POTENCIES 
IN CONNECTION WITH 
CRUDITIES, 
SHOWING WHY SMALL DOSES CAN SUPPLY GREAT DEFICIENCIJtf. 
AND OPERATE WHERE THERE IS NO LACK OF THE MATERIAL. 
AND WITHOUT INTERFERENCE FROM MATTER LESS 
ATTENUATED. 
My SB. F.Joslin, <M. jP.; 
New York. 
(Reprinted from the American ifomcecpaihie fieri**.) 
NEW YOKE, 
SMITHS’ HOMCEQPATHIC PHARMACY. 
JOHN T. S. SMITH ic SONS, 
484 Broadway, and 105 Fourth Avenue. 
1860 ip E F,f € m. 
The preceding tracts in tms series are those.of Brs. Epps and Alley. The 
flrst has been wholly, ti: i the second and third in part, published by an 
American gentleman who is not a. physician; but having had his own health 
benefitted by potentize ! h o e, selected under the guidance of the homoeo- 
pathic law, ie desires to :hing to extend the reputation of both 
among his fellow citizens ■ a eds of the sale will be devoted to a similar 
publication. Any one w chases copies for gratuitous distribution will 
therefore aid the hone :;i . a uw, in a'two fold manner’, directly by tha 
truth contained in the present number, aud indirectly by that in its successor. 
B. F. J. WHY SMALL DOSES CAN SUPPLY GREAT DEFICI- 
ENCIES, AND OPERATE WHERE THERE IS NO 
LACK OF THE MATERIAL, AND WITHOUT 
INTERFERENCE FROM MATTER LESS 
ATTENUATED. 
To many intelligent persons it appears incredible, that 
minute doses of our preparations can have any sensible effect 
in cases where they are of the same chemical nature with 
elements of our blood, of our food, and even of the water in 
which the medicine is dissolved and administered. 
Mow it is a fact established by abundant experience, that 
each of these substances does evince its specific properties, 
both by producing a certain set of symptoms in different 
healthy individuals, and in manifesting a decided curative 
agency in diseases to which they are appropriate. However 
we may fail to explain these results, such facts can never be 
set aside by our inability to give a satisfactory interpretation. 
Those who have repeatedly felt and observed the effects will 
believe; those who have not, will require a reason to induce 
them to subject the matter to the test of experiment. 
There are three objections to be answered. First: it is 
said—if the blood is deficient in iron, as is the case in chlorosis 
affecting pallid young females with delayed menstruation, 
how can an infinitesimal supply of iron produce any sensible 
augmentation of the vastly greater quantity already existing 
in the blood, even of these chlorotic patients? 
This objection originates in a total misconception of the 
principle on which tile medicine appropriate to such cases, 6 
operates. The object of any truly scientific physician, will 
not be to offer to the system the deficient material, but to 
enable it to appropriate that which is presented to it in the 
food; for this malady very rarely prises from any deficiency 
of iron in the aliment, and never if the nutriment is properly 
selected. The power of digesting, assimilating and forming 
the food into blood is defective; and it is this power which is 
to be restored by medicine. The physician who is ignorant 
of this, and in treating such a case, regards himself as a mere 
caterer for ,• supplying materials, will naturally conclude that 
he must administer ferruginous medicine, and that the 
medicine must be given at least in quantities appreciable by 
chemical tests. 
Niether of these conclusions has the slightest foundation in 
reason. The substance which suitably regulates the vital 
forces in this case, will not necessarily, or even generally, be 
iron, but some medicine indicated by the generality of the 
symptoms present. Again the immediate object not being 
chemical but vital, it is not necessary nor desirable, to employ 
a dose appreciable to chemical tests, but to tlie vital test, 
which is inconceivably more delicate; the living body can be 
strongly and durably affected by a dilution, which if concen- 
trated a billion fold would not produce a visible change in 
any lifeless re-agent.' 
Secondly: if, as above intimated, it is quality and not 
quantity, that is required to regulate the system, it may he 
asked, how is it possible for the medicine to operate percep- 
tibly, when the same kind of substance, as salt, iron, &c., is 
already in the food and in the blood and is sufficient with- 
out it? 
This objection would be unanswerable were it not founded 
on a false assumption, viz: that the Hahnemannian prepara- 
tions have no greater power than other substances called by 
the same name. The argument is valid only against those 
who deny that special increase of power called potent.ization, 
which the homoeopathic medicine receives by minute division 
n the different stages of its preparation, and which gives it an efficiency vastly superior to that of the same quantity in 
the ordinary state. 
There are several substances which are always found in the 
blood and which are nevertheless given with decided effect in 
various diseases; and even persons in health feel their action 
when given after their potentization, and in quantities insig- 
nificant compared with those already existing in the system. 
The efficient homoeopathic doses are insignificant as compared 
with the quantitative changes which the same substances, in 
a crude state in the blood, are daily undergoing without any 
perceptible effect on the feelings or health of the individual. 
Take for example Natrum muriaticum, common table.salt. 
The quantity of it taken by almost every man, varies by many 
grains at his different meals. If he receives a few grains 
more at one meal than at the preceding one, lie has no 
Natrum muriaticum symptoms as 'the consequence; and 
common sense would teach a physician that if he should 
administer a few grains df the crude substance, he could 
produce no effect by it. The intentional increment must be 
as inoperative as the accidental. But experience teaches 
that the potentized form of this medicine, in a quantity in- 
conceivably small, makes a decided impression both on the 
healthy man and the patient. We are compelled to conclude, 
that it has a powor of affecting the system not perceptible in 
what is chemically the same substance, in its ordinary state, 
or in that state in which it exists in the blood, where it is 
crude as compared with the form in which it is given by 
homoeopathic prescribers. A thousand physicians daily 
witness the special power of potencies of other medicines, 
and are thus able to confirm by analogy, the preceding con- 
clusion. 
Thirdly: there is an apparent difficulty which may give 
rise to an objection more profound than either of the preced- 
ing ones, and which will be more likely to disturb those minds 
which have been directed to molecular action and obtained a 
partial insight into the doctrine of depotentization, for the 
first time propounded in my paper read before the Institute 8 
in 1858, on the “Effect of impurities in an attenuating liquid.* 
I will here endeavour to give a brief and plain statement 
of what is most applicable to our present subject. 1 had be- 
fore shown that every time a dissolved medicine is diluted a 
hundred fold, it has its minute parts, called molecules, made 
smaller and more active, i. e. potentized.f In the paper above 
referred to, it was shown on the other hand, that when a 
dissolved substance, made a little active by a little division, 
is brought in contact with the same substance in a still less 
divided and less active state, it unites with the latter and 
thus becomes like it comparatively crude and inert—it loses 
its special power. I call it depopotentized, being obliged to 
coin a new' word expressive of the new idea. I find that this 
union by cohesion and consequently this depotentization, 
always takes place when one portion of the substance is only 
a hundredth part more diluted than the other. Thus a sub- 
stance which happens to adulterate the alcohol used for 
potentizing a medicine, is continually combining with and 
practically nullifying itself, and the high potency of the 
medicine remains practically pure. In this case the little 
parts, molecules, of the impurity never differ much in size 
and never differ so much in the degree and nature of their 
activity as to prevent their reunion. 
This statement in regard to the conditions of reunion is not 
a mere hypothesis. It is not only a necessary inference from 
the facts of potentization but is in accordance with observed 
tacts in crystallization. I have witnessed the crystallization 
of camphor, as exhibited l.y the solar microscope, and 
observed phenomena which have a tearing on this subject 
T wTill only remark here, that no instrument shows the 
smallest crystals first actually formed : but those first visible 
were in a series of groups, the larger crystals not growing 
by the addition of invisible ones, but of those smaller one» 
already formed of others still smaller. The first visible 
* Vide Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting, also American Homoe- 
opathic Review, Vol. I. 
f See my book, entitled “ Principles of Homoeopathy." 9 
molecules unite with others not too dissimilar in magnitude, 
frequently after rotating like little magnets; but they do not 
unite in the first instance with those whose difference of mag- 
nitude is immense. 
From what has been said, the reader may anticipate the 
answer to be given to a question which naturally present* 
itself in relation to our present topic, viz : 
Why should not a substance which already exists in the 
blood, and which is identical in name with the medicine 
administered, unite with the latter, which would thus become 
depotentized and inert ? 
The fact that potencies administered under such circum- 
stances as those dissolved in water rendered, impure by the 
presence of something of the same name, are notwithstand- 
ing active, is abundantly established by experience. 
That the union of the two, and the consequent depotentiza- 
tion of the medicine does not occur, I attribute to the discrep- 
ancy between their degrees of attenuation. The substance in 
the natural water and the blood, which can be detected bj 
chemical tests, must be crude compared with the same in our 
medium and higher potencies which cannot be thus detected. 
The crystaline affinities of these two kinds of molecules, differ 
so widely, that they may be regarded as on different planes of 
activity; those in the natural fluid comparatively gross and 
inert, those in the potency rendered inconceivably minute and 
active by regular and consecutive attenuations. This activ- 
ity, so obvious to the physician by the use of the vital test, 
has not yet attracted the attention of the physicist or chemist, 
because their tests are not sufficiently delicate. If they were 
only in possession of the re-agents and implements for prose- 
cuting researches so refined, they would penetrate inconceiv- 
ably deeper into nature’s arcana. The secret laws of crystalli- 
zation would be unfolded, and atoms be found to unite only 
with others agreeing with them, within certain limits, both of 
magnitude and of magnetic activity and habitudes 
I will add, what I strongly suspect, that the equality in the 
liquid used at each step in our potentizations, is one circum- 10 
stance which contributes to give them greater power than 
substances carelessly or accidentally and less regularly attenu- 
ated,and that some la.ws of crystallization and magnetism will 
yet be discovered, to show that the rule in regard to equal 
proportions which Hahnemann happened to adopt, exerts an 
influence in giving his several dilutions a character not only 
different from each other, but from all other substances in 
nature, even those, if any exist on our globe, which are equal- 
ly attenuated. 
Principles similar to those above applied to cohesion and 
crystallization,apply also to chemical affinity. Our potentized 
medicines are not liable to be decomposed by any substances 
which they meet with in the water which dissolves them, in 
the stomach which receives them, or in the blood in which 
they are finally distributed. Their minute division places 
them beyond the reach of the chemical affinities of all sub- 
stances vastly cruder and not similarly prepared. It the 
medicine is nitrate of silver, it passes unharmed through the 
common salt of the stomach and of the blood and produces 
its legitimate effects in spite of the presence of this abundance 
of muriate of soda which would instantly decompose it and 
render it comparatively inert, if applied to it in its ordinary 
state of crude nitrate of silver or lunar caustic.* 
We have a remarkable exemplification of the same principle 
in phosphorus. Exposed in its ordinary state to the air, it 
seizes with avidity upon the atmospheric oxygen, and is con- 
verted into phosphoric acid. This is a different substance ; 
its action upon the human body produces symptoms unlike 
those of phosphorus. But what is the consequence of exposing 
a potency, a minutely, successively and regularly divided 
preparation, of phosphorus, the same highly combustible 
substance? It has no longer the property of oxidizing in the 
air. It is only during the first stages in the preparation of 
the dilutions of phosphorus, while it is yet somewhat crude, 
that any precautions are necessary for excluding the atmos- 
* I avoid the use of the term chloride of sodium, for reasons given in an 
article on “Ozone,” Vide American Homoeopathic Review, Vol. I. 11 
pheric oxygen. Afterwards when more attenuated it is not 
convertible into phosphoric acid. If it were thus changed 
the transformation would be easily detected by the vital test; 
it would produce a different set of symptoms, and no longer 
act favorably in the diseases to which phosphorus is specially 
adapted. No duration of exposure occasions such deteriora- 
tion ; we can keep it for many years in the form of liquids or 
pellets with frequently renewed air above it in the vials, and 
still find by reliable trials that its action is that of phosphorus* 
and not phosphoric acid. 
The facts and principles stated in this paper justify the con- 
clusion, that potentization changes not only vital but physical 
and chemical properties, that attenuated medicines are sus- 
ceptible of transmission through cruder matter, unharmed by 
the cohesive power of that which identical in name or the 
affinity of that which has been supposed chemically incom- 
patible, and that the presence of these in the blood, the food, 
the water or the atmosphere, is in no danger of interfering 
with the action of delicate homoeopathic preparations. 
I will add, that nothing above said favors the mixing of 
different medicines in one prescription; each will act, though 
in an unknown and hence unsafe manner. Their separate 
proving shows nothing in regard to their joint action. Hence 
a glass which has been used for one solution should be rinsed 
with hot water, wiped when hot and allowed to stand till cold 
before a different medicine is dissolved in it. Mere washing 
makes only a kind of imperfect higher dilution, which adul- 
terates the next solution if the glass is immediately used for 
a different medicine. If the glass is left till cold, the adherent 
pellicle of water will have evaporated and carried with it the 
attenuated medicine which it held in solution.