THE

BRITISH JOURNAL

OF

HOMEOPATHY.

MY CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS THE SOLUTION OF THE DOSE-QUESTION.

By Dr. CLOTAR MÜLLER.*

Ir, for a period of about fifteen years, I have not directly interfered with a single word in the almost incessant contest about the superiority of the lower or higher doses of Homœopathic medicines, my silence has not arisen from a diminished interest in the elucidation of this important question. On the contrary, I may say that I have bestowed unremitting attention on the subject, and zealously followed up and considered all that has been published on either side, from various quarters. Even in personal intercourse with medical brethren, whether friends or strangers, I have sought, as often as possible, to moot this point, and to ascertain their views, motives, and experience.

If, then, I have hitherto strictly avoided speaking out on the Dose-question, in spite of many, and sometimes indelicate, provocations, this has been entirely due to a predetermination which has for years been settled, and every year becomes more and more confirmed.

*Homöopathische Vierteljahrschrift, vol. xvi, p. 1.

VOL. XXIII, NO. XCIII.—JULY, 1865.

A A

To explain. When, soon after the commencement of my literary labours, the battle of the doses was raging most zealously and violently, in consequence of the discovery of high potencies, it could not be otherwise than that I, having just at that time the reviewing of the Neues Archiv committed to my charge, should be drawn into the controversy. I considered it my duty not to keep back my own view, but to maintain it honorably and openly against all opponents. And as I was in those days rather young and sensitive, I probably contributed nothing calculated to prevent the strife from waxing hot, and degenerating into useless and often personal polemics. It did not, however, require great sagacity to discern that such a controversy could have no results either creditable or profitable to Homœopathy; just because, independent of quarrels that were often purely personal, it was conducted for the most part on theoretical and à priori grounds, and little value was conceded to the calm sober balancing of facts: or, at least, almost every one of the combatants was only anxious to dish up in the shortest possible time the greatest possible quantity of so-called "experiences.” For this reason I shortly withdrew, and soon after, on the establishment of the Homöopathische Vierteljahrschrift, announced my resolution not to open its pages to such a fruitless controversy. And to this day, at the end of fifteen years, I can assert that I have kept true to this resolve, as far as it was possible without appearing insensate. I need hardly assure my readers that, in the present treatise, I do not wish to recall that old quarrel. Whoever will take the trouble to read it through will perceive that I cannot be provoking any one, however sensitive and pugnacious, by merely communicating the experience of a course of more than twenty years' practice. I always considered, and still do consider, this the only way to bring about an actual decision regarding the dosequestion but I must confess I wish many more would follow my example, for the experience of a single individual must ever continue defective and unsatisfactory, as it must needs be in every way only worth just so much as the man himself deserves to be trusted and believed.

I hold it to be every homoeopath's positive duty to the science to bring his work and results to the proof, and to lay them down as a grateful legacy in contribution towards the solution of difficulties. And I might regard these notes, too, as a legacy, for this reason, that I believe I am in a position to make no further essential alteration, but to be as indifferent and silent towards all remarks as a dead man over his last will and testament.

Thus, in the following pages, simply and without further deductions in regard to all the medicines with which I can hope I have any experience worth speaking of, I shall mention those doses which seem from their results to deserve the preference. I just remark once more that these decisions are only my own individual ones, and are by no means intended to contradict or combat the opposite results of others.

Let others by all means have had and published experiences that are discrepant, and, perhaps, even antagonistic-these must by no means exalt themselves in opposition, or show fight; on the contrary, they may, up to a certain point, be supplementary and even confirmatory. In no case does the dubious stand of our unsettled dose-question become worse than heretofore by means of such publication and comparison of individual experiences. It is true that with one part of my worthy colleagues-happily not very numerous—who quite seriously assert that "there still exists a dose-question only for ignoramuses, but not for those who are thoroughly intimate with the dose-law of nature;" with these, I say, I find myself in an almost insoluble conflict, though I by no means fear to allow myself to be thrown by these gentlemen into the category of "ignoramuses."

But what will these say, if I not only consider the dosequestion far out of the reach of their solution, and not at all ripe or suitable for such a positive decision, but must also assert that, according to my experience, some medicines deserve the preference in very strong, others in very weak doses, nay, even the very same medicine sometimes in stronger sometimes in weaker doses, according to the case in hand? I must leave

these ready ones to solve the contradiction in any way they can, or to throw aside my experiences as irrelevant or unimportant. It is my intention merely to make known the results of my practice, and at least to lay them for comparison with their own before the eyes of those who, like myself, wish the dosequestion to be cleared and solved gradually by unfettered facts, and not erased by the stroke of violence.

In fact, I not only employ some medicines (as, for instance, some of the so-called antipsorics) in the thirtieth dilution, and others again in the first or third, but I even prescribe individual medicines sometimes in lower sometimes in higher dilutions; so that, for instance, many a physician visiting the dispensary has heard me prescribe Sulphur in the Mother tincture and in the 30th soon after each other, and therefore thought me acting strangely. That I do this not out of whim or caprice, surely requires no assurance of mine any more than that I am not following any predetermined theory but mere experience and observation, which have gradually furnished me with certain rules and principles. And on purpose have I exclusively as well as willingly given myself up to observation alone, because I have long been of opinion that the dose-question could only be solved by experience pur et simple.

The maxim laid down by many, and as strongly opposed by others, that low dilutions should be preferred for acute, and high for chronic diseases, was never by any means satisfactory to me; and I must at once acknowledge that, in the course of my experience, I have not at all arrived at an unconditional recognition of the maxim, nor can I thoroughly agree to it as a principle, though in individual cases it may often be found correct.

In fine, still less would I, from the beginning, unconditionally trust those who will have the strong doses to be the best, through thick and thin, or those who insist upon high ones, or "high potencies," and in these alone recognise the real essence of Homœopathy.

At the outset, therefore, I decided for no particular direction, and kept giving first low then high dilutions by turns;

the latter, I admit, only when there appeared no danger from delay, and the experiment seemed in no way critical.

I especially selected such cases as were in regard to their frequency and the coincidence of symptoms most appropriate to the comparison and observation of the efficacy of different doses. Upon this, two facts very soon presented themselves which gave me a better hold and a certain system for my further experiments; viz., first I was convinced that some medicines act with more certainty and power in strong doses, whilst, on the contrary, others developed, in high dilutions, a more general and extensive efficacy, which seemed denied to them when unpotentised.

This coincided with the experiences of many others, and simply corroborated them in many particulars. The second observation could not fail to strike me, though it was not new nor unnoticed by others. Almost constantly it appeared, in the case of certain medicines, that for given morbid symptoms and organic diseases, they exhibited a far more certain and powerful curative effect in strong doses than in high dilutions, which last, again, seemed to be more efficacious in other diseases. And, in fact, as already noticed, the difference of these opposite gradations of dose-requiring morbid symptoms consisted by no means alone in their acute or chronic character. Nay, rather, it seems to me (if I may venture so soon to draw general conclusions) to depend on the leading or primary affection of this or that organ or system of organs. Thus, for instance, Rhus Toxicodendron acted better for paralysis in the first, and for cutaneous eruptions in the sixth dilution; Nux vom. for gastric affections and for constipation in strong, for heart disease in highlydiluted doses; and so on. Thus the difference appeared to be founded on the fact that in one case the spinal cord, stomach, and intestines, in the other, the skin and par vagum were idiopathically affected. I venture, however, to assert that, from first to last, no such preconceived view or theory was adequate or influential with me as to the employment of higher or lower dilutions, but that, from time to time, by repeated coincidence of the like circumstances, a kind of sys