Page 20 - AJHM Summer 2013

AJHM Summer 2013 61 Volume 106 Number 2
This article is adapted from two lectures, presented at the 66th LMHI Congress, Delhi, and the European Congress of
Homoeopathy, Riga, 2011
Dr. Heike Gypser, Ph.D.
The Making of High Potencies 1830-1930
Homeopathic Pharmacy
Hahnemann’s new system of healing used something
unusual for the medicine of his time ‒a single medi-
cine, a single active substance. At that time in Europe most
medicines were mixtures of various compounds. Then he
found that the right medicine often acted too strongly, and
his quest for the optimum pharmaceutical preparation led
him to dilution, trituration, and succession. Hahnemann
described his procedures in his works the Organon, Chron-
ic Diseases, and Materia Medica Pura. His most detailed
instructions are given in the Organon § 270. Refinements
came following clinical use and observations. Hahnemann
changed the mode of preparation a number of times, us-
ing different types of solutions, adjusting the number of
drops used or strokes employed, and introducing trituration
as well as the centesimal scale, later the Q (also known as
LM) potencies.
Remaining constant for Hahnemann was to initially
prepare dilutions and triturations in the proportion 1:100.
To obtain this he took one part, which means one drop
or one grain (= 0.062 grams) of the mother-substance
and added 99 parts of a solvent, usually diluted alcohol
for the dilution or sugar of milk for the trituration. All
this was put in a potentizing glass of a certain shape and
size. Hahnemann gave a specified number of strokes for
obtaining a good mixture. The next potentizing step was
to place one drop into a new potentizing glass, add alcohol
and repeat the strokes. Hahnemann mainly used what
we now call 30C, sometimes 60C, and occasionally even
higher potencies for his patients.
The question soon became: when the potency is raised
much higher than 60C, does the medicine’s effectiveness
increase or decrease? Clemens von Bönninghausen (1785–
1864), author of the Therapeutic Pocket Book and one of
the best pupils of Hahnemann, usually prescribed 60C for
everyday cases, and 200C for chronic diseases and for
irritable patients. He said that high potencies can cure what
the same remedy in low potency cannot. (1)
Gustav Wilhelm Gross (1794–1847) observed that the
process of potentization develops a remedy’s powers
tremendously. He knew of a case of Hahnemann’s in
which his prescription of Drosera 30C for a child suffering
from whooping cough was too strong when prepared with
twenty strokes per potentizing step, and the child became
gravely ill (2), but when Hahnemann then gave Drosera
30C prepared using only two strokes per step, it healed
with no complications. Gross suggested that Hahnemann
should not have reduced the number of strokes but
continued to potentize, meaning progress higher in the
scale of potencies. By the continued raising of potency a
true remedy is obtained.
He also discovered that certain ranges of higher potencies
caused terrible aggravations. For instance, Gross observed
no beneficial effects or cures but only aggravations with
Arsenicum album 100C, Ars 200C, or Ars 400C. But with
Ars 800C a beneficial effect was seen, and only a slight
aggravation. In his experience Ars 800C was much better
than Ars 400C. Also he found Natrum muriaticum 400C to
be too harmfully strong in its aggravation. (3)
Then in Russia, Semen Nikolaevich Korsakov (born
circa 1788, died 1853) introduced a new method for
preparing homoeopathic medicines. He began studying
homeopathy in 1827, after it cured him of chronic arthritis.
He studied this new therapy intensively and became a
successful practitioner. He treated more than 11,000
patients homeopathically within five years! Thanks
ABSTRACT: In Hahnemann’s lifetime Korsakov developed a mechanical procedure for producing high potencies, which
Hahnemann praised. Subsequently more than two dozen different mechanized procedures were developed, mainly in
America. These devices produced homeopathic medications which are still in use today, through grafting. Given the
current interest in material residues within homeopathic medicines and how these might produce sweeping physiological
changes, a comparison of the different processes may help us decide what makes a homeopathic medicine potent.