"Divine tools".....what a powerful statement from Dr. H. We homeopaths are truly blessed.
Paulette
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Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 14:56:20 -0400
Subject: [Minutus] PHARMACY APHORISMS -- ORGANON § 264 - § 271 [1 Attachment]
[Attachment(s) from Sheri Nakken included below] PHARMACY APHORISMS -- ORGANON § 264 - § 271
http://www.txsoho.com/Professionals/pha ... 64-271.htm
(url no longer works and I can't find it anywhere
else & not sure who wrote to begin with - maybe David Little?)
PHARMACY APHORISMS -- ORGANON § 264 - § 271, 5th and 6th eds.
Hahnemann published the 5th edition of the
Organon in 1833. In 1841 he began working on the
6th edition, but he was living an extremely busy
social and medical life with his much younger
wife in Paris, and in the 18 months he worked on
it his emendations only changed about 15% of the
5th edition. The new work, consisting
substantially of the 5th edition but containing
significant conceptual additions, is known as the
6th edition. It was completed in 1842, but the
6th edition would not become public until 1921,
some 79 years later when William Boericke and
Richard Haehl unearthed it (1920) from the
Bönninghausen heirs. By 1921 though, homeopathy
had begun its decline in the United States.
During the entire heyday of homeopathy in the
19th century the 5th edition was the principle
text. Thus, the great lights of homeopathy,
Hering, Dudgeon, Hughes, Dunham, the Allens,
Farrington, Clarke, Kent, and others whose
writings influenced the entire culture of
homeopathy, knew only the c and x potencies.
In the 6th edition changes Hahnemann clarified a
profoundly important theoretical issue concerning
the healing power of the vital force (§§ 29 &
148) and he introduced the preparation and use of
the LM potencies as a means to avoid troublesome
aggravations and hasten cure. Thus, homeopathic
therapeutics are practiced, and remedies made, as
recommended in both the 5th and 6th editions of
the Organon. The following aphorisms on the
making of remedies are from both editions.
from:
Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine, 5th & 6th eds.
[trans. R. E. Dudgeon (5th ed., 1888) & William
Boericke (6th ed., 1921), Jain 1992].
§ 264
The true physician must be provided with genuine
medicines of unimpaired strength, so that he may
be able to rely upon their therapeutic powers; he
must be able, himself, to judge of their genuineness.
§ 265 Fifth Edition
It should be a matter of conscience with him to
be thoroughly convinced in every case that the
patient always takes the right medicine.
§ 265 Sixth Edition
It should be a matter of conscience with him to
be thoroughly convinced in every case that the
patient always takes the right medicine and
therefore he must give the patient the correctly
chosen medicine prepared, moreover, by himself.
§ 266
Substances belonging to the animal and vegetable
kingdoms possess their medicinal qualities most perfectly in their raw state.1
1 All crude animal and vegetable substances have
a greater or less amount of medicinal power, and
are capable of altering man's health, each in its
own peculiar way. Those plants and animals used
by the most enlightened nations as food have this
advantage over all others, that they contain a
larger amount of nutritious constituents; and
they differ from the others in this that their
medicinal powers in their raw state are either
not very great in themselves, or are diminished
by the culinary processes they are subjected to
in cooking for domestic use, by the expression of
the pernicious juice (like the cassava root of
South America), by fermentation (of the rye-flour
in the dough for making bread, sour-crout
prepared without vinegar and pickled gherkins),
by smoking and by the action of heat (in boiling,
stewing, toasting, roasting, baking), whereby the
medicinal parts of many of these substances are
in part destroyed and dissipated. By the addition
of salt (pickling) and vinegar (sauces, salads)
animal and vegetable substances certainly lose
much of their injurious medicinal qualities, but
other disadvantages result from these additions.
But even those plants that possess most medicinal
power lose that in part or completely by such
processes. By perfect desiccation all the roots
of the various kinds of iris, of the horseradish,
of the different species or arum and the peonies
lose almost all their medicinal virtue. The juice
of the most virulent plants often becomes inert,
pitch-like mass, from the heat employed in
preparing the ordinary extracts. By merely
standing a long time, the expressed juice of the
most deadly plants becomes quite powerless; even
at moderate atmospheric temperature it rapidly
takes on the vinous fermentation (and thereby
loses much of its medicinal power), and
immediately thereafter the acetous and putrid
fermentation, whereby it is deprived of all
peculiar medicinal properties; the fecula that is
then deposited, if well washed, is quite
innocuous, like ordinary starch. By the
transudation that takes place when a number of
green plants are laid one above the other, the
greatest part of their medicinal properties is lost.
§ 267
We gain possession of the powers of indigenous
plants and of such as may be had in a fresh state
in the most complete and certain manner by mixing
their freshly expressed juice immediately with
equal parts of spirits of wine of a strength
sufficient to burn in a lamp. After this has
stood a day and a night in a close stoppered
bottle and deposited the fibrinous and albuminous
matters, the clear superincumbent fluid is then
to be decanted off for medicinal use.1 All
fermentation of the vegetable juice will be at
once checked by the spirits of wine mixed with it
and rendered impossible for the future, and the
entire medicinal power of the vegetable juice is
thus retained (perfect and uninjured) for ever by
keeping the preparation in well-corked bottles
and excluded from the sun's light.2
1 Buchholz (Taschenb. f. Scheidek. u. Apoth. a.
d. J., 1815, Weimar, Abth. I, vi) assures his
readers (and his reviewer in the Leipziger
Literaturzeitung, 1816, No. 82, does not
contradict him) that for this excellent mode of
operating medicines we have to thank the campaign
in Russia, whence it was (in 1812) imported into
Germany. According to the noble practice of many
Germans to be unjust towards their own
countrymen, he conceals the fact that this
discovery and those directions, which he quotes
in my very words from the first edition of the
Organon of Rational Medicine, § 230 and note,
proceed from me, and that I first published them
to the world two years before the Russian
campaign (the Organon appeared in 1810). Some
folks would rather assign the origin of a
discovery to the deserts of Asia than to a German
to whom the honor belongs. O tempora! O mores!
Alcohol has certainly been sometimes before this
used for mixing with vegetable juices, e.g., to
preserve them some time before making extracts of
them, but never with the view of administering them in this form.
2 Although equal parts of alcohol and freshly
expressed juice are usually the most suitable
proportion for affecting the deposition of the
fibrinous and albuminous matters, yet for plants
that contain much thick mucus (e.g. Symphytum
officinale, Viola tricolor, etc.), or an excess
of albumen (e.g., Aethusa cynapium, Solanum
nigrum, etc.), a double proportion of alcohol is
generally required for this object. Plants that
are very deficient in juice, as Oleander, Buxus,
Taxus, Ledum, Sabina, etc., must first be pounded
up alone into a moist, fine mass and the stirred
up with a double quantity of alcohol, in order
that the juice may combine with it, and being
thus extracted by the alcohol, may be pressed
out; these latter may also when dried be brought
with milk-sugar to the millionfold trituration,
and then be further diluted and potentized (v. § 271)
§ 268
The other exotic plants, barks, seeds and roots
that cannot be obtained in the fresh state the
sensible practitioner will never take in the
pulverized form on trust, but will first convince
himself of their genuineness in their crude,
entire state before making any employment of them.1
1 In order to preserve them in the form of
powder, a precaution is requisite that has
hitherto been usually neglected by druggists, and
hence powders, even of well-dried animal and
vegetable substances could not be preserved
uninjured even in well-corked bottles. The entire
crude vegetable substances, though perfectly dry,
yet contain, as an indispensable condition of the
cohesion of their texture, a certain quantity of
moisture, which dose not indeed prevent the
unpulverized drug from remaining in as dry a
state as is requisite to preserve it from
corruption, but which is quite too much for the
finely pulverized state. The animal or vegetable
substance which in its entire state was perfectly
dry, furnishes, therefore, when finely
pulverized, a somewhat moist powder, which
without rapidly becoming spoilt and mouldy, can
yet not be preserved in corked bottles if not
previously freed from this superfluous moisture.
This is the best effected by spreading out the
powder in a flat tin saucer with a raised edge,
which floats in a vessel full of boiling water
(i.e. a water-bath), and, by means of stirring it
about, drying it to such a degree that all the
small atoms of it (no longer stick together in
lumps, but) like dry, fine sand, are easily
separated from each other, and are readily
converted into dust. In this dry state the fine
powders may be kept forever uninjured in
well-corked and sealed bottles, in all their
original complete medicinal power, without ever
being injured by mites or mould; and they are
best preserved when the bottles are kept
protected from the daylight (in covered boxes,
chests, cases). If not shut up in air-tight
vessels, and not preserved from the access of the
light of the sun and day, all animal and
vegetable substances in time gradually lose their
medicinal power more and more, even in the entire
state, but still more in the form of powder.
§ 269 Fifth Edition
The homoeopathic system of medicine develops for
its use, to a hitherto unheard-of degree, the
spirit-like medicinal powers of the crude
substances by means of a process peculiar to it
and which has hitherto never been tried, whereby
only they all become penetratingly efficacious1
and remedial, even those that in the crude state
give no evidence of the slightest medicinal power on the human body.
§ 269 Sixth Edition
The homoeopathic system of medicine develops for
its special use, to a hitherto unheard-of degree,
the inner medicinal powers of the crude
substances by means of a process peculiar to it
and which has hitherto never been tried, whereby
only they all become immeasurably and
penetratingly efficacious1 and remedial, even
those that in the crude state give no evidence of
the slightest medicinal power on the human body.
This remarkable change in the qualities of
natural bodies develops the latent, hitherto
unperceived, as if slumbering2 hidden, dynamic (§
11) powers which influence the life principle,
change the well-being of animal life.3 This is
effected by mechanical action upon their smallest
particles by means of rubbing and shaking and
through the addition of an indifferent substance,
dry of fluid, are separated from each other. This
process is called dynamizing, potentizing
(development of medicinal power) and the products
are dynamizations4 or potencies in different degrees.
1 Long before this discovery of mine, experience
had taught several changes which could be brought
about in different natural substances by means of
friction, for instance, warmth, heat, fire,
development of odor in odorless bodies,
magnetization of steel, and so forth. But all
these properties produced by friction were
related only to physical and inanimate things,
whereas it is a law of nature according to which
physiological and pathogenic changes take place
in the body's condition by means of forces
capable of changing the crude material of drugs,
even in such as had never shown any medicinal
properties. This is brought about by trituration
and succussion, but under the condition of
employing an indifferent vehicle in certain
proportions. this wonderful physical and
especially physiological and pathogenic law of
nature had not been discovered before my time. No
wonder then, that the present students of nature
and physicians (so for unknowing) cannot have
faith in the magical curative powers of the
minute doses of medicines prepared according to homoeopathic rules (dynamized).
2 The same thing is seen in a bar of iron and
steel where a slumbering trace of latent magnetic
force cannot but be recognized in their interior.
Both, after their completion by means of the
forge stand upright, repulse the north pole of a
magnetic needle with the lower end and attract
the south pole, while the upper end shows itself
as the south pole of the magnetic needle. But
this is only a latent force; not even the finest
iron particles can be drawn magnetically or held on either end of such a bar.
Only after this bar of steel is dynamized,
rubbing it with a dull file in one direction,
will it become a true active powerful magnet, one
able to attract iron and steel to itself and
impart to another bar of steel by mere contact
and even some distance away, magnetic power and
this in a higher degree the more it has been
rubbed. In the same way will triturating a
medicinal substance and shaking of its solution
(dynamization, potentation) develop the medicinal
powers hidden within and manifest them more and
more or if one may say so, spiritualizes the material substance itself.
3 On this account it refers to the increase and
stronger development of their power to cause
changes in the health of animals and men if these
natural substances in this improved state, are
brought very near to the living sensitive fibre
or come in contact with it (by means of intake or
olfaction). Just as a magnetic bar especially if
its magnetic force is increased (dynamized) can
show magnetic power only in a needle of steel
whose pole is near or touches it. The steel
itself remains unchanged in the remaining
chemical and physical properties and can bring
about no changes in other metals (for instance,
in brass), just as little as dynamized medicines
can have any action upon lifeless things.
4 We hear daily how homoeopathic medicinal
potencies are called mere dilutions, when they
are the very opposite, i.e., a true opening up of
the natural substances bringing to light and
revealing the hidden specific medicinal powers
contained within and brought forth by rubbing and
shaking. The aid of a chosen, unmedicinal medium
of attenuation is but a secondary condition.
Simple dilution, for instance, the solution of a
grain of salt will become water, the grain of
salt will disappear in the dilution with much
water and will never develop into medicinal salt
which by means of our well prepared dynamization,
is raised to most marvellous power.
§ 270 Fifth Edition
Thus two drops of the fresh vegetable juice
mingled with equal parts of alcohol are diluted
with ninety-eight drops of alcohol and potentized
by means of two succussions, whereby the first
development of power is formed and this process
is repeated through twenty-nine more phials, each
of which is filled three-quarters full with
ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and each succeeding
phial is to be provided with one drop from the
preceding phial (which has already been shaken
twice) and is in its turn twice shaken,1 and in
the same manner at last the thirtieth development
of power (potentized decillionth dilution X)
which is the one most generally used.
1 In order to maintain a fixed and measured
standard for developing the power of liquid
medicines, multiplied experience and careful
observation have led me to adopt two succussions
for each phial, in preference to the greater
number formerly employed (by which the medicines
were too highly potentized). There are, however,
homoeopathists who carry about with them on their
visits to patients homoeopathic medicines in the
fluid state, and who yet assert that they do not
become more highly potentized in the course of
time, but they thereby show their want of ability
to observe correctly. I discovered a grain of
soda in half an once of water mixed with alcohol
in a phial, which was thereby filled two-thirds
full, and shook this solution continuously for
half an hour, and this fluid was in potency and
energy equal to the thirtieth development of power.
§ 270 Sixth Edition
In order to best obtain this development of
power, a small part of the substance to be
dynamized, say one grain, is triturated for three
hours with three times one hundred grains sugar
of milk according to the method described below1
up to the one-millionth part in powder form. For
reasons given below (b) one grain of this powder
is dissolved in 500 drops of a mixture of one
part of alcohol and four parts of distilled
water, of which one drop is put in a vial. To
this are added 100 drops of pure alcohol2 and
given one hundred strong succussions with the
hand against a hard but elastic body.3 This is
the medicine in the first degree of dynamization
with which small sugar globules4 may then be
moistened5 and quickly spread on blotting paper
to dry and kept in a well-corked vial with the
sign of (I) degree of potency. Only one6 globule
of this is taken for further dynamization, put in
a second new vial (with a drop a water in order
to dissolve it) and then with 100 powerful succussions.
With this alcoholic medicinal fluid globules are
again moistened, spread upon blotting paper and
dried quickly, put into a well-stoppered vial and
protected from heat and sun light and given the
sign (II) of the second potency. And in this way
the process is continued until the twenty-ninth
is reached. Then with 100 drops of alcohol by
means of 100 succussions, an alcoholic medicinal
fluid is formed with which the thirtieth
dynamization degree is given to properly moistened and dried sugar globules.
By means of this manipulation of crude drugs are
produced preparations which only in this way
reach the full capacity to forcibly influence the
suffering parts of the sick organism. In this
way, by means of similar artificial morbid
affection, the influence of the natural disease
on the life principle present within is
neutralized. By means of this mechanical
procedure, provided it is carried out regularly
according to the above teaching, a change is
effected in the given drug, which in its crude
state shows itself only as material, at times as
unmedicinal material but by means of such higher
and higher dynamization, it is changed and
subtlized at last into spirit-like7 medicinal
power, which, indeed, in itself does not fall
within our senses but for which the medicinally
prepared globule, dry, but more so when dissolved
in water, becomes the carrier, and in this
condition, manifests the healing power of this
invisible force in the sick body.
1 One-third of one hundred grains sugar of milk
is put in a glazed porcelain mortar, the bottom
dulled previously by rubbing it with fine, moist
sand. Upon this powder is put one grain of the
powdered drug to be triturated (one drop of
quicksilver, petroleum, etc.). The sugar of milk
used for dynamization must be of that special
pure quality that is crystallized on strings and
comes to us in the shape of long bars. For a
moment the medicines and powder are mixed with a
porcelain spatula and triturated rather strongly,
six to seven minutes, with the pestle rubbed
dull, then the mass is scraped from the bottom of
the mortar and from the pestle for three to four
minutes, in order to make it homogeneous. This is
followed by triturating it in the same way 6 - 7
minutes without adding anything more and again
scraping 3 - 4 minutes from what adhered to the
mortar and pestle. The second third of the sugar
of milk is now added, mixed with the spatula and
again triturated 6 - 7 minutes, followed by the
scraping for 3 - 4 minutes and trituration
without further addition for 6 - 7 minutes. The
last third of sugar of milk is then added, mixed
with the spatula and triturated as before 6 -7
minutes with most careful scraping together. The
powder thus prepared is put in a vial, well
corked, protected from direct sunlight to which
the name of the substance and the designation of
the first product marked /100 is given. In order
to raise this product to /10000, one grain of the
powdered /100 is mixed with the third part of 100
grains of powdered sugar of milk and then proceed
as before, but every third must be carefully
triturated twice thoroughly each time for 6 -7
minutes and scraped together 3 -4 minutes before
the second and last third of sugar of milk is
added. After each third, the same procedure is
taken. When all is finished, the powder is put in
a well corked vial and labelled /10000, i.e.,
(I), each grain containing 1/1,000,000 the
original substance. Accordingly, such a
trituration of the three degrees requires six
times six to seven minutes for triturating and
six times 3 -4 minutes for scraping, thus one
hour for every degree. After one hour such
trituration of the first degree, each grain will
contain 1/000; of the second 1/10,000; and in the
third 1/1,000,000 of the drug used.* Mortar and
spatula must be cleaned well before they are used
for another medicine. Washed first with warm
water and dried, both mortar and pestle, as well
as spatula are then put in a kettle of boiling
water for half an hour. precaution might be used
to such an extent as to put these utensils on a
coal fire exposed to a glowing heat.
* These are the three degrees of the dry powder
trituration, which if carried out correctly, will
effect a good beginning for the dynamization of the medicinal substance.
2 The vial used for potentizing is filled two-thirds full.
3 Perhaps on a leather bound book.
4 They are prepared under supervision by the
confectioner from starch and sugar and the small
globules freed from fine dusty parts by passing
them through a sieve. Then they are put through a
strainer that will permit only 100 to pass
through weighing one grain, the most serviceable
size for the needs of a homoeopathic physician.
5 A small cylindrical vessel shaped like a
thimble, made of glass, porcelain or silver, with
a small opening at the bottom in which the
globules are put to be medicated. They are
moistened with some of the dynamized medicinal
alcohol, stirred and poured out on blotting
paper, in order to dry them quickly.
6 According to first directions, one drop of the
liquid of a lower potency was to be taken to 100
drops of alcohol for higher potentiation. This
proportion of the medicine of attenuation to the
medicine that is to be dynamized (100:1) was
found altogether too limited to develop
thoroughly and to a high degree the power of the
medicine by means of a number of such succussions
without specially using great force of which
wearisome experiments have convinced me.
But if only one such globule be taken, of which
100 weigh one grain, and dynamize it with 100
drops of alcohol, the proportion of 1 to 50,000
and even greater will be had, for 500 such
globules can hardly absorb one drop, for their
saturation. With this disproportionate higher
ratio between medicine and diluting medium many
successive strokes of the vial filled two-thirds
with alcohol can produce a much greater
development of power. But with so small a
diluting medium as 100 to 1 of the medicine, if
many succussions by means of a powerful machine
are forced into it, medicines are then developed
which, especially in the higher degrees of
dynamization, act almost immediately, but with
furious, even dangerous violence, especially in
weakly patients, without having a lasting, mild
reaction of the vital principle. But the method
described by me, on the contrary, produces
medicines of highest development of power and
mildest action, which, however, if well chosen,
touches all suffering parts curatively.* In acute
fevers, the small doses of the lowest
dynamization degrees of these thus perfected
medicinal preparations, even of medicines of long
continued action (for instance, belladonna) may
be repeated in short intervals. In the treatment
of chronic diseases, it is best to begin with the
lowest degrees of dynamization and when necessary
advance to higher, even more powerful but mildly acting degrees.
* In very rare cases, notwithstanding almost full
recovery of health and with good vital strength,
an old annoying local trouble continuing
undisturbed it is wholly permitted and even
indispensably necessary, to administer in
increasing doses the homoeopathic remedy that has
proved itself efficacious but potenized to a very
high degree by means of many succussions by hand.
Such a local disease will often then disappear in a wonderful way.
7 This assertion will not appear improbable, if
one considers that by means of this method of
dynamization (the preparations thus produced, I
have found after many laborious experiments and
counter-experiments, to be the most powerful and
at the same time mildest in action, i.e., as the
most perfected) the material part of the medicine
is lessened with each degree of dynamization
50,000 times yet incredibly increased in power,
so that the further dynamization of 125 and 18
ciphers reaches only the third degree of
dynamization. The thirtieth thus progressively
prepared would give a fraction almost impossible
to be expressed in numbers. It becomes uncommonly
evident that the material part by means of such
dynamization (development of its true, inner
medicinal essence) will ultimately dissolve into
its individual spirit-like, (conceptual) essence.
In its crude state therefore, it may be
considered to consist really only of this underdeveloped conceptual essence.
§ 271 Fifth Edition
All other substances adapted for medicinal use -
except sulphur, which has of late years been only
employed in the form of a highly diluted (X)
tincture - as pure or oxidized and sulphuretted
metals and other minerals, petroleum, phosphorus,
as also parts and juices of plants that can only
be obtained in the dry state, animal substances,
neutral salts, etc., all these are first to be
potentized by trituration for three hours, up to
the millionfold pulverulent attenuation, and of
this one grain is to be dissolved, and brought to
the thirtieth development of power through
twenty-seven attenuating phials, in the same manner as the vegetable juices.1
1 As is still more circumstantially described in
the prefaces to Arsenic and Pulsatilla in the Materia Medica Pura.
§ 271 Sixth Edition
If the physician prepares his homoeopathic
medicines himself, as he should reasonably do in
order to save men from sickness,1 he may use the
fresh plant itself, as but little of the crude
article is required, if he does not need the
expressed juice perhaps for purposes of healing.
He takes a few grains in a mortar and with 100
grains sugar of milk three distinct times brings
them to the one-millionth trituration (§ 270)
before further potentizing of a small portion of
this by means of shaking is undertaken, a
procedure to be observed also with the rest of
crude drugs of either dry or oily nature.
1 Until the State, in the future, after having
attained insight into the indispensability of
perfectly prepared homoeopathic medicines, will
have them manufactured by a competent impartial
person, in order to give them free of charge to
homoeopathic physicians trained in homoeopathic
hospitals, who have been examined theoretically
and practically, and thus legally qualified. The
physician may then become convinced of these
divine tools for purposes of healing, but also to
give them free of charge to his patients - rich and poor.