Potency
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2000 Nov / Dec VOL II NO 6.
Dr Manu Kothari
Dr Lopa Mehta
Samuel Hahnemann deserves kudos on 3 counts.
Firstly, for spawning a child called homoeopathy-viable despite allopathy.
Secondly, for the first law of homoeopathy, the law of similars, euphoniously called similia similibus curantur.
And thirdly, and most importantly, for the second law of homoeopathy, that of infinitesimals or serial dilutions- the smaller the dose, the more efficacious the medicine.
As of today, the mighty Smith Kline Beecham-Glaxo combine has foisted on the Indian public, Crocin 1000, just double the hitherto available Crocin (Paracetamol) 500, under the principle of more the monier. Hahnemann was not understood then; he needs to be understood now.
The very word potency merits analysis. In this heyday of Dr.Prakash Kothari, potency or its absence only implies the bedroom scene or sin. Hence Webster's emphasis is on the ability to copulate "usually used of the male". Etymology traces it to L.Posse, implying legal authority, lordship, power, possession or mastery. Most interestingly, English lexicons trace it to Sanskrit Pati meaning "Lord, possessor, husband". The potency of a homoeopathic prescription must be measured in husbandly terms- it must, preferably, please, penetrate adequately, and, hopefully, beget a cure. Hahnemann is at polar variance with Prakash Kothari by declaring: Smaller the better, in every conceivable way! How, and why?
Roy Porter, Professor of social history at the Welcome Institute for the History of Science, UK, has penned a masterly history of medicine, wherein he eulogizes the Father of Homoeopathy: "Gaining early medical experience in a variety of small saxon towns, he developed a horror for the blunders of the medical profession, leading to his Uber die Arsenikvergiftung: ihre Hilfe und gerichtliche Ausmittelung(1786)
[On poisoning by Arsenic--- its treatment and forensic detection], a work registering his fears over the toxicity of drugs". Hahnemann named such toxic medical creed as allopathy, that in his own land, witch-hunted him, forcing him to flee eventually to Paris where he spent long creative years. As yet, allopathy has not ceased to nurse its contempt for its arch rival. Laurence's Clinical Phamacology, in its latest, 8thedition, derides homoeopathy (and allied disciplines) as, at best, fringe or complementary system, that even does not deserve the appellation alternative which raises it to an equivalent option against allopathy. The learned text then goes to chide Hahnemann: "It has been pointed that the thirtieth potency (1 in 1060), recommended by Hahnemann, provide a solution in which there will be one molecule of a drug in a volume of a sphere of literally astronomical circumference.
That a dose in which no drug is present (including sodium chloride prepared in this way) can be therapeutically effective is explained by the belief that there is a spiritual energy diffused throughout the medicine by the particular way in which the dilutions are shaken (succussion) during preparation, or that the active molecules leave behind some sort of 'imprint' on solvent or excipient".
Having so castigated him, the text rubs in: "We are asked to put aside the whole edifice of evidence concerning the physical nature of materials and the normal concentration-response relationships of biologically active substance in order to accommodate homoeopathic potency. But no hard evidence that tests the hypothesis is supplied to justify this, and we are invited for instance, to accept that sodium chloride merely diluted is no remedy, but that it raises itself to the most wonderful power through a dynamisation process' and stimulates the defensive powers of the body against the disease" One only wishes the text its read Porter who is all praise for homoeopathy's essential benignancy, and a lot critical of allopathy's malignancy.
Prima facie, the theory of potentiation via serial dilutions defies common sense. But then, allopathy, although seemingly rich in common sense approach, has by itself proved to be a colossal failure. And dilution inevitably leads you to ponder over subtleties of life. God, wind, moisture are invisible, uncatchable, subtle, and precisely for these very reasons, powerful and pervasive. (In fact, God is from Sanskrit goodh meaning subtle). Hahnemann's dilutions achieve two aims: They minimise nay annihilate, whatever be the drug's toxicity, and they widen the field exerted by the drug's individual atoms by scattering them over a wide volume.
Is the human body materiality or spirituality? The proofs lean towards the latter. Russel Baker, the NYT columnist, is on record as assuring that ''if you reduced a typical human body to chemical elements and sold them across the drug store counter, their value would be only 89 cents" If the Earth were reduced to pure matter, it wouldn't measure greater than a golf ball. So we are more a field than matter, more spirit than soma.
Add to this the current concept in physics, namely, the Butterfly Effect, which implies that in Nature's scheme of things, the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Hongkong may set up a chain reaction terminating in an earthquake in San Francisco. So there is no scientific substance in allopathy's j' accuse that dilution is mere delusion. The Vivekanandean-et-Wattsean universe is one of polar opposites. Every event has its anti-event. So, if causality and/or time can travel forwards, they ought to travel backwards with equal felicity. If a drug's potency, a la allopathy, must increase by concentration, then, in a subtle but sure way, its potency must increase by anti-concentration called serial dilution. Logically, Hahnemann's twin intellectual leaps of Similia and serial dilutions not only cannot be faulted but also must be assiduously worked upon till they reveal their therapeutic secrets.
