potentisation : history and its recent advances

homoeopathic potentisation is a inovative technique given by Dr Hahnemann

1. HISTORY AND ITS RECENT
ADVANCES
DR. A.B.RAJGURAV

2. SUMMARY
THEREFORE WE STUDY SIMPLE SUBSTANCE,IN
ORDER THAT WE MAY ARRIVE AT THE NATURE
OF SICK-MAKING SUBSTANCES. WE ALSO
POTENTISE OUR MEDICINES IN ORDER TO
ARRIVE AT THEIR SIMPLE SUBSTANCE;THAT IS,AT
THE NATURE AND QUALITY OF THE REMEDY
ITSELF.THE REMEDY TO BE HOMOEOPATHIC
MUST BE SIMILAR IN QUALITY AND SIMILAR IN
ACTION TO DISEASE CAUSE.

3. War against homoeopathy

4. OBJECTIVES
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT
IS POTENTIZATION
HISTORY OF
POTENTIZATION IN
HOMOEOPATHY
MODERN APPROACH
TOWARDS
POTENTIZATION

5. LETS FIND IT OUT
What is potentization?
 Why history of
potentization is
important?
Why it should be done?
What are the different
methods of
potentization?
How it is scientific?

6. WHAT IS POTENTIZATION
SIMILAR WORDS
FOUND IN
DICTIONARY
POTENTIA :- MEANS
POWER; ABILITY; TO
PERFORM.
POTENTIAL :-(Latin:-
potentialis) CAPABLE
OF COMING IN TO
ACTION.
POTENTIATE:-MAKE
MORE POWERFUL.

7. POTENTIZATION
It is a process by which the medicinal properties
which are latent in their crude state become
awakened /potent and developed in to activity.
DEFINITION
It is a mathematico-mechanical process by virtue of
which the inherited dormant dynamic curative
power of drugs is aroused or increased by modifying
drug strength/drug power to dynamic power
through simultaneous and successive process of
dilution & friction in definite order according to
pharmacopoeia.

8. Potentization
OR
Drug Dynamisation
Master Hahnemann in his preface to the 5
th
volume
of chronic diseases defines:
“ Homoeopathic Dynamisation are processes
by which the medicinal properties, which are latent in
natural substances while in their crude state, become
aroused and then become enabled to act in our
life,i.e., in our sensible and irritable fibre. This
development of properties of crude natural
substances(dynamisation) takes place in the case of
dry drug substances by means of trituration in
mortar, but in case of fluid substances by means of
shaking or succussion, which is also a trituration

9. ACCORDING TO STUART CLOSE
“HE CALLED IT AS
POTENTIATION INSTEAD
OF POTENTISATION
PO-TEN-SHE-A-SHUN
MEANS:- THE SYNERGISTIC
ACTION OF TWO
IN WHICH THE TOTAL
EFFECTS ARE GREATER
THAN SUM OF THE
INDEPENDENT EFFECTS
OF
THE TWO SUBSTANCE

10. ACCORDING TO HIM
“HOMOEOPATHIC DYNAMISATION is a mathe-
matico-mechanical process for the reduction,
according to scale, of crude, inert or poisonous
medicinal substances to a state of physical
solubility, physiological assimilability, and
therapeutic activity, and harmlessness, for use as
homoeopathic healing remedies.

11. WHETHER SIMILAR
PROCESSES LIKE
POTENTISATION ARE
PRESENT IN ANY
OTHER SYSTEM ?

12. EXACT PROCESSES ARE
NOT FOUND,
BUT LIKE WISE ARE SEEN
IN……
ISOPATHY
AYURVEDA
UNANI…
ALL ARE BASED ON
DIFFERENT
PRINCIPLES.

13. HISTORY OF POTENTISATION

14. WHY HISTORY IS IMPORTANT ?
To understand the
concept and the
procedures which were
used.
To know the difficulties
.
To formulate the
methods to overcome
the difficulties.

15. Two closely related discoveries brought
Hahnemann closer to the principle of
dynamization :
One was the improved therapeutic
effect of reducing the dosage of
previously used medicines.
The other finding was that substances
such as salt or lycopodium, not
previously identified as medicines
became therapeutically active on
undergoing this process.

16. So Hahnemann, setting out simply to
reduce the quantity of his doses,
discovered potentization, an entirely
new principle in posology.
This is the principle,
which gives life and power to the system
of medicine that Hahnemann developed
and is the third great step in the evolution
of the law of cure.

17. Hahnemann's approach to potency was
modified in each phase of his medical career.
A point worth emphasising is that he was an
experimenter and innovator, motivated more
by practice than by theory.
These phases can be discussed in
detail alongwith the published works
that Hahnemann was involved with
at each stage.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT
OF POTENTIZATION

18. Before discovering the law of similars,
Hahnemann's treatment of his patients
differed very slightly from that of other
physicians.
His prescriptions corresponded in
composition, weight and quantities with
those of his contemporaries.
1784 – 1796
PRE – HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL CAREER

19. 1790 - Hahnemann translated Cullen's
Materia Medica - historic discovery
relating to Cinchona bark.
Hahnemann wrote – 'Surely toxicity is
nothing but the violent manifestation of
an extremely powerful agent applied in too
high a dose and in the wrong place.'

20. 1796 - Hufeland's journal -
‘Essay on a New Principle For ascertaining the
Curative Powers
of Drugs’.
In this essay he makes reference to
the use of ‘small doses’, but does not clarify what
he meant by "small".

21. The aggravation or the increase of
disease symptoms following the
administration of the homoeopathic
remedy, induced him gradually to
decrease the dose.
But this diminution was not so swift
and it was only by experiments and
bedside experiences that the necessity
was felt by him.

22. 1798 – ‘Some Kinds of Continued and
Remittent Fevers’. Here, he notes using
Ignatia in doses of 2 to 3 grains; Opium
in 1/5-1/2 grain doses; Camphor 30-40
grains/day; Ledum 6-7 grains.
Although these are still ‘crude’ doses,
and rather large by later homoeopathic
standards, they represent dramatic
reductions from the allopathic doses of
his contemporaries.
1797 – 1800 : FIRST HINTS OF DILUTION

23. The first hints of dilutions are found in
his ‘Apothecaries Lexicon’ (1798), where
he recommends Sabina ‘in very small
doses’ ; Stramonium at 1/100th or
1/1000th part of a grain. Hahnemann's
experiments during this time led him to
the use of even smaller doses, with those
remedies he used commonly.
Serial dilution in the preparation of
remedies appears to have been
introduced in 1799.

24. 1801 – ‘Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever’.
He offered exact details of the preparation
and administration of Belladonna.
He offers descriptions of mixing such as
‘shaking the whole well’ and ‘intimately mixed
... by shaking it for a minute’ that suggest an
interest in dispersing the substance well
throughout the dilution medium. He
describes these preparations in terms as
dilutions, attenuations or reduced doses.
1801 – 1813 : DISPERSING THE SUBSTANCE WELL
THROUGHOUT DILUTION MEDIUM

25. Hahnemann wrote an article ‘On the
Power of Small Doses of Medicine in
General, and of Belladonna in Particular’,
in Hufeland's Journal in 1801. He still
understood the infinitesimal preparations
to be dilutions or small doses.
Up to 1813, nothing definite was written by
Hahnemann. There appeared general
remarks about dilution and reduction of
size of doses.

26. 1813 – ‘Spirit of the Homoeopathic Doctrine of
Medicine’ - Drugs, besides their physico-chemical
properties, possess another property by which
they alter the qualitative state of the organism.
More the materiality of a drug is reduced, by
processes of dilution or trituration, greater the
specific therapeutic quality lying dormant in the
drug seemed to
be unveiled.
This is the seed of dynamization theory.
1813 - 1819 : SEED OF DYNAMIZATION THEORY

27. So it is dilution plus friction that liberates
the pharmacodynamic properties of the drug.
His observations had demonstrated that –
certain substances, ineffective in their
natural form, as common salt, charcoal,
lycopodium, silica, lime, etc. become
available as an efficacious medicine only
after prolonged trituration with milk sugar.

28. These discoveries are
the reason why
Hahnemann from that
time onwards no
longer designated the
different degrees of
his dosages as
dilutions, but as …
'power developments'
or 'potencies'.

29. 1821 - Sixth volume of Materia Medica Pura,
Hahnemann referred constantly to treating with
"the smallest part of a drop".
Hahnemann was then adopting the use of
globules, whereby a fraction of a drop could be
administered easily.
1820 – 1828 : ‘ DYNAMIZATIONS ’ – IMPORTANCE OF
FRICTION

30. He now understood the idea of friction
as bringing about the remarkable change
in the activity of the drug.
This is represented in his article
‘How can Small Doses of such very
Attenuated Medicine as Homoeopathy
employs still possess great power’
in 1827.

31. Hahnemann used the terms 'dilution',
'diminish', 'dynamization' / 'dynamic' /
'dynamized', and 'potentization' / 'potency'
to describe these various concepts.
The term ‘too-strong dose’ referred to
prescriptions making a too-strong
impression on the life force either by to
being too large (in a material sense) or of
too great a potency.

32. Hahnemann felt in 1829, the urgent
necessity of a limit in potentising and
declared the ultimate degree of dilution
to be the 30th centesimal potency.
In 1832, Hahnemann began experimenting
with olfaction of remedies.
5th edition of the Organon –
Hahnemann described the concept of
potentization in §269.
1829 – 1837
‘ STANDARD POTENCY 30C ; OLFACTION ’

33. Hahnemann also began experimenting
with giving the dose in solution, rather
than as a dry pellet on the tongue.
In 1835 Hahnemann described ‘split doses’
of a medicinal solution produced by
dissolving a medicated centesimal pellet
in a volume of water. This reduced dose
allowed for more frequent repetition.

34. LM potency scale, which Hahnemann
referred to as "medicaments au globule"
as distinct from the centesimal
‘medicaments a la goutte’, was developed
in 1838, 5 years before his death, with the
intention of preparing remedies even better
adapted for use in split dose in medicinal
solution - 6th edition of the Organon (§270).
Intimately related to these new
preparations, were new approaches
to the repetition of dose.
1838 : FINAL INSTRUCTIONS

35. Arndt-Schultz says that,
"Minimal doses of a drug stimulate,
 medium doses inhibit or suppress and
 large doses destroy cellular activity."
Pasteur should have known this when he
introduced his rabies vaccination, killing thousands
of innocent people before he finally reduced the
doses.
 This was in 1888 and unfortunately, he did not
learn from the genius of Hahnemann who already
100 years before Pasteur and Koch, cured epidemics
of scarlatina, typhoid, cholera, syphilis, gonorrhea
and Tuberculosis.

36. conclusion
So we can conclude that potentisation was not a one
day invention. It is a result of an evolution.
Dr. Hahnemann took many years( aprox. 30 -40 yrs )
to come to the conclusion of higher dynamisation.
Lot of assumptions, experiments, permutations &
combinations were done by him.
So the existing form of dynamic medicines today are an
out come of hard and extensive labour and is not as
simple as it looks.
It passed many hurdles & controversies and now it is in
its refined form. ***

37. WHY IT SHOULD BE DONE?

38. Vital force is dynamic in
nature, and the disease
force is also dynamic in
nature, which attacks
the healthy vital force on
the dynamic plane
causing a diseased state.
So to free the
dynamically deranged
vital force,the requisite
medicine also must be
dynamic.

39. To avoid unnecessary
medicinal aggravation
and side effects
To arouse latent
curative properties of
crude drug
substances.

40. The more the drug is
potentised, the greater is
its dynamic medicinal
power .
Potentisation helps to
individualise a drug
through its latent
pathogenetic power.

41. Potentisation not only
preserves the
therapeutic potentiality
but also increases the
pharmacological and
therapeutic activity

42. Any substance can affect
human organism in one
or two ways:
1) chemical action
2) or through
interaction of
electromagnetic fields.

43. Biologically inert
substances are
chemically &
energetically closed to
interact with the human
body.

44. Biologically active
substances are capable
of acting on the tissue of
the body chemically.
This specific reaction of
the organism, depends
upon the degree of
susceptibility, for that
substance.

45. If the sensitivity is close
enough, even the crude
form of a biologically
active substance can be
therapeutic.

46. To get curative results
that are long lasting, it is
necessary to increase the
intensity of
electromagnetic field of
the substance.
And this is done
through potentization.

47. With the help of
potentisation, mode of
action of medicine
changes.
Our medicine act
through the nervous
system,which is faster
than any other route.
***

48. HOW POTENTISED DRUGS ACT

49. PROCESSES OF POTENTISATION
1) Trituration
In case of insoluble
substances
2) Succussion
In case of soluble
substances.

50. SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO
DRUG DYNAMISATION

51. Homoeopathy is a
science very recent in
origin and it deals not
only with matter but
also deals with energy.
Therefore, it can be
explained by
Newtonian physics and
conventional
chemistry.

52. .
Some recent work done
in the fields of quantum
physics, It has been
proved that the
Avogadro’s number is no
barrier for the existence
of homeopathic
dilutions.
HOW ? ? ?

53. Again on the basis of
Avogadro's number, the
presence of material in
the homoeopathic
medicine beyond molar
concentration 10 or 12
becomes negative. Still
the drugs beyond 24x /
12c show their action.

54. HOW IT CAN BE EXPLAINED ?
THEORY OF
RELATIVITY

55. RELATIVITY THEORY
Massless particles travels at the
speed of light. These massless
particles possess momentum
and energy but no rest mass.
E = MC2
HOW IT CAN BE RELATED TO
HOMOEOPATHY

56. In Homoeopathic
Potentised medicines ,
the medicinal particles
become massless, when
subjected to
potentisation, which
have no mass but only
energy.
This energy is
responsible for curing
the natural diseases.
HOW TO PERCEIVE
THIS ENERGY ?

57. Instruments now exist
that can directly
measure the
electromagnetic field of
the body.
It is used for the
diagnosis of malignancy,
Infectious diseases..
Kirillian photography is
one of the technique
whereby the
electromagnetic field
can be directly
visualized.

58. WHAT HAPPENS IN POTENTIZATION
In homoeopathy, crude
drugs substances are
potentised by the process of
TRITURATION &
SUCCUSSION.
It results in micro-
emulsion solution ,
developing definite charge.

59. ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD
The charge of micro-
emulsion particles is
accelerated with
Trituration ,resulting in
the emulsion of
electromagnetic
waves. This gives rise to
generation of very light
isotopic molecules of
medicinal drug
substances.

60. ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD
This very light or
weightless isotopic
molecules of the
medicinal material
retain the properties of
the original drug
substances. This view is
supported by theory of
relativity

61. From this we can
conclude that the
concept of potentisation
can be explained on the
basis of laws given in
physics.

62. Can we correlate
homoeopathy with nano
technology

63. NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY
Yes, there could well be a
connection between
homeopathy & nano-science.
Certainly the memory of water
hypothesis, shows the picture of
clustering of large numbers of
individual water molecules into
long-range dynamically-ordered
polyhedral shapes, which
could be considered as nano-
structural organisation and re-
organisation of water's 'matrix'.

64. NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY
Dr J.C Collins who
proposes that the water
'matrix' of living cells is
the backdrop which
allows the incredibly
efficient biochemistry of
cells to take place.

65. NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY
So far as I know, nobody has looked into the link
between nanotech and homeopathy. There are two
possible reasons for this, firstly showing an interest in
homeopathy is not something to be done lightly these
days so even if people have ideas about it they might
not speak up. Secondly, nanotech tends to focus on
'hard' materials in the sense that although they are
very small they are stable whereas water is a fluid so is
not stable at the nanoscale.
The link however is very interesting and there
probably are bridges to be made there.

66. NANOTECHNOLOGY AND HOMOEOPATHY
SO called modern medicine is coming to minimum
dose, or from quantity to quality.
e.g. genetic medicine, or nanotecnology…etc.
Now they have understood the importance of it, but we
are in this field of minimum dose since 300 years.
SO WHO IS ADVANCED /MODERN?
THEY OR WE?
RATHER HOMOEOPATHY IS 300 YEARS AHEAD
THAN ANY OTHER PATHY.

68. THANK YOU

69. One can therefore conclude
that Hahnemann changed his
views on potency mainly in the
light of clinical experience
rather than empty
speculations and theories.

70. The solution to the problems of
potentization must be sought in
physics and not in chemistry.
The latter part of the 20th century has
seen the advent of experimental
studies using various forms of
spectroscopy, particularly nuclear
magnetic resonance.
PHYSICS OF POTENTIZATIONPHYSICS OF POTENTIZATION

71. • As a chemical, there is no
difference between a solvent and
potentized solvent.
If there is a difference between the
potentized and unpotentised
solvent, the answer lies in Physics.

74. CONCEPTS OF PHYSICS IN HOMOEOPATHY
New concepts in physics
are beginning to be
reflected in biological
science, particularly, in
the study of
electrodynamic fields of
the human body.

156. WHERE THE PROBLEM LIES ?
Up till now we know that
the quantity of drug in
homoeopathic dose is
very very small and
cannot be measured by
the present scientific
instruments and
techniques.
And also its chemical
interaction with the
infecting agent is not
possible but it shows its
medicinal effect.