Dear John
I think one of the issues that you need to resolve is the Definition of Medicinal Substance.
I think you tend to imply that the substance must have some kind of medicinal property before it can be made into a remedy.
This is of course countered by the presence of remedies such as Sil and Lyc which in their unpotentised state have NO medicinal properties.
You have stated that
"The idea of making up one "substance" by mixing (as opposed to chemically combining) two substances was anathema to his approach of pure learning"
Could please give me any evidence from his writings.
The fact that we have lake / spring waters which are a mixture of things, is again my evidence against your statement.
Also I notice that you had use Fl to represent Fluorine. Of course the symbol should be just F.
Scholton speaks of F as a remedy. However, fluorine is such a reactive element that as soon as you pass it into water it become hydrofluoric acid so one cannot potentise Fluorine.
Your shortest reply would be greatly appreciated.
Best wishes
Soroush
________________________________
From:
minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:
minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 16 July 2009 12:36
To:
minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Of substance
Joy, to answer the second part of your question: examples of what Hahnemann meant by "more than one single, simple medicinal substance".
Everything and nothing
It's been argued (by one and the same person, on occasion) that Hahnemann meant to include everything in this category and that he meant to exclude everything from it.
Everything a mixture
The argument that everything consists of more than one (medicinal) substance because nothing is pure has been dealt with in previous posts, specifically in my "Simple Substance" posts of 7 and 8 July. In a nutshell: a remedy doesn't have to be as pure as the driven snow. Hahnemann knew that, and we know it. It's no excuse for mixtures.
Nothing a mixture
The argument that once it's been potentised, nothing consists of more than one substance, that it instead becomes "a single remedy" rather than a number of substances, overlooks the fact that in order to become this hypothetical "single remedy", it first has to be mixed from more than one single, simple medicinal substance -- a starting point at which it obviously cannot also be just one medicinal substance.
And, plainly, Hahnemann would not have gone to the trouble to try to guide us in what he meant by "more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time" -- and gone to the further trouble to exemplify "single, simple" in a footnote -- if there had been nothing to exclude as suitable for use in homoeopathy!
More than one
So: what did Hahnemann mean us to comprehend by more than one of these things?
There are, broadly, two ways of prescribing "more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time" to the one patient (no doubt some of us would argue that a patient with multiple personalities comprises more than one patient and therefore deserves more than one simillimum, as well as "supportive" remedies and so on. But for the sake of sanity, let's stick to reality):
Two apart
The first way is to prescribe more than one of the medicines that fit into the definition of substance; Nat. mur. 30 and Puls. 30, for instance (the particular type of compound remedy that the experts in these matters call a combination).
Two together
The second way is to mix, with a first medicine, an equal or lesser proportion of a second, sufficient to perceptibly alter its medicinal effects.
Combination remedies are one way of doing this, and compound remedies in general are all intended to do exactly this. But what other medicines fall into this class? Essentially, anything that doesn't meet what Hahnemann intended by "[only] one single, simple medicinal substance".
Examples of "more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time"
Examples include: air; the mineral waters (Skookum chuck, Sanicula, etc.); many kinds of rock (shale, for example, which can be made of various clays, muds, and fossils, and concretions; and Samarskite); Berlin wall; Mel cum Sale; Gunpowder; vaccines, both single and multivalent; at least one of the Carcinosins (comprising parts of a number of tumours); Lac maternum; ; Coca Cola; and pudding.
Sanicula is an interesting example from several points of view: its provings were done on the crude salts (by drinking the water), but it has been prescribed at least three times with success (on the basis of symptom similarity) in high potencies prepared from the triturated salts. So the possibility exists that such mixtures can indeed produce a pathogenesis that remains stable from crude to 50M or higher, and the further possibility exists that such a mixture will cure the symptoms it is capable of producing. There exists the further possibility that all potency preparations of such a mixture could be done from the one source stock. None of these admittedly speculative and hypothetical possibilities, though, will alter whether a mixture is a single substance!
Examples that may appear to be mixtures of this kind but are not include Penicillinum and B.C.G.
Once no reader here seems to have difficulty relating this to what Hahnemann said, I'll happily go into a complexity that does affect all this, using the example of one of our polychrest plant remedies, but I don't wish to throw off anyone whose grasp of these matters is not yet strong.
The third class of numbers
Finally, there is, of course, one more class of medicines that isn't either "one single, simple medicinal substance at one time" or "more than one single, simple medicinal substance at one time". But I've already discussed that class adequately several hours ago in writing to Liz, under "definition".
Cheers!
John
2009/7/16 John Harvey >
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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)
