Minutus

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Michele Graham" wrote:
(probably) from

Thank you,
here is the fixed link
http://www.curantur.de/English/Articles ... ition.html

"Preface about the repetition of a homoeopathic remedy" , (1833):

"that by giving small doses quickly one after another nearly never
the most possible Good can be achieved in the cure of diseases,
especially in chronic diseases, and that, because by such a procedure
the vital force won't calmly turn from her mistunement by the natural
disease to a mistunement in a similar remedial disease, but generally
gets so violently excited and disturbed by a large dose or several
small doses, given quickly one after another, that its [the vital
force's; GR] reaction can express itself in most of the cases the
least helpful, but damages more, than helps."

Thanks for the corrected link.
Altho my memory hadn't done very well with this, on re-reading I still
find it quite incredible, would love to hear others' further comments.
The article says:

"The case:
female patient, 32 ys. old. healthy , no chronic diseases. Interested
in homeopathy for 12 years.
August 15, 1992: diarrhea with vomiting after eating ice-cream. 2 days
later the patient, who feels weak, anxious restless,

######Here is the first odd thing. Why would she get diarrhea and
vomiting after eating ice-cream? And why is she still feeling so ill
two days later? Was she feeling unwell before the ice-cream, or had
she had any such problems before with ice-cream?

asks her doctor:'What do you think about Arsenicum?'

########Arsenicum sounds reasonable, from what's written. Was the
"doctor" she asked a homeopath, and if so, surely they would have given
her guidance other than "sure, try it", and surely, when she kept
feeling worse, she would have checked back with the homeopath???

About 14 days later, after eating some fish, another bout of vomiting
and diarrhea.

#######Again, what's the context?

According to the husband of the patient, the patient took Ars 6X, 3
times 3 glob. daily, till her death on October 29, 1992.

####### This just doesn't make any sense... There isn't enough arsenic
in there to give arsenic poisoning. The article says perhaps it was
drawn out from within her body--but does that really make any sense???
long to continue taking a remedy that is (a) not working, and (b)
permitting (never mind "causing") the condition to continue worsening;
but even granted that she evidently did just that, it's really not all
*that* long. Long enough for a somewhat sensitive person to develop
proving symptoms perhaps, but for it to have gone to such an extent as
was described here seems really incredible: I just can't see how it
could be possible.

During the time in-between some additional symptoms developped:
oversensitivity to cold; insensitivity on finger-tips and legs;
swelling of eye-lids; itching dry skin without eruption, ascending
paralysis.

#######And yet she continued the remedy? Very strange.

Arsenicum levels elevated in urine and blood.

Probably other remedies were taken as well, such as Verat 3x, Kali-br
X3, and others.

In the discussion the authors conlude that the death of the patient was
obviously the consequence of a prolonged remedial disease caused by
self-prescribing Ars X6. This is confirmed by the laboratory values and
the results of the post-mortem examination.

########This is a strange statement. The laboratory values could only
"confirm" that she had elevated levels of arsenic in her blood and
urine. They could not possibly "confirm" that the remedy was
responsible.

The elevated values of Arsenicum in urine and serum could,
hypothetically, be explained by a mobilisation of endogenous Arsenicum,
e.g. from the bones.

Several pictures in the article (Degeneration of the sceleton muscle
fibres; demyelinizing, non-inflammatory polyneuropathia of the N.
suralis) , some repertorization grids and the bibliography will show
the well-documented basis of this article.

#########I wonder whether anyone *looked* for alternate sources of the
arsenic?
I wonder how the event came to the attention of the homeopaths who
wrote the article, and whether at any point before the patient's death
the situation had been discussed with the doctor of whom she asked,
"What about arsenicum?"

I am not one of the "camp" who insists that no remedy has ever caused
any discomfort to anyone; I've seen aggravations and etc., yet this one
just does not seem credible. Does anyone know more that might fill it
in any further?
Shannon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

repeated
confused

Repeated high potencies they claim speeds up the cure- I guess they
used it in almost all of their cases.I studied Sarabhai probably 10-
15 years back and so do not rightly remember. I do not have anything
against or for it... Just did not get around to doing it...since
what I was doing was working...

or
might
I have almost never given anything less than 30. ( Secret: I got
most of my remedies from another homeopath - a complete box full of
them - and he had only above 30. So I practised with them
I would have given 30 or 200 ( most of my prescriptions anyway are
these) a couple of doses...
more
about

Generally low potencies are given where the condition is more
physical. I do not think there is any reason to worry about
chemical poisoning.

I do not think it is chemical "toxicity" that we are talking about.
It is the primary action that might get triggered. Dilution and
potencies were started to decrease the primary action and just
utilize the secondary.
Do you think that a single week of conium
meant)
depleted

Overrepetition of any potency for the "unsuitable" patient.
I am not for or against repetition, If someone only responds to
continued dosing so be it- but that would need more close
observation, For an aged patient I would be more conservative - that
is all.
We can never say that repetition is NOT harmful... we can always
create provings ( otherwise how can we have provings. And the
provings can be unnecessary and alarming to the patient). Once I
gave a few doses of Stannum to a patient and he complained about
increasing mental symptoms ( while meditating he had problems
orienting etc.)I was worried I was "suppressing" - the disease is
affecting higher organs; then referring to materia medica showed
that < closing eyes is a symptom of Stannum. We waited a while and
symptoms improved.

Dr.Koppikar ( 70 years practice of homeopathy) in his book - has a
chapter called "Repetition of the same low potency for years" . He
describes 2 cases - one a man of 72 years poly articular rheumatism,
itching and burning etc. He was given Sulph 6 - this man took it for
10 years daily and had looked so young and healthy.
Another case of arterial blockage to extremities, dry gangrene of
toes, some toes amputated and shrivelling fingers got his fingers
cured with Carbo Veg 30 DAILY for 7 years.
And he asks at the end: If millesimal potency repetition is
permitted, why not of the ordinary potencies.

Koppikar did not believe in the number of pellets making a
difference. I do not believe in it either. When in potency this does
not matter. I have never seen any difference between 1 pellet and
100 pellets being taken at a time. I have tried this on myself -
personally as well.

He also mentions " Actually the dreaded aggravation is an extremely
rare event and may occur only as a curative one"
and also " Let us not have too much hair splitting about dosage or
unnecessary talk of aggravations".

Which is exactly my approach - ( and that is why I have never had
the urge to move to LM much). I have seen some rare aggravations
after medicines - mostly curative - never very alarming or
threatening- ( of course never ever treated someone 92 years old
either)...

I have previously mentioned about another "asthma specialist"- I
knew - he used to give Ipec 6c for months and years along with a
constitutional prescription- no side effects as far I could see- had
a roaring practice...

Dear Luise

It is always a good Idea not to jump to any conclusion too fast but
in this case of Conium (with the improper repetition), the patient,
though he had a history of stomach cancer and is 94 years old, he
was'nt doing so bad and for some years he was not hospitalized, He
had some difficulties walking so his family thought Homeopathy can
help. Then, after only 7-10 days of the daily Conium he woke up
paralyzed (and this is well written in the Conium Materia Medica) and
had to be hospitalized again and again (for 3 times untill he got
stable) he was in such a bad condition it is no wonder he then also
got the pneumonia and the bladder infection.

Anyway, for me this case is a good warning for the real power of
Homeopathy and to the importance of being very careful and respectful
with this healing art.

Ben.
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Luise Kunkle wrote:
homeopaths, who
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done,

Hi...
No offense but I can't call you "Hahnemannian" because some of what
you say is not so Hahnemannian at all (and even very dangerous in my
point of view)

Anyway, I think all the cases you refered to were not aggrevated with
the long repeated doses probably because the remedy they took was not
their constitutional simillimum so their sensitivity to it was not
so high and because they were not very weak patients (and maybe they
had some proving symptoms but had'nt paid much attention to them,
maybe in time their vital principal got used to it, maybe they lived
with a few new symptoms which they prefered over their old ones... I
don't know) anyway, this method can not be called a cure, certanly
not Homeopathic cure.

Now, the size of the dose, same thing here, you can swallow a full
bottle with 100,000 globules without or with only slight effect but
only if it is not your simillimum (and if you don't have any affinity
or sensitivity to it) and if you are not weak and sick!

If you give to the very sick and weak patient his simmilimum in a
very large dose you will cause harm.

Why do you think Hahnemann dealt so much with minuting the size of
the dose trying to decrease as much as possible the aggravation of
his patients?

Ben.
that
rheumatism,
for
does
had

Hi, Shannon --

I've tried to locate the particular occasion and haven't, and my
memory of it isn't clear, so I'm loath to try to answer that in
detail. If I locate the exact occasion or (more likely) remember the
exact detail, I'll reply; in the meantime, all I can say with
certainty is that it was a matter not of lower dilution but simply of
greater quantity of exactly the same medicine.

Regarding your analysis of the arsenic poisoning case, given the facts
as you've outlined them, I think your reasoning is spot on.

Kind regards --

John Harvey

Thanks, H2002!
That's the approach I was originally started with--most of my training,
and my own treatment. I was initially taught that low potencies won't
affect the M/E sphere, but have found that to be quite untrue. Whether
they are as efficiently *curative* of M/E states, that I don't know,
but they can certainly move things along well.

Just FWIW, the main reason I started experimenting with 6 and 12 (and
came to like them very well for some situations) is simply that there
is less "turnaround" time for each dose (generally speaking, and with
the folks I have been working with), so you can see (perhaps more
quickly) if the remedy is going to act well, and if it "does nothing"
or acts badly (which actually I don't think I've ever yet seen with a
low potency; I do not repeat mechanically, tho), you don't have the
long enforced waiting time of a high potency. (In a chronic case, I
mean.) There are disadvantages too; I've found it valuable to get
familiar with both scales, and at this point am using them about
equally often. (But I have to say, if I were a more confident
prescriber I would use them less often, so I am not "recommending",
only remarking!)

Trying to remember which I have made use of in low potencies...
Arsenicum definitely--I have it in 6x, 6c, and higher, and have seen
fine results and no trouble from any potency--but again, I pace
repetitions according to response, never mechanically and almost never
daily. Maybe that makes the difference, I don't know.

I guess that's all I can think of from personal experience. I'll bear
this in mind...

Ah, that makes more sense, tho I haven't seen that either, so far.
Tho with a very elderly person things might be different. But I'm
still confused about the low/high question with regard to old people!
I'll keep "opinion gathering" for a while.
That makes sense. I've read cases where a single dose of a low potency
(even as low as 6c) caused progressive and lasting improvement; I
wonder if that might have been the case for Ben's patient *if* he'd
been started iwth a single "test dose"? But only wondering...

I've gotten proving symptoms from just a few doses of LM--actually
nothing was happening, and I really *wanted* that remedy to work,
so I slowly increased my size-of-dose until--voila!--proving symptoms.
So I would have to say (not only on basis of that experience)
that in case of LMs, size of dose seems to matter more than it seems to
with Cs...

Interesting!
That's impressive. I wonder whether less frequent repetitions would
have worked; or whether a lower potency daily would have worked?? I
have read that, in some cases where the disease is very entrenched
and/or the vital force very weak, high potencies are (?)needed in order
to get a response; I wonder whether this case was that sort, or whether
the posology was chosen simply because that is the way the prescriber
usually prescribes?

I *do* wish I had a better understanding of when / whether frequent
high potencies (and 30c daily would qualify in my book) are actually
*necessary*, versus when they are simply tolerated--what does your own
experience say about that? Again, I am curious specifically about in
chronic situations; I know that, in a severe acute, high potencies
might need to be repeated quite often, to match the pace and intensity
of the disease; but in chronic conditions such as yours above.
?? As written in 5th and 6th, repetition is OK so long as the potency
is (even slightly) changed.

Well, my *personal* experience mostly agrees with yours on this, but:
onset of effect) and 20 (a pleasant "buzz"--no problem, and in fact
more "fun" , but definitely different vs. the single pill), which
does suggest that, at least for me, at that time and with that remedy,
taking 100 might have given a rougher ride.
me, I was struck by the fact that, in my own family we have seen
exactly two serious (not dangerous, just hugely unpleasant and one
lasted for about two weeks!) aggravations, and both of those were in my
then-toddler daughter, and happened after the *only* two occasions when
I let her eat an entire "single dose vial" (containing what I would now
call hundreds of doses), under the understanding that "size of dose
didn't matter". My prescriber insisted that this was purely
coincidence, but I've changed my mind on that point!

In the case of LMs, I found out the hard way that size-of-dose
DEFINITELY can matter! Our introduction to LMs (with apologies to
those who've already heard this a half-dozen times) was from a
prescriber who normally did not use LMs because he'd found them too
prone to aggravation, but felt that my then-toddler son needed their
extra gentleness (huh? ). After the first dose--1 tablespoon
from the 8 oz bottle into a half-cup of water, then 1 tsp for a
dose--my son started almost instantly and almost literally climbing the
walls--yelling, hollering, whacking things, spinning, jumping,
smacking--which wore off gradually over the next 24 hours, *just* in
time for the next dose, which produced just the same reaction. (Me:
Um, do I really need to keep doing this every day? Dr.: (helplessly)
Yes, it should start to wear off in a few days. I hope.) That was
when I came to the list and got better guidance from David Little's
students, and, at 1/6 the dose and 1/4 the repetition (gauged by his
response this time), there were no more "dervish attacks" and he came
alone just great.

Not always curative...
What do you normally give for a single dose? I would think any
prescriber who dispenses his own medicines would not be apt to give
hundreds of pellets for a single dose anyway...

I do appreciate hearing these thoughts!
Best wishes,
Shannon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Ben,

I can't speak from any experience of the effects of too-large doses or
repeated potencies, I'm afraid, but Hahnemann clearly thought (and he
had ample casework by which to judge) that size of dose matters to
sensitive constitutions and that unchanged frequent repetition even in
potency can engraft on any patient a medicinal illness:

"The patient may indeed be made sick in another way by receiving other
such unchanged doses, even sicker than he was, for now only those
symptoms of the given remedy remain active which were not homoeopathic
to the original disease, hence no step toward cure can follow, only a
true aggravation of the condition of the patient" (Aphorism 247).

Read that again. Makes sense, doesn't it! And this is not abstract
theory, as fills our journals today; it's Hahnemann's understanding of
what occurs after meditating on the RESULTS. In the Organon's fifth
edition, he absolutely forbade repetition. It was one medicine in one
dose, end of treatment till symptoms returned. By the time he wrote
the sixth, he'd found a way to accelerate the process of cure:

"But if the succeeding dose is changed slightly every time, namely
potentised somewhat higher, then the vital principle may be altered
without difficulty by the same medicine (the sensation of natural
disease diminishing) and thus the cure brought nearer".

Hahnemann very clearly distinguished, in Aphorisms 246 to 250, between
three antagonistic responses to potentised medicines:

(1) "homoeopathic aggravations", which, he said, appear toward the END
of the treatment, using increasing potencies, of a chronic illness
(Aphorism 248);

(2) "new and troublesome symptoms not appertaining to the disease to
be cured", arising from prescription of a medicine "not capable of
effecting real improvement", i.e. a medicine that "cannot be
considered as homoeopathically selected" (Aphorism 249); and

(3) the arousal of "untoward reactions and revolt as is always the
case with unmodified and especially rapidly repeated doses" (Aphorism
246).

In the case of the first (aggravation), he gave clear directions:
simply through cessation of the medicine, the medicinal disease "will
soon disappear and leave undisturbed health in its wake", because it
is effectively the result of excess, or unneeded, medicine effecting a
proving on the otherwise healthy (Aphorism 248).

In the case of the second (new symptoms), he also gave clear
directions: If the troublesome symptoms be not very violent, the next
remedy must be given immediately, in order to take the place of the
improperly selected one. If the aggravation be considerable, it must
first be partially neutralised as soon as possible by an antidote
before giving the next medicine chosen more accurately according to
similarity of action (Aphorisms 249 and 250).

But, in footnote 136 to Aphorism 249, Hahnemann says that
"considerable" aggravation -- aggravation warranting an antidote --
need never arise!

"The well-informed and conscientiously careful physician will never be
in a position to require an antidote in his practice if he will begin,
as he should, to give the selected medicine in the smallest possible
dose. A like minute dose of a better chosen remedy will re-establish
order throughout."

In other words, if your patient is sensitive and you're going to give
him a large quantity or a a very low potency, then watch out. You may
as well start small: a very small quantity of a reasonable potency.

As for the third condition, the untoward reactions that always arise
from repeated unchanged potencies, Hahnemann has little to say about
how to deal with it, because it won't arise in responsible
homoeopathic practice. We need never see it. (Of course those who
don't want to won't; but what I really mean is that it need never
happen again.)

These three patient responses are quite different, but we see modern
homoeopaths discuss time and again as if they represent essentially
the same condition: an unexpectedly sensitive patient. When the
patient reacts "unexpectedly" badly to daily or twice-daily doses of
their pills, it's not the patient that is the trouble; it's the
physician.

Why does this subject continue to arise even today? Is it because
practitioners are getting better results than Hahnemann did, and their
methods contradict his directions? Clearly not. No, it's because
practitioners are seeing troublesome results and failing to relate
those results to their practice -- of which they'll boast! -- of
frequently repeating an unchanged potency.

On the one hand, those championing this practice know better than
Hahnemann. On the other, their results -- or, at least, the results
of those following them, who may be more honestly observant -- are at
best mediocre and at times downright alarming. Yet they continue
prescribing their twice-daily (and sometimes more often) pills,
blithely discussing patients who were unpredictably (!) sensitive to
their "homoeopathic" remedy.

To every medical practitioner with the humility to listen, Hahnemann
gave three golden keys. He gave the key to effecting a complete cure.
He gave the key to doing no harm. And he gave the key to achieving
the two in the shortest possible time.

Effecting a cure: Know the symptoms of the patient. Know the symptoms
of substances. Know them intimately. Don't interpret; don't
speculate; know them. Then make the closest possible match between
the two. Remove any obstacles to the relationship.

Doing no harm: Prescribe the most homoeopathic substance you can find.
Give it in potency only. Never repeat it in unchanged potency.

Accelerating the process: Repeat the remedy often -- every four,
three, two days, or even daily; but always, without exception, raise
the potency at least a little before each successive dose.

All three golden keys, of course, rely on one fundamental: knowledge
of the symptoms of both patient and medicine. That too is something
our modern experts will dispense with.

Hahnemann was a results man first and foremost. He objected to the
results of large doses, and he objected to the results of repeated
unchanged potencies, and he focused on these two practices because
they did the patient a disservice. (Strangely enough, they still do.)
He did not, as far as I recall, say that it's inadvisable to give the
remedy even more frequently than daily. He did not object to frequent
repetition.

It just has to be repetition performed intelligently.

With that in mind, you might try observing what happens in your
practice when your patient has her first remedy in the following
manner: open a quantity of the potentised tincture and let her sniff
it. Close it; succuss it once or twice; open it and give her a second
sniff. Close it; succuss it again; open it and give her a third
sniff. Close it.

Take careful note of the time as you open it to give the first dose.
After thirty seconds, and without making evident that you're expecting
anything, ask the patient casually how she feels.

That's homoeopathy.

Kind regards,

John Harvey

Dear John,
It is so exciting to read your clear presentation of this important
subject and good to know that there are some who really are followers
of the founder of Homeopathy.
I would like your permission to translate it to Hebrew and to
publish it on the local websites. The confusion about this matter is
great.

Thank you so much
Ben.

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "John Harvey"
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Excellent description John, thanks

-- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "John Harvey" wrote:
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