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Volume 106 Number 2
62 AJHM Summer 2013
Dr. Heike Gypser
to his love for homoeopathy and his many patients the
therapy spread wildly over Russia. He also had a great
interest in pharmaceutics, and developed more than 300
pharmaceutical products, that were not homeopathic.
His greatest discovery was the development of the so-
called one-glass-method for the quick and safe preparation
of high attenuations. For this mode of preparation one
glass of a certain shape is needed. One hundred drops of
water are put into this glass and one drop of mother tincture
is added for dilution. Now the glass has to be closed
with the middle finger and two heavy strokes are given.
Then the lightly foaming liquid is emptied. The glass has
to be shaken well once more until the quantity of liquid
corresponding to one drop remains in the glass. Now fresh
water coming from a measuring-glass where the level of
100 grains (one grain is demanded equal to one drop) was
marked is added to the glass. Two strokes are given and the
glass is emptied well again. The last step of potentizing has
to be done with alcohol. (4) For
Sulphur
1500C Korsakov
used for the first 1000 steps water obtained by melting ice.
(5) For the next 500 steps he used normal water because he
had no distilled water. For the preparation of a 30C the time
of ten minutes, one glass, 100 drops of alcohol and water
are required in contrast to Hahnemann who used thirty
fresh potentizing glasses to produce a 30C.
With this simple method Korsakov started to test how
far the attenuation can be raised and still obtain active
remedies. After using
Sulphur
1000C (i.e., 1M), he noticed
it developed many symptoms that were not produced
by
Sulphur
30C. It also acted so forcibly on the human
organism and developed so many symptoms so quickly
that there was almost no time to write them all down.
Hahnemann was informed about Korsakov´s method
and gave a public statement calling the method a “proper
and ingenious” way. Korsakov quotes this statement of
Hahnemann: “For preparations of so enormously highly
potentiated attenuations of medical substances the process
of the noble Korsakov is as ingenious as to the point. On
testing it with very sensitive balances it will be found
that a vial of the given size, after powerful squirting out
of one hundred grains of water contained in it, retains
almost exactly one grain of water adhering to its walls, a
circumstance which makes the further attenuations very
safe and trustworthy, so that nothing can be brought against
it, and which simplifies and eases the operation incredibly.”
(6)
It is not known if Hahnemann practiced Korsakov`s
method, but Bönninghausen certainly used Korsakov´s
remedies. In Stapf’s
Archive
of 1848, he asked his
colleagues to publish their results with Korsakov´s
remedies as he was doing. He describes cases where he
applied
Sepia
1500C and
Calcarea
1000C successfully.
Caspar Julius Jenichen (1787–1849) developed a
method of preparation of high potencies differing from
both Hahnemann and Korsakov. He was very interested in
veterinary medicine and managed the stables of the Duke
of Saxe-Gotha. Jenichen was reknowned for his physical
strength. He would not reveal his method of preparing
remedies, which became public only after Jenichen´s death.
For this he was criticized during his lifetime.
Jenichen potentized up to 30C following Hahnemann´s
directions. Then he took two drops of it, added 200 drops
of alcohol (to maintain the centesimal scale) and gave
twelve strokes in a glass which was filled to two-thirds or
three-quarters height. Like Korsakov, he used only one
glass for the following steps up to the 200C. From here
Jenichen added 12,000 (!) drops of water to two drops of
the 200C in an appropriate glass which was again filled
to two-thirds or three-quarters height, and shook it thirty
times while it “jingled like silver coins” in the glass. The
final potency was preserved in alcohol. (7)
It is also known that Jenichen potentized with alcohol up
to a certain point with varying numbers of strokes. With
some remedies he changed the proportion of remedy and
water or alcohol.
Certain high potencies he prepared continuing the
potentizing process with the dried potentizing glass inwhich
a 29C had been made in. This process Jenichen discovered
by accident. He found that remedies, particularly metals,
are very powerful when potentized in this way. Due to
his physical power Jenichen was able to give 8,400 strokes
per hour and with every stroke his whole body shook. He
found that his best time to potentize was nighttime. The
highest known potency he made was
Arsenicum
8000C.
So far we see that Hahnemann mainly applied the 30C,
Bönninghausen the 200C and sometimes even higher ones,
Gross prescribed 800C at highest, Korsakov 1500C, and
Jenichen had prepared the 8000C.
Constantin Hering (1800–1880) independently of
Korsakov experimented with a single potentizing glass
for the whole process of attenuation. (8) While living in
Surinam he used Korsakov´s remedies and later Jenichen´s.
Hering prescribed potencies from 200C to 2000C. (9)
Gross said Jenichen´s 200C often caused aggravations but
the Jenichen 300C potencies were much milder, and could
be used for any infant. (10) Jenichen´s remedies were still
in use in 1930. (11)
Carroll Dunham
(
1828–1877)
visited Bönninghausen
twice where he noted his use of Jenichen´s remedies and
their great effects. Surprised by the results of Jenichen´s
remedies, he wrote the following in a letter to his colleague
Adolph Lippe (1812–1888) in April 1868, which Lippe
published in the “Hahnemannian Monthly” in June of that
year: Some “ascribed their particular excellence to the force
with which Jenichen made his succussions,” (12) adding
a picture of Jenichen with bulging biceps, holding in his
hand the large vial in which his vigorous arm-shake would
make the dilutions. “Others attributed the superiority of
Jenichen`s potencies to something which they called the
“magnetism” of the man who made them and claimed that
all potencies would be efficacious.” (13)
To this Dunham had three questions: