See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/289914350

LM or Q Potencies

Article  in  Homoeopathic Links · January 2005

DOI: 10.1055/s-2005-837714

CITATION READS
1 1,570

8 authors, including:

Ubiratan Cardinalli Adler Amarilys de Toledo Cesar

Universidade Federal de São Carlos HN Homeopatia e Produtos Naturais Ltda
31 PUBLICATIONS   204 CITATIONS    33 PUBLICATIONS   104 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Homeopathy for major depression View project

Homeopathy for substance craving View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Ubiratan Cardinalli Adler on 23 December 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

HAHNEMANN’S late prescriptions.

Adler UC, Adler MS, Padula, AE

Adler UC, Adler MS, Padula AE . HAHNEMANN’S late prescriptions. Medizin,

Gesellschaft und Geschichte. 27:161-172, 2009.

Corresponding author:
Ubiratan C. Adler
ubiadler@uol.com.br

March, 2008.

Summary
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Background: Hahnemann´s conception about the superiority of the fifty-millesimal

dynamization method (Q-potencies) is contested by anecdotal historical information
suggesting that he equally prescribed C and Q-potencies in his casebooks, or even prefered
centesimal potencies in his daily praxis. Objectives: To determine the number of Q and C
prescriptions made by Hahnemann in the last semester of his life and to identify possible
patterns of Q or C-potency use in Hahnemann’s later life. Methodology: Quantitative
systematic review of Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (Krankenjournale – DFs) kept in the
Archive of the Institute for History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation, looking
for records of Q and C-potencies prescribed in the time frame of January 1st 1843 and June
30rd, 1843. Results: 743 prescriptions were identified: 582 (78%) of Q-potencies, 142
(19%) of C-potencies and 19 (3%) of unidentified potencies. The centesimal scale was
mostly used in the C30 or in descending degrees (C30,C24,C18,C12,C8 and C6). Q-
potencies, on the contrary were prescribed in an ascending order. Conclusions: During
the last semester of his life Hahnemann administered four times more the fifty-millesimal
dynamization than the centesimal scale, in consistency with his observations in the 6th
edition of the Organon.

Key Words

Homeopathy; Hahnemann casebooks; Hahnemann prescriptions; Q-potencies; LM

potencies, 6th edition of The Organon. Historical research.

1
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

“In der letzten, Pariser Zeit, hat Hahnemann

vermutlich vorwiegend LM-Potenzen gegeben.“
Rudolf Flury1

Fifty-millesimal potencies have been subject of rising interest within the German
homeopathic community: conference discussions2, clinical 3 4 5 and pharmaceutical articles6
and even a book about the history of the LM or Q potencies have been recently published7.

Part of our work with Q-potencies has been directed to review the Parisian Krankenjournale
(DFs) at the Institute for History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch’s Foundation (IGM)
aiming at stressing the consistency of the directions of the 6th edition of The Organon with
Hahnemann’s clinical experience. The assumption made by Dr. Rudolf Flury almost 30
years ago, for instance, is coherent to Hahnemann’s observations: if the Master, at the end
of his life, concluded that the LM or Q-potencies presented the “highest development of
power and mildest action”8, it is expected that he would have prefered to prescribe his latest
dynamization method to giving C-potencies. However, respected historians have different
readings of Hahnemann’s latest prescriptions:

“It seems therefore a distortion of the facts, as far as we can ascertain them, to
point to LM potencies or to higher centesimal potencies and claim them as being
something Hahnemann was headed towards.”

“Finally, we can safely say that Hahnemann at the end of his career mainly used
potencies 12, 18, 24 and 30 and that this comprised some 81% of his total
prescribing . If we then add potencies 6 and 9, we cover some 94% of his total
prescribing. Clearly it is true that he was beginning to experiment with higher
potencies and was making increasing use of the LM's for reasons already stated.
Those homoeopaths who can with honesty say they use mainly potencies 12, 18, 24
and 30 can truly call themselves Hahnemannian. The rest cannot”. 9

2
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Reviewing the DFs for our second article about the identification of Hahnemann’s Q
prescriptions10, it seemed to us that he did indeed use more frequently these potencies at the
end of his life, but in that occasion a quantitative comparision of the two scales was not in
the scope of our work. In 2007, in another visit to IGM, we were kindly allowed to review
the DFs again, aiming to investigate which potencies Hahnemann “was headed towards” in
his later life.

Objectives

 To determine the number of Q and C prescriptions made by Hahnemann in the last

semester of his life.
 To identify possible patterns of Q or C-potency use in Hahnemann’s later life.

Methodology

Quantitative systematic review of Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (Krankenjournale –

DFs) kept in the Archive of the Institute for History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch’s
Foundation, looking for records of Q and C-potencies prescribed in the period of January
1st 1843 and June 30rd, 1843. We chose this time-span not only because it was his last
semester of life, but also because we knew from our previous work that most of his 1843
prescriptions were made in accordance with the method described in the 6th edition of The
Organon, with low fifty-millesimal potencies prescribed in an ascending order. This way
we could find out how Hahnemann prefered to treat his patients: with Q potencies used as
described in the 6th edition of The Organon, or with C potencies and, in this case, with what
centesimal methodology.

3
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

As previously detailed3, a prescription was considered as a Q-potency if the degree

registered was:
 less than 4, or
 more than 3, when prescribed in a sequence that had started in a potency less than 4 of
the same medicine;
 associated to a blank circle notation.

Results

In the first semester of 1843, we found 743 prescriptons (placebo not included) for 231
identified patients: 582 of Q-potencies, 142 of C-potencies and 19 of unidentified
potencies, as ilustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Total of C , Q and unidentified (?) potencies precribed by Hahnemann in the first semester of
1843.

?
C 3%
19%

Q
78%

Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

Those 743 prescriptions comprised 58 medicines in C or Q or unidentified (?) potencies,

which are listed in Table 1.

4
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Table1: medicines prescribed by Hahnemann in the first semester of 1843 with their respective number
of prescriptions in C, Q and unidentified (?) potencies.
MED C Q ? MED C Q ?
1 acon 17 5 6 30 ign 2 3 0
2 agar 1 0 0 31 ip 1 13 0
3 alum 1 6 0 32 kali-c 2 5 0
4 ambr 0 1 0 33 lach 1 0 1
5 am-c 1 0 0 34 led 1 0 0
6 ant-c 0 2 0 35 lyc 0 17 0
7 ant-t 2 0 0 36 merc 0 16 0
8 arn 2 0 0 37 mur-ac 1 0 0
9 Ars 0 5 0 38 nat-m 4 18 0
10 Aur 0 5 0 39 nit-ac 2 0 0
11 Bell 0 23 4 40 nux-m 1 1 0
12 Bry 1 12 0 41 nux-v 6 29 2
13 Calc 2 43 1 42 olnd 1 0 0
14 Camph 9 0 0 43 op 5 1 0
15 carb-a 1 1 0 44 ph-ac 2 0 0
16 carb v 1 5 0 45 phos 2 16 0
17 caust 6 0 0 46 plat 1 0 0
18 Cham 0 1 0 47 plumb 5 2 0
19 Chin 2 3 2 48 puls 13 5 0
20 Cina 1 0 0 49 rhod 1 0 0
21 Cinn 0 3 0 50 rhus-t 1 24 0
22 Cocc 1 0 0 51 sel 1 0 0
23 Con 9 0 0 52 sep 2 3 0
24 Cup 3 1 0 53 sil 1 12 0
25 Dros 4 0 0 54 spig 1 0 1
26 Dulc 1 0 0 55 staph 8 0 0
27 Eup 1 0 0 56 sulp 2 246 0
28 Graph 1 10 0 57 thuj 1 11 1
29 Hep 0 33 1 58 verb 4 0 0
? 3 2 0
Total: 142 582 19
Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

5
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

The 142 identified C-potencies were given in the degrees from C6 to C191, as shown in
Figure 2.

Figure 2: Number of C-potencies degrees prescribed by Hahnemann in the first semester of 1843.

C191 2

C36 1

C32 1

C31 1

C30 104

C24 14

C18 6

C12 2

C8 7

C6 4

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Source: Hahnemann’s parisian casebooks (DFs).

Among those 142 C-prescriptions Hahnemann changed the C-potency 22 times during the
follow up of a given medicine, most of them in a descending sequence starting from C30.
Table 2 shows these C-potencies sequences.

6
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Table 2: Hahnemann’s C-potencies changes during the first semester of 1843.

Patient Medicine C-potency sequence DF Pgs

1 L´Abbé Perrez Acon 30-8 13 448
2 M. Mewanieckbout Acon 30-8 14 452-3
nux-v 31-36 14 451
3 Marion Russel ant-t 30-8 13 385
4 Mde Lemoine Plumb 30-24-18 12 405
Op 30-24-18-12 12 405-6
5 Mlle. Laforest Con 30-24 14 354
6 Mlle. Hocquard Con 24-18-12-6 6 429
7 Mme Maugé Con 30-24 14 73
8 Mme. Erskine Puls 30-24-6 13 458
9 Mme. St. Quen Phos 24-18 9 264
10 Mr. Guerlain Camph 30-24-18 7 94
11 Mr. Rouxel Calc 30-8 13 95
Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

Figure 3 illustrates the monthly percentage of prescriptions of C and Q potencies. As can

be observed, in June 1843 the Q-prescriptions represented 85% of Hahenmann’s identified
potency use.
Figure 3: percentage of monthly prescriptions of each scale in the first semester of 1843.

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
jan/43 fev/43 mar/43 abr/43 mai/43 jun/43

C% Q%

Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

7
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

The 582 identified Q-potencies were prescribed in degrees from Q1 to Q30, as shown in
Figure 4.

Figure 4: Number of Q-potencies degrees prescribed by Hahnemann in the first semester of 1843.

Q30 2

Q24 1

Q21 2

Q13 1

Q10 2

Q9 3

Q8 5

Q7 11

Q6 22

Q5 39

Q4 59

Q3 85

Q2 136

Q1 214

0 50 100 150 200 250

Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

Analysing those 582 Q prescriptions, we found 172 potency changes, 166 (97%)
prescriptions of ascending degrees and 6 (3%) of a lower Q-potency of an already given
medicine. The prescription of the same medicine, for the same patient, in a different degree
of potency, during the first semester of 1843, immediated following the previous use o that
medicine, or after the intermediate use of another medicine was considered a potency
change. Table 3 exemplifies how the potency changes were registered by the authors of this
paper.

8
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Table 3: Examples of registers of potency change in ascending (up) or descending (down) degrees,
immediated following a previous use of the same medicine or following the use of an intermediate
medicine.

Patient medicine potency scale year month day DF pag up down

Jules Sanson Sil 2 Q 1843 2 14 11 102
Jules Sanson Sil 3 Q 1843 3 6 11 102 1
Jules Sanson Sil 4 Q 1843 4 5 11 102 1
Jules Sanson Sil 1 Q 1843 6 4 11 102 1

M. Klein Calc 1 Q 1843 2 6 13 194

M. Klein Calc 2 Q 1843 2 15 13 194 1
M. Klein Puls 30 C 1843 3 24 13 194
M. Klein Calc 3 Q 1843 3 3 13 194 1
M. Klein Calc 4 Q 1843 3 13 13 194 1
Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

Discussion

Hahnemann’s late life productivity is impressing: from January until May there are cases
registered almost every day in his DFs, with few monthly pauses. In June, shortly before
his death on July 2nd, there were 8 days without any record and also an evident drop in the
number of his appointments, as can be seen in Figure 5.

9
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Figure 5: Number of monthly prescriptions (placebo not included) made by Hahnemann in the first
semester of 1843.

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0
jan/43 fev/43 mar/43 abr/43 mai/43 jun/43

Source: Hahnemann’s Parisian casebooks (DFs).

Our results confirmed the previous observations9 that Hahnemann, at the end of his career
used centesimal potencies, mostly C30, but also C24, C18, C12, C8 C6. These potencies
were prescribed mostly in a descending sequence when he used more than one C-potency
of a given medicine for the same patient. However these C-potencies comprised only 19%
of Hahnemann’s prescriptions in the last semester of his life, while 78% of them were of Q-
potencies. If there was a trend towards a scale use, this also would be toward the Q
dynamization, which was even more frequently prescribed by Hahnemann from April 1843
on, up to 85% of his prescriptions in June.

Among Hahnemann’s centesimal preferences, it’s remarkable the return to his traditional
C30 and to series of C-potencies similiar to his well-known sequence11, considering the fact
that a few years before he had experienced higher C-sequences, close to C200 (Figure 6),
which action he probably found out to be too strong.

10
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

Figure 6: C-potency series of

Hepar sulphuris: C197, C198 and C199
prescribed by Hahneman in 1841.

Repeating the C-potencies in descending degrees might have been a precaution to moderate
possible homeopathic aggravations, as Hahnemann had described an direct association
between higher C-potencies and those aggravations12. The Q-potencies, on the contrary,
were used by him in an ascending order, what is consistent with the instructions of the 6th
edition of the Organon13. Handley’s findings, that Hahnemann would also prescribe Q-
potencies in descending sequencies14 must have been based on scattered records, which are
almost inexistent in his1843 prescriptions.

11
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

We hope that this review will contribute to bring to an end the erroneous belief that
Hahnemann would have paradoxically promoted his new dynamization method in the 6th
edition of The Organon and actually prescribed the Q-potencies inasmuch as the C-
potencies in his daily praxis. In a quick glance at the DFs one can easily find both scales
being used by Hahnemann, as shown in Figure 7, but our quantitative analysis
demonstrated that, during the last semester of his life, he administered four times more the
fifty-millesimal dynamization than the centesimal scale, in consistency with his theoretical
instructions.

Figure 7: C and Q potencies prescriptions

appear “side by side” in Hahnemann’s casebooks,
giving the false impression that he used both scales
in a similiar frequency.

Source: DF 8, p. 199.

Clinicians who try to develop homeopathy based on Hahnemann’s systematic and life-long
experience can now count on more precise historical information to make a well-founded
choice of their dynamic tools.

“Historical research which debunks myths in the history of

homeopathy is obviously not to the liking of many followers of
Hahnemann who worship him...”
Robert Jütte15

12
HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

References

1 Flury, Rudolf: Realitätserkenntnis und Homöopathie. Einführung in das Ordnungsprinzip des

Praktischen Repertoriums. Aus den Vorträgen und Manuskripten herausgegeben von Dr. Med.
Gerhard Resch und Mechtild Flury-Lemberg, Bern: Selbstverlag, 1979. In: Jütte, Robert: Die
Fünfzigtausender-Potenzen in der Homöopathie: vond den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. ARCANA,
Stuttgart, 2007.

2
Adler UC: Tipps und Werkzeug für die Verwendung von Q-Potenzen. http://www.hahnemann-
th
congress.org/ (last access: March, 18 , 2008).

3
Srinivasan KS. Eine Q-Potenz-Behandlung bei Aortenstenose und Herzinsuffizienz. Zeitschrift für
Klassische Homöopathie, 2007, 51(4): 166-167.

4
Bündner M. Zur individuellen Dosierung der Q-potenzen. Zeitschrift für Klassische Homöopathie,
2007, 51(4):157-162.

5
Spinadi D.Die Untersuchung der Reaktionen nach Q-Potenzgaben am Beispiel einer
onkologischen Behandlung. Zeitschrift für Klassische Homöopathie, 2007, 51(4):148-152.

6
Adler UC; Cesar AT. Q Potenzen: Verdünnungen für erregbaren Patienten. Zeitschrift für
Klassische Homoeopathie. Zeitschrift für Klassische Homöopathie, 2007, 51(4):153-156.

7
Jütte, Robert: Die Fünfzigtausender-Potenzen in der Homöopathie: vond den Anfängen bis zur
Gegenwart. ARCANA, Stuttgart, 2007.

8
Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon der Heilkunst: aude sapere. 6. Auflage, Leipzig, Heidelberg,
Haug, 1988, §270.

9
Morrel, Peter: Hahnemann’s use of potency over time.
nd
http://homeoint.org/morrell/articles/pm_pote1.htm (last access: February, 2 , 2008)

10
Adler, Ubiratan Cardinalli; Adler, Maristela Schiabel: Hahnemann´s experiments with 50
millesimal potencies: a further review of his casebooks. Homeopathy, 2006, 95(3):171-181.

13
 HAHNEMANN’S latest prescriptions.

11
Hahnemann Samuel. Die chronischen Krankheiten. 2. Aufl., 1. Theil, Arnold, Dresden, 1835, 4.
Nachdruck, Haug, Heildeberg, 1988.

12
Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon der Heilkunst: aude sapere. 5. Auflage, Leipzig, Heidelberg,
Haug, 1986, §276.

13
Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon der Heilkunst: aude sapere. 6. Auflage, Leipzig, Heidelberg,
Haug, 1988, §246.

14
Handley R. In search of the later Hahnemann. Beaconsfield, Beaconsfield, 1997.

15
Jütte, Robert. Interviewed by Siegfried Letzel.
nd
http://www.hpathy.com/interviews/RobertJuette.asp (last access: February, 2 , 2008)

14

View publication stats