Minutus

from David Little:
Aphorism 247

Aphorism 247 explains why one needs to use the medicinal solution that is succussed prior to administration and given it in split-doses. He gives the reasons why it is difficult to speed the cure with the unmodified dry dose or unadjusted liquid dose. Then Hahnemann says:

"But if the succeeding dose is changed slightly every time, namely potentized somewhat higher (pp. 269-270) 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".

and
http://www.simillimum.com/education/lit ... rticle.php
Also of great importance is the following revelation which explains why the untimely repetition of an unmodified dose causes complications and explains the reason homoeopaths disagree so much about the repetition of doses.
The observation that the vital force is disturbed by the repetition of an unadjusted dose is the conclusion of around 35 years of experimentation and should not be taken lightly. In the 6th Organon Hahnemann adds that even with the perfect remedy it is unwise "to let the patient have a second or third dose taken dry.". The production of these complications is the main reason why repeating remedies before the relapse of symptoms is counter indicated in the classical Homoeopathy of the 4th Organon. The use of the medicinal solution however, overcomes this problem because it can be adjusted with succussions so that the patient never receives the exact same potency twice. Vide The Chronic Diseases.
Sheri

Thank you, Sherry. I am aware of and was taught that way of Homeopathy where 'Belief" was what guided us and we were not allowed to question it...just follow the Aph's blindly.
Forgive me, but I have fallen by the wayside and have developed this annoying way of asking 'why?' and the yet more annoying way of finding the answers with molecular biochemistry where I do not depend on long held blind beliefs and where science provides me all answers. And believe you me, modern molecular science completely supports Homeopathy and SimSimilCurn. It explains why our Homeopathic remedies are so wonderfully modern and are up there with the latest in molecular science.
This science was unheard of in Hahn's time and yet his genious foresaw this - how he stripped diluted and succused the remedies which method separated the molecules and with further potentization removed all molecules leaving its imprints in the water which acts as a polymer carrying the remedy hydration cells.
I have not explained this too well but the gist is there.
Jeff

sorry, Jeff - but nothing like you have described has been proven at all, and it really doesn't matter.
We take the symptom picture that is evident and those key symptoms and we find the remedy that matches the symptom picture and we give the remedy. That is what it is - we don't have to have an explanation and certainly should not be trying to figure it out before we treat. How does your belief help you find a remedy and treat the patient as a whole?
Sheri

I take the symptom picture, Sherry, and give the medicine...just like we all do; except I know what the remedy is doing - scientifically...that's all. And there is nothing allopathic about it.
Knowing the moities of say Calc sulph only adds to my knowledge of what the remedy is. It in no way changes how I prescribe the medicine which is as per the Homeopathic Repertory.
One can take Calc Sulphate and put it under a microscope and be able to see the Calc molecules and also the Sulph molecules. What is there to prove in it? It is there for you to see. Similarly you could put Calc Fluor, or Calc carb and see the Calc molecules in the moiety and know that Calc molecules are the same in all those meds. and are different only because of the moieties they are forming with the carb or sulph or fluor molecules. Adds to ones knowledge...and gathering knowledge is never wrong regardless of who says it is.
Jeff

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, they say, but I'm convinced that those possessing a very little knowledge are dangerous only if they remain blithely unaware of just how little (and sometimes irrelevant) it is.
First, then, let's get our basic chemistry concepts right.
Jeff, there are no such things as "Calc molecules" or "Sulph molecules" in Calc. sulph. Obviously, therefore, you cannot have seen them.

The notion of being able to see calcium or sulphur atoms or sulphate groups under a microscope is a nice dream -- one that is at present possible only in the most limited fashion and only recently. But no, you can't separate them or their functions in Calc. sulph. This is precisely because calcium and sulphur have no separate chemical identity in that compound. The nature of -- to skirt around silly arguments about water and impurities -- purified Calc. sulph. is that it is a single chemical substance, with a new, single, unique identity entirely distinct from the identities of the calcium, the sulphur, and the oxygen that enter into it.

In this chemical combination, the calcium and sulphur are not mixed. Instead, they (along with oxygen) chemically join into a new substance, one whose stability is governed by its component atoms' tendencies to share electrons. The unit of that compound is the calcium sulphate molecule, with one calcium (C) atom tending to donate two electrons to the sulphate (SO3) group. (If split apart, the calcium atom tends to lose those two electrons to the sulphate group; each, consequently being electrically charged, is then known as an ion.)

It is the entire molecule's emergent chemical and dynamic properties, not the properties of its pre-existing individual components, that determine its effects in deranging biological function.

Naturally, in a Hahnemannian "single, simple substance" that consists of more than one type of molecule, other considerations come into play. But they are not relevant here.
Second, let's manage to distinguish dynamic properties from chemical ones.

Just as the chemical properties of Calc. sulph. are (being emergent properties of the chemical combination) not a simple function of its components, neither -- as careful provings have clearly attested for two centuries -- are its dynamic properties a simple function of its chemical ones.

Although it is possible to make certain very basic, very crude predictions of the (deranging) biological effects of one chemical on the basis of its similarities (primarily in the distribution of its electrical charges -- i.e. chiefly the size and shape of its electric field) to other chemicals, the most valuable information, the information on which homoeopathy chiefly relies, arises as a more individual pattern of rather more-peculiar effects.

The iodides of mercury (Merc.-i-f and Merc.-i-r) illustrate this: although both contain merely mercury and iodine, each has known distinguishing characteristics, and those characteristics are ones that, though subtle and insignificant to allopaths, homoeopaths recognise as being essential to correct prescription (the distinction between a left-to-right direction in symptoms and a right-to-left one, for example).

Any two compounds are dynamically distinct, albeit they appear to have identical chemical functions even in the organism (such as their suitability to stimulate certain receptors). And the distinction exists even within a group of substances between whose pathogeneses we have yet to discern such differences. You simply cannot predict the (important) effects of one from another; any pretence at doing so is merely that.
Third, the conceit that any degree of familiarity with chemistry would allow somebody to understand how a particular substance induces its totality of symptoms is therefore no more than a conceit. It is a conceit not warranted even in one who does have some grasp of basic chemistry.

So let's realise from the foregoing, and acknowledge, that we cannot guess in advance any chemical's dynamic pathogenetic (i.e. deranging) effects upon the basis either of its chemical ones or of its chemical similarity to other substances.
Fourth, if we are going to use a cute new word such as moieties to mean things other than it is generally understood to mean, then, as well as taking care to spell it correctly, let's tell our readers what we would like them to understand by it and its relevance to the topic at hand.
Fifth, the topic at hand was not actually the prediction of pathogenesis from chemistry anyway, but the wisdom of dry repetition of an unchanged potency.

In that light, it is useful, Jeff, to consider what Sheri said to you earlier: that Hahnemann's injunction against such repetition was based on decades of experience in which his humility -- something always unacknowledged by those who profess to know better than he -- let him see how much better he could do if he were able to avoid certain mistakes.

These are mistakes that you could avoid making in the first place or from today onward by simple, humble reference to the wisdom of those who have gone before and lit torches for your guidance.

Remember that admonition about dangerous knowledge? You can see, can't you, that it's not the knowledge that is dangerous, but the wilful ignorance that accompanies it in those without the least insight into the limits of their knowledge and the utter miniscularity of their understanding of it.
Sixth, to those who would like to repeat a medicine without risk of inducing "aggravation" (actually not aggravation of the patient's illness but merely a new, unnecessary medicinal pathogenesis) in the patient but do so without a large change in potency, Hahnemann offers an extremely elegant solution in the form of his incremental potency changes using wet remedies. I am unaware of any single reason advanced, in this or similar discussions, to consider his recommendation to be less than perfect. Is there one?
Seventh, let's acknowledge honestly what is really at issue here, which is not superiority of practice but inferiority of either understanding or wisdom.

There may be those who would like to test the validity of Hahnemann's injunction even if it means possible trouble for the patient, by dint of a natural and entirely commendable wish to experiment and learn by risking mistakes. Such people will clearly acknowledge their uncertainty and the risks, to their patients. And, sooner or later, they will learn, they will understand, and they will grow wiser in that understanding.

And then there are those whose wish to test its validity is due to a simple egotistical belief in their own infallibility or greater knowledge than Hahnemann's. Such people will continue merely to assert the superiority of their understanding to the wisdom that Hahnemann gained in many decades of practice. They will not even consult their patients over the risk, as they are too wilfully ignorant even to recognise the limits of what they think they know. In that state of primitive, self-obsessed ignorance, those people will learn nothing useful in serving others.
It's never too late to learn. But who will pay?

Kind regards,

John

At 04:59 PM 1/15/2013, you wrote:
But Jeff, you don't know what the remedy does, no one does.
And if you are going against pathogens, you are practicing allopathically.
But Jeff, even if what you say is true, and what you say makes no sense to me, it doesn't matter - we work with the symptom picture to help the VF to heal.

Sheri

thanks John for your eloquent treatise.
Sheri

At 03:02 AM 1/16/2013, you wrote:

John
I would appreciate it if you can you explain, briefly, the following statement that you made. My chemistry is weak.
I am not understanding the idea that if calc sulph molecule were split the calc would lose its
2 electrons to the SO3.
“In this chemical combination, the calcium and sulphur are not mixed. Instead, they (along with oxygen) chemically join into a new substance, one whose stability is governed by its component atoms' tendencies to share electrons. The unit of that compound is the calcium sulphate molecule, with one calcium (C) atom tending to donate two electrons to the sulphate (SO3) group. (If split apart, the calcium atom tends to lose those two electrons to the sulphate group; each, consequently being electrically charged, is then known as an ion.)”
t

You're welcome, Sheri!

John

Hi, Tanya --
Actually, I should have ensured that I expressed my own basic chemistry correctly, typing the sulphate group as SO4 (not as SO3).
Let's start by being clear about what these molecules look like.
Water looks something like this:
H—O—H
(with an angle of around 120˚ between the bonds that join the H atoms to the O atom. This gives the molecule a negative "end", the O atom; and a positive "end", the H atoms).
Calcium sulphate looks something like this:
Ca—OOSOO
When joining chemically with other atoms or groups of atoms, an atom tends to like to complete its outer shell, even if the readiest means of doing so it to lend out all the electrons in it.
The calcium atom's outer shell consists of just two electrons, and it is ready to lend both to any atom or group that is willing borrow both of them.
The sulphate group is electrically dominated by electron-hungry oxygen atoms (four of them) and is very ready to borrow exactly two electrons, which its oxygen atoms chiefly share.
So, in joining to it chemically, the calcium atom lends its outer two electrons to the sulphate group.
This leaves the calcium atom itself with a charge equal to two protons (unbalanced by the now lost electrons), 2+. The sulphate group borrows those two electrons, taking on the additional negative charges that they come with, and so ends up with a charge of 2- (+ and - normally appearing as superscripts in this context, not easy to show in e-mail).
Each proton tends to attract one electron, and each electron tends to attract one proton -- with the result that, for instance, as a pure metal, calcium does not have a negative charge but is electrically neutral.
But there is a specific situation, relevant to homoeopathic preparation, in which the calcium atom, having lent two of its electrons to another group or groups, donates them on a semi-permanent basis upon splitting from that group: when the molecule goes into solution.
In solution, each calcium sulphate molecule breaks up into a Ca++ ion and an SO4-- ion.
What occurs then is this. The Ca++ ion loosely attaches itself (in a kind of bond often called hydrogen bonding) to the negatively charged end of the solvent molecule. The SO4-- ion loosely attaches itself to the positively charged end of the solvent molecule. (And that is why substances in solution don't significantly increase the starting volume of the solvent!)
That's what I meant when I said that, in splitting from it, the calcium atom can lose two electrons to the sulphate group. Sorry it wasn't briefer!
Actually, calcium sulphate is a particularly lively can of worms in this regard, having different properties depending upon the amount of water it's attached to in its solid state. But I'm going to ignore that and treat it as a standalone molecule in describing how it dissolves, ignoring any water already attached to it.
In the case of water as the particular solvent of calcium sulphate, it goes like this: the Ca++ attaches loosely to the O atom (which has a slight negative charge) of an H2O molecule, and the SO4-- group attaches itself loosely to the H atom (which has a slight positive charge) in each of two H2O molecules. Once a water molecule has either a Ca++ or an SO4-- ion attached to it, it will tend to attract the other kind also, because one such attachment will leave it electrically charged, making it attractive the other kind of ion.
The reason for which the O in water has a slight negative charge and the H in water has a slight positive one is the following. As with SO4 and Ca, the nature of the O atom is such that it is particularly hungry to complete its outer electron shell by borrowing two further electrons (which, if it does so with complete success, gives it a total charge of 2–). Actually, it's amongst the top few electon-hungry atoms we know. The nature of the H atom is such that it is fairly ready to ditch its incomplete outer electron shell by lending its only electron (which, if it is generous to a fault, gives it a total charge of 1+). The electrons that all three atoms (H, H, and O) share -- essentially the two electrons that the hydrogen atoms are ready to give up -- thus tend to spend an inordinate proportion of time attached to the O atom, giving it a negative charge and the H atoms a positive one.
I know that that's a lot of detail; it's much easier to get with accompanying pictures. But I hope that that adequately pictures it in words. Feel free to ask me to clarify anything here, though.
Cheers --
John