Volume 1

Jahr's New manual of homoeopathic practice / [Translated by C.J. Hempel] Edited with annotations, by A. Gerald Hull.

  • Jahr, G. H. G. (Gottlieb Heinrich Georg), 1800-1875.
Date:
1850-1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Jahr's New manual of homoeopathic practice / [Translated by C.J. Hempel] Edited with annotations, by A. Gerald Hull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in this forin : that if any distinction is to he maintained for prac- tice, we think that the first attenuations generally answer the best for maladies whose progress is rapid, while the last accord with those whose progress is tedious. But another question arises for information : whether, in cases where the low dilutions seem to be required (such as some primitive forms of syphilis, gonorrhcea, &c.), a desirable result cannot be attained by administering the last dilutions in reiterated doses, and especially by spoonful doses of a watery solution 1 For whatever may be the increase of strength which the remedies may acquire by trituration or shaking, it is not the less true that there follows at the same time a loss ot power, inasmuch as any quantity of the thirtieth dilution will always prove more feeble than an equal volume of the first. The thing is per- fectly evident, if we compare the efi'ects which ten drops ot the crude tincture of Arsenic will produce, with those which result from ten drops of the thirtieth. The observation is equally applicable to those substances which are called inert in their natural state, in this, that if we take a grain of Lycopodium, or pure Carbon, but suf- ficiently triturated to become active, this grain will act more than an equal volume of the thirtieth dilutions of these substances. But on the other hand, it is ascertained thaf by these dilutions the body of the substances has been dilated or expanded in its surface; and* in this manner, not only aflects a greater number of our organs, when taken, but also developes all its atoms, whicli remain inactive in the compact state, and by consequence, allows a display of iheir entire action. For example, a hundred drops of the first dilution will produce, together, an efiect infinitely more decided than can be obtained by a single drop of the crude tincture ; yet in the hundred drops of the first dilution there is not in reality any more medicinal matter than existed in the single drop of the crude tincture. hence it appears that, while a single drop of the thirtieth in itself, may be more feeble than a drop of the first, a certain number of drops may constitute a dose, which, bj'- the extension of its active atoms, will not only prove equal, but even surpass the power of the first dilutions. This is not the appropriate place to treat of the preparation of doses, which justly belongs to the pharmacopoeias ; notwithstanding, we will pro])Ose this question : For the development of the dynamic virtue of a medicine, will it answer to move the atoms of substances, either by shaking or trituration, or ivill it not be pieferahle to ad- vance from dilution to dilution to reach the greatest extension pos- sible of the atoms as to surface 1 We have seen the ingenious in-