Hahnemann's Cinchona Experiment

[Sue Muller]

Dear Members,
I have a translation here, off the internet, of Hahnemann's exact words
concerning his initial quinine experiment. Does anyone know the source of
this? The address is: www.angelfire.com/va/quinine/allergy.html

I would also appreciate this question being forwarded to Lyghtforce too.

This is important for my university thesis, the literature review of which
will reveal the scientific foundation of homeopathy - but I need accurate
referencing.
Thanks a lot.

Sue

[Dave Hartley]

Hi Sue,

That was taken from Haehl "Sameuel Hahnemann, His Life and Work" in Chapter
V.
You should probably read the whole chapter.

If Hahnemann wrote "four drams of good china" this would mean powder of the
bark of "good" (meaning the most potent available, we would assume - which
at that time, according to Clarke is the yellow Peruvian bark.)

A few paragraphs further down, someone is quoted as saying Hahnemann took
one ounce of powdered bark (that's a heck of a lot of powder...)

It seems to me that it is more important to consider this as the beginning
of the idea of PROVING remedies, rather than becoming involved in
controversy over exactly what amount, what percentage of quinine, and other
sophistry.

regards,

Dave Hartley
www.localcomputermart.com/dave
Santa Cruz, CA (831)423-4284

[Peter Quenter]

Not being a chemist, neither a patho-physiologist, and such,
and interesting thought as it may be in this article,
I, nevertheless, see a similarity to the old controversy of
discussing and analysing a so-called 'active constituent' of
a plant as opposed to ingesting the whole herb, acting
synergistically with *all* its constituents -

Also, and especially, if I'm not missing some point,
whether Hahnemann was hyper-sensitive to the herb/or the
alkaloid (no difference in regard) or not, matters little in
regard the *principle* of provings - it would more so simply
vary the actual *dosage/time-frame/frequency of dosage*
required for such proving -
but neither the Materia Medica of cinchona, nor the
principles of provings as such would change because of
Hahnemann possibly having been more sensistive to the drug -

still an interesting thought, though -
and, considering Mr William's links to some other fine
homoeo-sites, I might take his article as intending no more
and no less -

best
peter quenter

[petsfriend]

I think this article supports a major tenet of homeopathy which is that
reaction to a remedy requires sensitivity to that remedy by the individual.
I know many people who have taken many remedies without noticeable symptoms.
If they get the right remedy however, the reaction should be definite.

russell swift, dvm
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