

Cheers --

John
--
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)

[Joy Lucas]

My copy says 'natrum' for what its worth. Thanks for this.

So I can grasp this better could you give 2 groups of remedies then that would fall into permissible and not allowed division - I will get to understand it better when i think in terms of remedies

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

[John Harvey]

Hi, Joy --
Thanks; "Naturn" as a typo for "natrum" makes a lot of sense!
With respect to Hahnemann's differentiation between substances, what he's done in the footnote (footnote 159 to § 273) is evidently intended not as a ruling on what is permissible but as a way of conveying an understanding to the reader of what he means by "single, simple" and his criteria; he clearly understood that it was necessary to set the criteria, most likely influenced by realising that as time when by, different techniques would be developed for extraction of single chemicals from plants.
Also, if we discuss it in terms of "permissible" as opposed to "impermissible" substances, it too easily leads to claims (by those not really understanding homoeopathy) that if it's "permissible" it means that it need not be prescribed homoeopathically!
So Hahnemann has set up several exemplary classes and discussed them in order that the reader be able to apply more broadly the understanding he's conveying of what makes a medicinal substance single and simple and what puts it out of that category.
It's my understanding that he's used substance here in the sense of substance (ii) -- matter deriving from a single source, as the footnote would make little sense if he'd intended either substance (i) nor substance (iii); but I'd be interested in others' views on this.
Hahnemann's first class of examples
Taking together the first class of single, simple medicinal substance he uses, he's clearly encompassing all the classes of chemical compounds that can be prepared with reasonable purity and predictability as to their final composition.
First example of first class
He exemplifies this first with "neutral natrum and middle salts" . I don't know what his intent is in using the word "middle", but for the purposes of instantiation, we can leave it aside. Examples of remedies that clearly fit into this class, of "middle salts" created by the union of two very different substances -- evidently acids and alkalis -- "by chemical affinity in unchangeable proportions", are Lith. brom., Nat. mur., Kali iod., Kali brom., Kali mur., Mag. mur., Mang. mur., Ars. brom., Ars. iod., Ars. s. f., and Ars. s. r. -- each a compound of just two elements: a metal (such as Natrum, Magnesium, Kali, Calcarea, Arsenicum) tending to give away an electron and be positively charge and, usually, a halogen (such as fluoride, chloride, bromide, and iodide), which tends to accept that electron and have a negative charge.
Second example of first class
He exemplifies this same class of single, simple medicinal substance -- chemical compounds -- second with "sulphuretted metals": metal sulphates, such as Calc. sulph, Kali. sulph., Nat. sulph., though he might as easily have included phosphates, such as Calc. phos., Kali phos., Nat. phos., and Mag. phos. The slight difference between this example and the first is that the negatively charged ion is a group, such as sulphate (SO4), phosphate (PO4), or carbonate (CO3), in which the tendency to accept an electron is a property of the group (but most strongly due to the oxygen atoms).
Third example of first class
He exemplifies this same class, chemical compounds, third with "ethers produced by distillation of alcohol and acids". Ethers are complex organic compounds. The only example I can see of one that has received a proving is Etherum, but other examples of ethers are polyethylene glycol, diethyl ether (the ether formerly used as an anaesthetic), and anisole, from aniseed.
This last example may seem a strangely obscure way for Hahnemann to illustrate compounds, but it serves to illustrate that he was not confining himself to simple compounds or inorganic ones.
Furthermore, one reason for choosing all these examples is his ability to contrast them with an example of what does not fall into the class of predictable compounds: "those extracts obtained by means of acids of the so-called alkaloids of plants". These include, for instance, Chininium, Strychninum, and Morphinum. What is wrong with regarding these as single, simple medicinal substances? Absolutely nothing, if they're reasonably pure and predictable in composition. Hahnemann's exclusion of them was on the basis that they "are exposed to great variety in their preparation... and can, therefore, not be accepted by the homoeopathic physician as simple medicines, always the same..." With chemical techniques for preparing these substances with a great deal of purity and predictability, that objection disappears.
Hahnemann's second class of examples
Hahnemann's second class of single, simple medicinal substances is the elements. He illustrated this class with just one example: Phosphorus. He might as easily have chosen Sulphur. Any element available in adequate purity and with predictability in preparation (so that its impurities do not vary from sample to sample), however, meets his stated requirements that the medicine's pathogenesis be predictable from sample to sample. Other remedies we use today that fall into this class include Arsenicum met., Magnesium met., Manganum, Chromium, Niccolum, Ferrum, Argentum met., Aurum met., Merc. vivus, Platina, Palladium, Plumbum, and Radon -- though, as Rik Shannon has pointed out, there's some mystery as to how the last could ever be potentised, as it is an insoluble gas, so homoeopathic use may be confined to crude doses of the radioactive gas. Fluorinum, Chlorum, Bromium, Iodium, and two of the three preparations of Oxygenium (the two prepared by dissolving oxygen or ozone in water; the third is a compound) are also elements: though each forms a molecule with itself (Fl2, Cl2, Br2, O2, O3), each molecule consists of just the one type of atom.
Hahnemann's third class of examples
Hahnemann's third class of single, simple medicinal substances is that of the entire plant containing the alkaloids referred to earlier as being unavailable in sufficient and sufficiently predictable purity. He illustrates this class with China, Nux. vom., and Opium, corresponding to the alkaloids he'd mentioned, and states the physician "possesses, in the plants themselves, in their natural state... every quality necessary for healing. Moreover, the alkaloids are not the only constituents of the plants".
Entirety of medicinal effect
This last-quoted sentence is easy to overlook as merely referring once again to the purity problem in attempting to isolate an alkaloid; but in context, it's clearly referring to the dependence of the entirety of the medicinal effect of the plant upon the natural combination of chemicals (substance iii) that it comprises.
The concept of holism, though the word was not then in use, was clearly at the forefront of Hahnemann's mind both in reference to the use of the entirety of a plant and in reference to the entirety of a patient's symptomatology. The idea of making up one "substance" by mixing (as opposed to chemically combining) two substances was anathema to his approach of pure learning, of finding the effects of a substance as purely as possible rather than indulging in any guesswork. The idea of taking two such well-proved remedies and destroying all advantage in the knowledge obtained of them by combining them was clearly in complete opposition to all that homoeopathy was based on: replicable pathogenesis, thorough knowledge of that pathogenesis, and prescription only upon the basis that the pathogenesis mimicked the patient's symptomatology.
Cheers --
John
2009/7/14 Joy Lucas >

[Joy Lucas]

Thanks John, of course it is making sense now. However I cannot match your knowledge of this but it is fantastic, thank you and I will ponder over these points. I understand things better when spoken in terms of the rx. Lots to think about but I hang on to the 'chemically combining' as opposed to 'mixing' substances simplifies it well for me

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/