potentisation : history and its recent advances

HISTORY AND ITS RECENT ADVANCES

DR. A.B.RAJGURAV

SUMMARY

THEREFORE WE STUDY SIMPLE SUBSTANCE,IN ORDER THAT WE MAY ARRIVE AT THE NATURE OF SICK-MAKING SUBSTANCES. WE ALSO POTENTISE OUR MEDICINES IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT THEIR SIMPLE SUBSTANCE;THAT IS,AT THE NATURE AND QUALITY OF THE REMEDY ITSELF.THE REMEDY TO BE HOMOEOPATHIC MUST BE SIMILAR IN QUALITY AND SIMILAR IN ACTION TO DISEASE CAUSE.

War against homoeopathy

OBJECTIVESTO UNDERSTAND

WHAT IS POTENTIZATION

HISTORY OF POTENTIZATION IN HOMOEOPATHY

MODERN APPROACH TOWARDS POTENTIZATION

LETS FIND IT OUTWhat is

potentization? Why history of

potentization is important?

Why it should be done?

What are the different methods of potentization?

How it is scientific?

WHAT IS POTENTIZATIONSIMILAR WORDS

FOUND IN DICTIONARY

POTENTIA :- MEANS POWER; ABILITY; TO PERFORM.

POTENTIAL :-(Latin:-potentialis) CAPABLE OF COMING IN TO ACTION.

POTENTIATE:-MAKE MORE POWERFUL.

POTENTIZATION

It is a process by which the medicinal properties which are latent in their crude state become awakened /potent and developed in to activity.

DEFINITION

It is a mathematico-mechanical process by virtue of which the inherited dormant dynamic curative power of drugs is aroused or increased by modifying drug strength/drug power to dynamic power through simultaneous and successive process of dilution & friction in definite order according to pharmacopoeia.

Potentization OR

Drug Dynamisation

Master Hahnemann in his preface to the 5th volume of chronic diseases defines:

“ Homoeopathic Dynamisation are processes by which the medicinal properties, which are latent in natural substances while in their crude state, become aroused and then become enabled to act in our life,i.e., in our sensible and irritable fibre. This development of properties of crude natural substances(dynamisation) takes place in the case of dry drug substances by means of trituration in mortar, but in case of fluid substances by means of shaking or succussion, which is also a trituration

ACCORDING TO STUART CLOSE

“HE CALLED IT AS POTENTIATION INSTEAD OF POTENTISATION

PO-TEN-SHE-A-SHUN MEANS:- THE

SYNERGISTIC ACTION OF TWO

IN WHICH THE TOTAL EFFECTS ARE GREATER

THAN SUM OF THE INDEPENDENT EFFECTS OF

THE TWO SUBSTANCE

ACCORDING TO HIM

“HOMOEOPATHIC DYNAMISATION is a mathe-matico-mechanical process for the reduction, according to scale, of crude, inert or poisonous medicinal substances to a state of physical solubility, physiological assimilability, and therapeutic activity, and harmlessness, for use as homoeopathic healing remedies.

WHETHER SIMILAR PROCESSES LIKE POTENTISATION ARE PRESENT IN ANY OTHER SYSTEM ?

EXACT PROCESSES ARE NOT FOUND,

BUT LIKE WISE ARE SEEN IN……

ISOPATHYAYURVEDAUNANI…ALL ARE BASED ON

DIFFERENT PRINCIPLES.

HISTORY OF POTENTISATION

WHY HISTORY IS IMPORTANT ?To understand the

concept and the procedures which were used.

To know the difficulties .

To formulate the methods to overcome the difficulties.

Two closely related discoveries brought Hahnemann closer to the principle of dynamization :

One was the improved therapeutic effect of reducing the dosage of previously used medicines.

The other finding was that substances such as salt or lycopodium, not previously identified as medicines became therapeutically active on undergoing this process.

So Hahnemann, setting out simply to reduce the quantity of his doses, discovered potentization, an entirely new principle in posology.

This is the principle, which gives life and power to the system of medicine that Hahnemann developed and is the third great step in the

evolution of the law of cure.

Hahnemann's approach to potency was modified in each phase of his medical career. A point worth emphasising is that he was an experimenter and innovator, motivated more by practice than by theory.

These phases can be discussed in detail alongwith the published works that Hahnemann was involved with at each stage.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF POTENTIZATION

Before discovering the law of similars, Hahnemann's treatment of his patients differed very slightly from that of other physicians.

His prescriptions corresponded in composition, weight and quantities with those of his contemporaries.

1784 – 1796 PRE – HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL CAREER

1790 - Hahnemann translated Cullen's

Materia Medica - historic discovery

relating to Cinchona bark.

Hahnemann wrote – 'Surely toxicity is

nothing but the violent manifestation

of an extremely powerful agent applied

in too high a dose and in the wrong

place.'

1796 - Hufeland's journal -

‘Essay on a New Principle For ascertaining the Curative Powers

of Drugs’.

In this essay he makes reference to

the use of ‘small doses’, but does not clarify what he meant by "small".

The aggravation or the increase of disease symptoms following the administration of the homoeopathic remedy, induced him gradually to decrease the dose.

But this diminution was not so swift and it was only by experiments and bedside experiences that the necessity was felt by him.

1798 – ‘Some Kinds of Continued and Remittent Fevers’. Here, he notes using Ignatia in doses of 2 to 3 grains; Opium in 1/5-1/2 grain doses; Camphor 30-40 grains/day; Ledum 6-7 grains.

Although these are still ‘crude’ doses, and rather large by later homoeopathic standards, they represent dramatic reductions from the allopathic doses of his contemporaries.

1797 – 1800 : FIRST HINTS OF DILUTION

The first hints of dilutions are found in his ‘Apothecaries Lexicon’ (1798), where he recommends Sabina ‘in very small doses’ ; Stramonium at 1/100th or

1/1000th part of a grain. Hahnemann's experiments during this time led him to the use of even smaller doses, with thoseremedies he used commonly.

Serial dilution in the preparation of remedies appears to have been introduced in 1799.

1801 – ‘Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever’.He offered exact details of the preparation and administration of Belladonna.

He offers descriptions of mixing such as ‘shaking the whole well’ and ‘intimately mixed ... by shaking it for a minute’ that suggest an interest in dispersing the substance well throughout the dilution medium. He describes these preparations in terms as dilutions, attenuations or reduced doses.

1801 – 1813 : DISPERSING THE SUBSTANCE WELL THROUGHOUT DILUTION MEDIUM

Hahnemann wrote an article ‘On the Power of Small Doses of Medicine in General, and of Belladonna in Particular’, in Hufeland's Journal in 1801. He still understood the infinitesimal preparations to be dilutions or small doses.

Up to 1813, nothing definite was written by Hahnemann. There appeared general remarks about dilution and reduction of size of doses.

1813 – ‘Spirit of the Homoeopathic Doctrine of Medicine’ - Drugs, besides their physico-chemical properties, possess another property by which they alter the qualitative state of the organism. More the materiality of a drug is reduced, by processes of dilution or trituration, greater the specific therapeutic quality lying dormant in the drug seemed to be unveiled.

This is the seed of dynamization theory.

1813 - 1819 : SEED OF DYNAMIZATION THEORY

So it is dilution plus friction that liberates

the pharmacodynamic properties of the drug.

His observations had demonstrated that –

certain substances, ineffective in their

natural form, as common salt, charcoal,

lycopodium, silica, lime, etc. become

available as an efficacious medicine only

after prolonged trituration with milk sugar.

These discoveries

are the reason why

Hahnemann from

that time onwards no

longer designated

the different degrees

of his dosages as

dilutions, but as …

'power

developments' or

'potencies'.

1821 - Sixth volume of Materia Medica

Pura, Hahnemann referred constantly to

treating with "the smallest part of a

drop".

Hahnemann was then adopting the use of

globules, whereby a fraction of a drop

could be administered easily.

1820 – 1828 : ‘ DYNAMIZATIONS ’ – IMPORTANCE OF FRICTION

He now understood the idea of friction as bringing about the remarkable change in the activity of the drug.

This is represented in his article

‘How can Small Doses of such very Attenuated Medicine as Homoeopathy employs still possess great power’

in 1827.

Hahnemann used the terms 'dilution', 'diminish', 'dynamization' / 'dynamic' / 'dynamized', and 'potentization' / 'potency' to describe these various concepts.

The term ‘too-strong dose’ referred to prescriptions making a too-strong impression on the life force either by to being too large (in a material sense) or of too great a potency.

Hahnemann felt in 1829, the urgent necessity of a limit in potentising and declared the ultimate degree of dilution to be the 30th centesimal potency.

In 1832, Hahnemann began experimenting with olfaction of remedies.

5th edition of the Organon – Hahnemann described the concept of potentization in §269.

1829 – 1837 ‘ STANDARD POTENCY 30C ; OLFACTION ’

Hahnemann also began experimenting with giving the dose in solution, rather than as a dry pellet on the tongue.

In 1835 Hahnemann described ‘split doses’ of a medicinal solution produced by dissolving a medicated centesimal pellet in a volume of water. This reduced dose allowed for more frequent repetition.

LM potency scale, which Hahnemann referred to as "medicaments au globule" as distinct from the centesimal ‘medicaments a la goutte’, was developed in 1838, 5 years before his death, with the intention of preparing remedies even betteradapted for use in split dose in medicinal solution - 6th edition of the Organon (§270).

Intimately related to these new preparations, were new approaches to the repetition of dose.

1838 : FINAL INSTRUCTIONS

Arndt-Schultz says that, "Minimal doses of a drug stimulate, medium doses inhibit or suppress and large doses destroy cellular activity." Pasteur should have known this when he

introduced his rabies vaccination, killing thousands of innocent people before he finally reduced the doses.

This was in 1888 and unfortunately, he did not learn from the genius of Hahnemann who already 100 years before Pasteur and Koch, cured epidemics of scarlatina, typhoid, cholera, syphilis, gonorrhea and Tuberculosis.

conclusionSo we can conclude that potentisation was not a

one day invention. It is a result of an evolution.Dr. Hahnemann took many years( aprox. 30 -40

yrs ) to come to the conclusion of higher dynamisation.

Lot of assumptions, experiments, permutations & combinations were done by him.

So the existing form of dynamic medicines today are an out come of hard and extensive labour and is not as simple as it looks.

It passed many hurdles & controversies and now it is in its refined form. ***

WHY IT SHOULD BE DONE?

Vital force is dynamic in nature, and the disease force is also dynamic in nature, which attacks the healthy vital force on the dynamic plane causing a diseased state. So to free the dynamically deranged vital force,the requisite medicine also must be dynamic.

To avoid unnecessary medicinal aggravation and side effects

To arouse latent curative properties of crude drug substances.

The more the drug is potentised, the greater is its dynamic medicinal power .

Potentisation helps to individualise a drug through its latent pathogenetic power.

Potentisation not only preserves the therapeutic potentiality but also increases the pharmacological and therapeutic activity

Any substance can affect human organism in one or two ways:

1) chemical action2) or through

interaction of electromagnetic fields.

Biologically inert substances are chemically & energetically closed to interact with the human body.

Biologically active substances are capable of acting on the tissue of the body chemically.

This specific reaction of the organism, depends upon the degree of susceptibility, for that substance.

If the sensitivity is close enough, even the crude form of a biologically active substance can be therapeutic.

To get curative results that are long lasting, it is necessary to increase the intensity of electromagnetic field of the substance.

And this is done through potentization.

With the help of potentisation, mode of action of medicine changes.

Our medicine act through the nervous system,which is faster than any other route.

***

HOW POTENTISED DRUGS ACT

PROCESSES OF POTENTISATION

1) TriturationIn case of insoluble

substances2) Succussion In case of soluble

substances.

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO DRUG DYNAMISATION

Homoeopathy is a science very recent in origin and it deals not only with matter but also deals with energy. Therefore, it can be explained by Newtonian physics and conventional chemistry.

.

Some recent work done in the fields of quantum physics, It has been proved that the Avogadro’s number is no barrier for the existence of homeopathic dilutions.

HOW ? ? ?

Again on the basis of Avogadro's number, the presence of material in the homoeopathic medicine beyond molar concentration 10 or 12 becomes negative. Still the drugs beyond 24x /12c show their action.

HOW IT CAN BE EXPLAINED ?

THEORY OF RELATIVITY

RELATIVITY THEORYMassless particles travels

at the speed of light. These massless particles possess momentum and energy but no rest mass.

E = MC2

HOW IT CAN BE RELATED TO HOMOEOPATHY

In Homoeopathic Potentised medicines , the medicinal particles become massless, when subjected to potentisation, which have no mass but only energy.

This energy is responsible for curing the natural diseases.

HOW TO PERCEIVE THIS ENERGY ?

Instruments now exist that can directly measure the electromagnetic field of the body.

It is used for the diagnosis of malignancy, Infectious diseases..

Kirillian photography is one of the technique whereby the electromagnetic field can be directly visualized.

WHAT HAPPENS IN POTENTIZATIONIn homoeopathy, crude

drugs substances are potentised by the process of TRITURATION & SUCCUSSION.

It results in micro-emulsion solution ,

developing definite charge.

ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDThe charge of micro-

emulsion particles is accelerated with Trituration ,resulting in the emulsion of electromagnetic waves. This gives rise to generation of very light isotopic molecules of medicinal drug substances.

ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD

This very light or weightless isotopic molecules of the medicinal material retain the properties of the original drug substances. This view is supported by theory of relativity

From this we can conclude that the concept of potentisation can be explained on the basis of laws given in physics.

Can we correlate homoeopathy with nano technology

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY

Yes, there could well be a connection between homeopathy & nano-science. Certainly the memory of water hypothesis, shows the picture of clustering of large numbers of individual water molecules into long-range dynamically-ordered polyhedral shapes, which could be considered as nano-structural organisation and re-organisation of water's 'matrix'.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY

Dr J.C Collins who proposes that the water 'matrix' of living cells is the backdrop which allows the incredibly efficient biochemistry of cells to take place.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHYSo far as I know, nobody has looked into the

link between nanotech and homeopathy. There are two possible reasons for this, firstly showing an interest in homeopathy is not something to be done lightly these days so even if people have ideas about it they might not speak up. Secondly, nanotech tends to focus on 'hard' materials in the sense that although they are very small they are stable whereas water is a fluid so is not stable at the nanoscale.The link however is very interesting and there probably are bridges to be made there.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY

SO called modern medicine is coming to minimum dose, or from quantity to quality.

e.g. genetic medicine, or nanotecnology…etc.Now they have understood the importance of it,

but we are in this field of minimum dose since 300 years.

SO WHO IS ADVANCED /MODERN?THEY OR WE? RATHER HOMOEOPATHY IS 300 YEARS

AHEAD THAN ANY OTHER PATHY.

THANK YOU

One can therefore conclude

that Hahnemann changed his

views on potency mainly in the

light of clinical experience

rather than empty

speculations and theories.

The solution to the problems of potentization must be sought in physics and not in chemistry.

The latter part of the 20th century has seen the advent of experimental studies using various forms of spectroscopy, particularly nuclear magnetic resonance.

PHYSICS OF POTENTIZATIONPHYSICS OF POTENTIZATION

• As a chemical, there is no

difference between a solvent and

potentized solvent.

If there is a difference between the

potentized and unpotentised

solvent, the answer lies in Physics.

CONCEPTS OF PHYSICS IN HOMOEOPATHY

New concepts in physics are beginning to be reflected in biological science, particularly, in the study of electrodynamic fields of the human body.

WHERE THE PROBLEM LIES ?Up till now we know

that the quantity of drug in homoeopathic dose is very very small and cannot be measured by the present scientific instruments and techniques.

And also its chemical interaction with the infecting agent is not possible but it shows its medicinal effect.