Source: http://hoacuoidep.info/homeopathy-papers/homeopathy-understanding-the-terminology-viii/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 06:28:03+00:00

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One of the fundamental aspects of Dr. Hahnemann’s criticisms of the allopaths was that they practised polypharmacy, that is, the use of more than one remedy at one time with the patient.
Medicine in his day was one of accumulated authority and academic theories, with little or no real observation as to the actual nature of disease and little or no true knowledge as to the curative powers of medicines. The practice at the time was largely one of prescribing set mixtures according to various theories and in large doses.
Hahnemann realised that this practice of mixtures could never lead to any true knowledge of the curative power of medicines. His initial work on reform of medicine was a clarion call to create a true materia medica, Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs (1796). Here Hahnemann reviews the various ways in which one could discover the curative power of a substance, including chemistry and botany, but concludes that this cannot furnish anything other than a partial understanding at best.
What is needed is to test each substance on a healthy person, as testing on sick persons would mix the disease process with the effects of the medicine on the patient, leaving the physician no wiser as to the action of the medicine. He does not disparage the discovery of curative remedies through clinical work, as this can reveal the specific remedy in cases of diseases of constant nature (Wesen), but he does not see this as a very effective means of discovery for the many diseases of changing nature, which are more numerous.
Nothing remains for us but experiment on the human body. But what kind of experiment? Accidental or methodical?
I have no intention of denying the high value of this [accidental, empirical] mode of discovering medicinal powers – it speaks for itself. …Will the chance of such discoveries suffice to perfect the healing art, to supply its numerous desiderata? From year to year we become acquainted with new diseases, with new phases and new complications of diseases …what we imagine, or what appear to us to be, similar diseased states. But how often shall we fail in accomplishing our object, for if there be any difference, the disease cannot be the same! Sadly we look forward into future ages, when a peculiar remedy for this particular form of disease, for this particular circumstance, may, perhaps, be discovered by chance, as was bark for pure intermittent fever, or mercury for syphilitic disorders.
Hahnemann also condemned the use of large doses of crude drugs, realising from his knowledge of chemistry that these substances mingle and mix in a way that is completely unpredictable. This is unlike the potentised medicines that do not obey such chemical laws, but are more akin to radio waves that can mingle in the air without cross interference.
Thus, Hahnemann came to strongly condemn the practice of established mixtures of medicines in crude dose for presumed similar diseases, or for presumed partial roles in the treatment of a presumed single disease.
I have no hesitation in asserting that whenever two medicines are mingled together, they almost never produce each its own action of the system, but one almost always different from the action of both separately – an intermediate action, a neutral action, – if I may be allowed to borrow the expression from chemical language.
Are we in earnest with our art?
And thus, as though they were independent beings endowed with free volition, each ingredient in a complete prescription has its task allotted to it [by the doctor]… For there are many learned considerations in a regular classical prescription. This indication and that one must be fulfilled; three, four and more symptoms must be met by as many different remedies. Consider, Arcesilas! how many remedies must be artistically combined in order to make the attack at once from all points. Something for the tendency to vomit, something else for the diarrhoea, something else for the evening fever and night-sweats, and as the patient is so weak, tonic medicines must be added, and not one alone, but several, in order that what the one cannot do (which we don’t know) the other may.
While Hahnemann did accept, as we have seen, the validity of clinical knowledge, in the case of diseases of constant Wesen (tonic side) to find the specific remedy, as the cause would normally be known (e.g., exposure to measles), he realised that the specific remedy for the variable, individual (pathic) diseases could only really be found through an analysis of the symptoms. In addition, he had not yet fully comprehended the principles underlying the tonic side, through its various dimensions. Accordingly, he attempted to find the specific remedy for the as yet undiscovered specifics for already known tonic diseases (e.g., Scarlet Fever), as well as for newly discovered tonic diseases, through the symptoms as well (e.g., Sulphur for Psora).
What we come to see here, as did Hahnemann, is that disease is a phenomenon that is a unity. This unity cannot be broken down into separate, abstract parts (the false unity of the materialists), or a unity that somehow exists outside the parts (the false unity of the vitalists). It is an emergent unity that can be approached either directly, through the phenomenon itself, using our organs of supersensible knowledge (Geistes– und Gemüths-Organe) or indirectly through the meaningful parts (characteristic symptoms).
Thus, there can be only one remedy per disease. Polypharmacy is the giving of more than one remedy for a given disease.
To prescribe a mixture of medicines as was done by the allopaths was false, according to Hahnemann, because it was based on no true knowledge of disease and no true knowledge of the medicines used. Without both, there could only be blind empiricism (simply prescribing for effect), or the breaking up of the unity of the disease being treated on arbitrary grounds, such that each part of the medicinal recipe was to treat a supposed part of the disease.
Let us look at what Hahnemann states regarding this matter in the final edition of the Organon.
§273.1. In no case of cure is it necessary, and on this account alone even admissible, to employ more than a single, simple medicinal substance at one time with a patient.
§273.2. It is inconceivable how it could be subject to the least doubt as to whether it be more in accordance with nature and more reasonable to prescribe only a single, simple well-known medicinal substance at one time per disease, or a mixture of several different ones.
§273.3. In Homeopathy, the only true and simple Remedial Art in accordance with nature, it is absolutely prohibited to administer two different medicinal substances at one time to the patient.
Hahnemann gives us in this sentence a time reference “at a time” (auf einmal). Time is a very concrete term, more so in German than English. Time exists in units depending on the circumstances. Time, in living organisms, is a function of the life energy. Time can be slow or fast depending on the organism and its functions. We know that time passes very slowly for children and much more quickly for adults. Veterinarians know that time goes more quickly for animals and that they seem to be able to take remedies more quickly, that is, within a shorter time frame. We have also seen that the duration of the action of a remedy is dependent on the disease and the dose, the smaller doses having a shorter action and the action being shorter in the more intense diseases, particularly as regards the initial action.
So, we need to understand what unit of time Hahnemann is referring to here. The use of auf (upon) is the clue. If we look elsewhere in the Organon for a similar reference, we find §63, which speaks of the initial action of the remedy.
§63.1. Each Life-impinging Potence, each medicine, re-sonifies the Living Power more or less and arouses a certain alteration of condition in man for a longer or shorter time.
§63.2. Man benennt sie mit dem Namen: Erstwirkung.
One names it with the name: first-working.
§63.2. One designates it by the name of initial-action.
The measure of time Hahnemann is speaking of is, thus, the time of the initial-action of the remedy on the Living Power. This is consistent with Hahnemann’s own continued use of two remedies in one day in protracted and chronic diseases, or even acute situations, wherein the full action of the remedy would not yet have been completed before the giving of the second remedy or the second dose.
Thus, Hahnemann has here laid down the rule that derives from his previous practice and insight, namely that two remedies, each for a different disease should not be prescribed within the initial action one of the other. When we examine the history and issue of dose and potency, we shall see that the duration of the initial action compresses exponentially as the potency increases by degrees, such that in potencies above 30C, the action is almost instantaneous.
Single Remedy: a specific remedy for a given disease (medicinal remedy) or a given imbalance (regimenal remedy) that is prescribed according to the appropriate law of remediation (disease – law of similar resonance; imbalance – law of opposites). There can only be one specific remedy (whether simple or complex in nature, such as Kali-p or Aur-m-n) for a specific disease or imbalance. There can be only one medicine or dose taken at a time, namely that there can not be a second medicine given within the initial action of the first medicine, the duration of the initial action being determined by the crude or dynamic nature of the dose given – high potencies, those generally past Avogadro’s constant, having almost instantaneous action and cessation of initial action.
Rudi Verspoor is Dean and Chair Department of Philosophy Hahnemann College for Heilkunst, Ottawa. He served as the Director of the British Institute of Homeopathy Canada from 1993 to early 2001 and helped to found and is still active in the National United Professional Association of Trained Homeopaths (NUPATH) and the Canadian/International Heilkunst Association (C/IHA).

References: §273

§273

§273
 §63

§63

§63

§63