Minutus

Hi,

I think that one of the best ways to test your "sacriligious" question Chris would be in a case. Being absolutely sure that a combination remedy i.e. Calc. sulph, Nat. sulph. etc covers a case and rather than giving the remedy, mix the two separate potentised substances (i.e. Calc. carb and Sulph) give them to the patients and observe... I guess that would be a good way to test whether the remedy is stable or even if it actually works in a similar way.
The other thing i guess (that covers any ethical issues as well) would be to make these combinations, prove them and compare with the provings of the remedy.
What do you think?

Kind regards
Thanos

"Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around." Vanilla Sky

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Απο: Lynn Cremona
Προς: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Στάλθηκε: 4:09 μ.μ. Σάββατο, 29 Οκτωβρίου 2011
Θεμα: Re: [Minutus] combination remedies
Here is Chris's response and discussion on the subject:

I find myself wondering somewhat sacrilegiously, what happens if you do a combo of plant (or any) remedies that have already been potentized, and do a proving on that.
Can that kind of combination be considered stable?
Does it count as a simple single substance?
I think there has been some discussion of this on the list, but don't remember what was concluded.
Vera
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Hi Vera,
There was a test done here several years ago written up in the Similia homoeopathic journal,
a proving of a combination of Rhus tox and Bryonia in potency.

The characteristic modalities by which we differentiate both single remedies (e.g. Rhus tox: continued movement;
Bryonia: at rest) did not appear as proving symptoms in this test.
This makes sense if you consider that at a single moment in time, a person can't be aggravated by motion and ameliorated by motion in the exact same location. It's either one or the other - which means the homoeopathic practice of alternating single remedies, if necessary, is FAR superior to combining two remedies in one dose.
The Vital Force responds to the stimulus of the drug, and if there are two drugs producing completely opposite stimuli at the same moment in time, then it is hardly possible to predict the outcome.
The Vital Force *might* go one way or it might go the other, or the combined stimuli are completely nullified (as happened in the combo proving)

In any case, it is hardly the window of reliability and predictability that we are looking for when prescribing *homoeopathically*.
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I think very often the experts are right (the ones I agree with, of course...) - but I believe that everyone has to come to their own independent understanding of each issue, and it's important to debate until that happens.
Just noticed something in the footnote 273 - maybe it's too much nit-picking but Hahnemann does say that the combo may "be considered as simple medicinal substances..." he doesn't use the word "single" here.
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The way I understand it is this.
In Aphorism 118, Hahnemann stated that each medicine acts in a single way, which is why each single drug needs to be proven first, so that we can really know its medicinal properties to be able to differentiate it from another.
In Aphorism 119, he stated that each kind of plant is different from every other plant, just as every mineral and salt is unique in its chemical properties to every other. He was speaking of material substances, not potentized substances.
Each plant is an organic composite of its outer form, its own pattern of life and growth, and is different from every other plant species and genus.
He didn't describe a single plant as a mixture of albumen, gelatin, resin, acids, carbon, and silica components etc, he described it organically, as a single substance. So too are there *stable* unvarying chemical substances that can combine through chemical relationship in unchangeable or fixed proportions.
These chemical compounds are outlined in the footnote to 273, they are simple substances, not "mixtures" or "combos" any more than a single Chamomile plant is a mixture containing bits of Pulsatilla, Opium and Ipecac etc.
We only have a few examples of animal remedies used by Hahnemann (e.g. Calc carb, Psorinum).
While he was evidently aware of the existence of some infectious pathogens (he referred to "invisible animalicules") I can't see any attempt by Hahnemann to mix several "animalicules" (present day ciliates and bacteria) or nosodal materials together as one single *simple* substance.
In fact, a single, proven remedy can treat a bandwidth of similar viral or bacterial type infections without mixing several simple substances into a complex.
In Aphorism 273 Hahnemann stated that we only ever need to administer one single, *simple* medicine at a time. The reason is obvious as we need to interpret the response of the patient to the prescribed medicine.
No two medicines are exactly equivalent, and each simple substance works in its own different, but determinate way.
Hope useful,
Chris.
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Saturday, October 29, 2011 4:25 AM
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Imagine Peace

Hi Lynn,
Thanks for the clarification. I agree about how busy you can be using one remedy.
Kind reagards
Thanos
"Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around." Vanilla Sky

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Απο: Lynn Cremona
Προς: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Στάλθηκε: 12:45 π.μ. Κυριακή, 30 Οκτωβρίου 2011
Θεμα: Re: [Minutus] combination remedies
Hello Thanos,

I think you misunderstood the forwarded post
the text in blue was from Vera
the text in Black are Chris's responses to Vera.

People who want to use combos, are the people who should go about proving them.
Those of us who are using one remedy at a time have enough to keep us busy !

Best,
Lynn
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Saturday, October 29, 2011 3:43 PM
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Saturday, October 29, 2011 11:09 AM

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Imagine Peace

Hi John,
Just to clarify, what do you mean by mixtures? 1)Two substances that have been potentised together from the beginning or 2) two remedies that have been homeopathically prepared and then combined to reproduce the effect ?
If we are talking about mixing mother tinctures of Bryonia with Rhus tox and then potentise them i would never consider using that due to the lack of provings and symptomatology as well as if you had combined their homeopathic preperations i.e Rhus tox 30c and Bryonia 30c. Neither of the above can be used due to lask of provings/symptomatology. So i totally agree with Chris's comments about the groundless of any such attempt.
I think that my missunderstanding was that the email went further to explore the potential of using combinations of remedies (i.e Sulphur 30c, Nat-mur. 30c) to reproduce the effect of known combination (Nat-sulph. 30c. Other than that i said i agree with your comments.

I hope i clarified my misunderstanding a bit
Kind Regards

Thanos

"Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around." Vanilla Sky

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Απο: John Harvey
Προς: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Στάλθηκε: 7:34 π.μ. Κυριακή, 30 Οκτωβρίου 2011
Θεμα: Re: [Minutus] combination remedies
Thanos, Vera's question of what occurs when two substances are mixed arbitrarily and used in a pathogenetic trial of their combined medicinal effects can be answered only by repeatedly performing that experiment, not by any number of clinical trials.

Chris's response nicely answered the presumption that one might intelligently guess the pathogenetic potential of mixing two (pathogenetically) well-known substances: the presumption is obviously groundless.

Vera's question of whether a mixture could acquire the properties and value of a single medicinal substance through pathogenetic experiments was equally relevant, not on some merely doctrinal basis but because it reflects a question of pathogenetic stability and, consequently, the problem too of experimental reproducibility.

Our ability to regard a medicinal substance as having properties we can predict and depend upon is a function of the stability of those properties from sample to sample and from potency to potency: a stable pathogenesis. Simply put, single, simple medicinal substances are well-established in having a stable pathogenesis. We know no such thing about mixtures, and in all likelihood can never know it, as any mixture's pathogenesis is likely to change from potency to potency, at least in the lower potencies; will certainly depend upon the proportions of the ingredient substances; and may very well depend upon influences deriving from the mixing process itself or deriving from the relationship between the potencies combined -- influences that we will not even attempt to control, because we have no least idea of them.

All in all, the future for rigorous pathogenetic trials seems particularly bleak -- not only because it would require very rigorous work and a strong leaning toward mixtures clearly derives from disinterest in rigorous work, but also because such a trial entails all the uncertainties of trialling a single, simple medicine and adds to them the uncertainties deriving from ignorance of the influences of each medicine on the other(s) and on the others' dynamic effects and deriving from ignorance of the influence of potency in mediating all those relationships.

Cheers --

John
Saturday, October 29, 2011 3:43 PM
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Hi, Thanos --

Thanks for the clarification. In turn, I confess that I deliberately treated (1) and (2) as suffering much the same problems. I think it's clear that in fact (1) has an uncertainty problem that (2) does not -- the unknowability and unpredictability of the changing of medicinal dominance from potency to potency -- and that (2) has an uncertainty problem that (1) does not: the unknowability and unpredictability of the effect of one (or more) ultrapotency upon another. But, all in all, both early and late mixing suffer from the major problems of changeability, unpredictability, uncertainty, and instability.

I'm aware of certain presumptive treatment of a chemical compound as having dynamic effects constituting the sum of an element from each of two potential contributors to that compound. In the case you mentioned, the presumption is that Natrum sulph. would have the effects of Sulphur and a compound of which natrum (sodium) is just one half, Natrum mur. (sodium chloride). That this presumption is unfounded and most likely to be almost wholly wrong in the majority of cases is evident if you consider the effects of the substance Natrum sulph. as similarly being constituted of the effects of Sulphur and those of Natrum phos. or being constituted of the effects of Kali sulph. and Natrum mur. When you begin to examine the logical implications of the presumption, what you find is that all sulphur compounds -- Nat. sulph., Kali sulph., Merc. sulph., etc. -- must share many of the same effects -- Sulphur ones. It just doesn't seem to stand up to examination.

Cheers!

John
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Saturday, October 29, 2011 3:43 PM
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