e shown to exist. Hahnemann and his disciples give
catalogues of the symptoms which they affirm were produced upon
themselves or others by a large number of drugs which they submitted to
experiment.
The second great fact which Hahnemann professes to have established is
the efficacy of medicinal substances reduced to a wonderful degree of
minuteness or dilution. The following account of his mode of preparing
his medicines is from his work on Chronic Diseases, which has not, I
believe, yet been translated into English. A grain of the substance,
if it is solid, a drop if it is liquid, is to be added to about a third
part of one hundred grains of sugar of milk in an unglazed porcelain
capsule which has had the polish removed from the lower part of its
cavity by rubbing it with wet sand; they are to be mingled for an
instant with a bone or horn spatula, and then rubbed together for six
minutes; then the mass is to be scraped together from the mortar and
pestle, which is to take four minutes; then to be again rubbed for six
minutes. Four minutes are then to be devoted to scraping the powder into
a heap, and the second third of the hundred grains of sugar of milk
to be added. Then they are to be stirred an instant and rubbed six
minutes,--again to be scraped together four minutes and forcibly rubbed
six; once more scraped together for four minutes, when the last third
of the hundred grains of sugar of milk is to be added and mingled by
stirring with the spatula; six minutes of forcible rubbing, four of
scraping together, and six more (positively the last six) of rubbing,
finish this part of the process.
Every grain of this powder contains the hundredth of a grain of the
medicinal substance mingled with the sugar of milk. If, therefore, a
grain of the powder just prepared is mingled with another hundred grains
of sugar of milk, and the process just described repeated, we shall have
a powder of which every grain contains the hundredth of the hundredth,
or the ten thousandth part of a grain of the medicinal substance. Repeat
the same process with the same quantity of fresh sugar of milk, and
every grain of your powder will contain the millionth of a grain of the
medicinal substance. When the powder is of this strength, it is ready
to employ in the further solutions and dilutions to be made use of in
practice.
A grain of the powder is to be taken, a hundred drops of alcohol are
to be poured on it, the vial is to be slowly tu
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