POSOLOGY AND

HOMOEOPATHIC POSOLOGY
Homoeopathic
Posology
 Objectives
Learner will be able to know
• Definition of Posology
• Various kinds of doses
• Definition of Homoeopathic Posology
• Principles of Homoeopathic posology with reference
to organon
• Minimum dose
• Factors responsible for selection of potency
• Reason for applying single medicine at a time
• Repetition of doses
 Etymology
The term ‘posology’ originates
from Greek

posos means how much

logos means study or discourse
 Definition
• Posology means the doctrine of doses of
medicine. The quantity of a drug or other
therapeutic agent to be taken all at a time or
applied all at a time or in fractional amounts
within a stated period.
• ( Ref:Stedman’s Medical Dictionary)
• Posology is the scientific study of doses.

Doctrine of doses

Where terminology “dose” came from greek word

“dosis” which means “a giving”.

Homoeopathic “dose” includes –

 Potency
 Quantity
 Form &
 Number of administration of the medicine.
 Example of dose in Homoeopathy
1) Nux vomica 200/ ½ dram bottle
5- 0- 5 X 3 days

2) Sulphur 200/ 1 doses

5- 0- 0 X 1 day

3) Arsenicum album 200/ 3 packets

1-0-0 X 3 days ONCE IN MORNING FOR 3 DAYS

4) Syzygium jumbolanum Q/ 30 ml
10- 0- 10 X 15 days
 Allopathic concept of doses
• In allopathy dose means so many drops by
measure or so many grains by weight –
enough to produce the direct positive or
physiological effect and not enough to
enadanger the patient.
• Allopaths relate the word dose to the material
quantity of the medicine used.
 SELECTION OF POTENCY
• CONCEPT OF LOW,MEDIUM AND HIGH POTENCY
There is no hard and fast rule for selection of
potency.
• Susceptibility is the only guide for the selection of
potency.
• More the susceptibility- higher is the potency.
• Less the susceptibility – lower is the potency.

• Low - potencies below 30C

Medium-potencies between 30C to1M or 1000C
High – potencies above 1M or 1000 C
Various factors contribute to assume the
susceptibility of patient are as follows:

• Age, Sex, Habit and Environment,

Constitution and Temperament, Nuture and
Depth of the Disease, Structural changes,
various suppressions vitality, mental and
physical reactions to environmental stimuli
etc.
 1. Age
 Child and young adults require High
potency as there is no wear and tear of
organs and tissues.
But in old age susceptibility is low due to
wear and tear as well as different
degenerative changes. So they generally
require low or medium potency.
 2. Sex
Female in village of contry are usually less
exposed to mental stress or strain , worries
and anxities, their nervous system
generally quite in nature having moderate
degree of susceptibility.

Males of irritable, sensitive nature having

higher susceptibity require higher
potencies.
3. Habit and Environment ( Ref : Dr Stuart Close)

Higher potencies are best adapted to :

• Persons engaged in highly intellectual and mental
work (example: Doctor, Lawyer, ministers etc.)
• Sedentary occupation.
• Excitement of the imagination and emotion.
• Long sleep.
• An effiminate life.
 Lower potencies are best adapted to:

• Persons engaged in physical labour without

much mental exertion.
• Who sleep little.
• Whose food is coarse.
• Persons exposed to the continual influence of
drugs, such as tobacco workers and dealers.
• Distillers and brewers and all connected with
liquors and tobacco trade.
• Druggists, perfumers, chemical workers etc.
• Idiots, imbecile and deaf and dumb.
But where illness caused by
some particular drug
influence, a higher potency of
the same or similar drug may
prove to be the best antidote.
4. Constitution and Temperament

o High potencies are best suited to (Ref: Dr Stuart

Close)
• Sensitive individual of nervous, sanguine or
choleric temperament.

• Intellectual person, quick to act and react.

• Zealous and impulsive person.

 Lower potencies and frequent doses
o best suited to-(Ref: Dr Stuart Close)
• Torpid and phlegmatic individual , dull
comprehension and slow to act.
• Coarse fibres, sluggish individuals og gross
habits.
• Great muscular power who require powerful
stimulus to excite them.
Lower potencies but repeated at long intervals

• Oversensitive patients- Will prove every remedy

given high potency fail to have their sickness cured,
must be given indicated drug, very low , 3 rd to 30 th
potency or in drop doses of tincture, a single dose at
a time with long intervals.
• Idiosyncratic patients – Possess higher susceptibility
but must not be given in higher potency, sufficient
to inhale few globule of 30 potency only few
seconds. Dose may be repeated after 2, 3 or 6
months if needed. Otherwise these patients have no
chance of recovery.
 5. THE NATURE AND DEPTH OF THE
DISEASE
Functional disease responds well to high
potencies.
Organic conditions with gross organic
changes respond well to lower potencies.
A) Acute disease

• In acute disease- Nosructural change, susceptibility is

generally high- high potency.
• Acute disease with lower vitality (Severe
dehydration, extreme protsration, seevre bleeding,
vomiting etc) – the patient requires low potencies
with repeated doses .
• In acute paroxysm of chronic disease
1. With gross organic changes needs medium or low
potencies are preferable.
2. In begining of organic change or functional change-
high potency
 B) Chronic diseases
• Without gross organic changes- High potency in single
repeated dose. (Migraine,Neuralgia ,Paralyses)-
• With gross organic change-lower or medium
potencies are preferable as the susceptibity
becomes gradually low because of long suffering and
organic changes.
• Mental diseses:The susceptibility is generally very
high, but higher potencies are contraindicated in such
cases to start with because of possibility of too violent
aggravation.
THE SEAT OF THE DISEASE
Depending on the organ affected,the
potency of the medicine is determined i.e.
Where important viscus ,ie internal organ
affected , deteriorated material dose
needed. the more important the organ
and greater the organic pathology,the
more material will be the dose.
Ex; in IHD cactus Q
The previous treatment of disease
• Patient who have taken many crude drug
homoeopathic or allopathic – often requires
higher potency.
STAGE AND DURATION OF THE DISEASE

In incurable chronic diseases,lower and

medium potencies are preferable to
avoid severe aggravation.50 millesimal
potency is best for this purpose to avoid
aggravation.
 The disease process manifested in two
stages-
Dynamic Pathology and Organic Pathology.
• Dynamic pathology denotes the stage from biginning
of disease till structural changes start, during this
period only functional disturbances are reflected, so
the susceptibility remains high hence require higher
potency in single dose.
• Organic pathology denotes the stage from the
beginning of structural change up to the end of the
disease process. During this period the susceptibility is
gradually decreased. As a result the potency will be
lower.
• Different miasmatic states:
• Primary manifestations of psora, sysosis and
syphylis require high potencies in repeated
and large doses.
• Secondary manifestations of different
miasmatic states require medium or low
potency.
6) Nature of medicine
• Nosodes group of medicinesto be administered in
Higher potencies.
• Some medicines work best in lower potencies or
tincture.
Ex: Crategus in Valvular heart disease, Sabal ser in
bignign prostatic hyperplasia.
• Some remedies effect vary with potencies.
Ex: Hepar sulph abort infections- High potency resolve
abscess in teeth and osteomylitis in lower potency.
 Various kinds of doses:
Maximum dose : It is the maximum or largest
possible quantity of medicine, not harmful to
human life which can be taken at a time by an
individual.
• In homoeopathy, maximum or large dose should
not be administered for treatment purpose except
in cases of primary manifestations of psora,
sycosis and syphilis. Here, large doses, as well as
repeated doses, of the indicated medicine are to
be administered; otherwise the disease will not be
cured, rather go on increasing along its course.
• Lethal or fatal dose: It is also known as
toxicological or narcotic dose. It is such
amount of dose which can cause death of a
living being. The fatal dose of different
substances may be different, which depend
upon their toxicity. A fatal dose of a milder
narcotic or poison will obviously be more than
that of a stronger narcotic or poison.
• "Minimal lethal dose" is the smallest dose
that has been recorded as fatal to a healthy
person.
• Booster dose: A subsequent dose given to enhance
the action of the initial dose.
• Fractional or refractive or divided dose: It is the
fraction of a full dose, which is taken at short
intervals.
• Physiological dose: Physiological doses are those
which stimulate the normal physiology or functions
of the different organs or systems of our body and,
hence, the symptoms thus appearing are known as
physiological symptoms.
 W. M. Boericke, in his "A Compend of the
principles of Homoeopathy" states:
"It is the physio- logical dose-that is, a dose large enough to
produce Symptoms. Opium constipates the bowels, produces
sensibility. For these purposes a recognised, fixed quantity is
necessary, not less than one-half to one grain. This constitutes its
physiological dose".
Physiological dose is sufficient quantity and strength of a drug
to produce a definite, predetermined effect or group of symptoms.
• It bears these characters:
(i)It is injurious to the patient.
(ii) Its action is toxic in nature.
(iii) Its action is the exact opposite of curative action.
(iv) It is never employed in homoeopath practice for curative
purpose.
Infinitesimal dose: Dictionary meaning
"infinitesimal" is, "infinitesimal small
quantity and by extension "very small".
The homoeopaths are divided into two
groups. For one, that which
immeasurable is infinitesimal, though
they remain below the Avogadro's
number. For the other, infinitesimal is
beyond the Avogadro's number, i the
spiritual dilution.
• Average dose: It is the prescriber's adjust dose
according to requirement of the patient .
H.P.U.S. gives this kind of dose.
• Single dose: it means that only one dose
should be given in a day.
• Daily dose: It is the total amount that can
given in a day- either as a single dose or the
total amount divided into three or four doses.
• Total dose: It means the total amount to given
in a day which should not be exceeded.
 Minimum dose
Definition- It is that dose which is sufficient to overpower
and annihilate the disease and capable of producing slight
homoeopathic aggravation scarcely observable after the
ingestion (Section 280).
It is that amount of medicine which, though smallest in
quantity, produces the least possible excitation of the vital
force, and yet sufficient to effect the necessary changes in it
(Section 246)
• It bears these characteristics:
(i) It is beneficial to the patient.
(ii) It is curative in action.
(iii) It is not toxic in nature.
(iv) Its action has been proved.
• Nash has defined minimum dose as “It is a dose
crude or potentised, capable of affecting the
patient curatively, without unnecessary
aggravation when according to Law of Similars”.

• Stuat Close says “Minimum dose is a dose so small

that it is not capable of producing symptoms, when
used therapeutically. Homoeopathy requires that
the therapeutic dose must be capable of producing
a slight temporary aggravation or intensification of
existing symptoms and never of producing
symptoms”.
• In homoeopathy, use of minute dose has cer-
tain advantages. On the other hand,
application of large dose has some
disadvantages. Due to these reasons
homoeopathy advocates minimum dose of
medicine in practice.
 A. Disadvantages of using large dose
(a) Too large a dose of homoeopathic medicine is injurious
• Too strong a dose of medicine though quite homoeopathic,
produce an injurious effect by its magnitude. Its qualities, will
produce an unnecessary, too strong impression upon the vital
force, which, in its turn, acts upon the most sensitive parts of
the organism, most seriously affected by the natural disease
(Sec. 275).
• For this reason, a medicine even homoeopathically suited to
the case of that is too large. It does much more injury than an
equally large doses of allopathic medicine that is un-
homoeopathic and in no respect adapted to the morbid state
(Section 276).
• (b) Produces violent medicinal disease
• Too large doses of an accurately chosen Homoeopathic
Medicine, and especially frequently repeated, bring
about much trouble.
• They do indeed extinguish the natural disease as far as
the sensation of the life principle. The patient will no
longer suffer from the original disease which had been
homoeopathically cured, yet he will have to suffer from
the excessively violent medicinal disease which is most
difficult to destroy. (Aphor. 276, 6th edition).
 Advantages of minimum dose
• Sufficient to overcome and extinguish the disease
• Degree of minuteness appropriate for gentle
remedial effect
• Unwanted aggravation can be avoided.
• Not allow any organic damage or drug addiction.
• Varified by Arndt- Schultz law- Small doses
stimulate, medium dose paralyse and large doses
kills”.
Single Medicine (Monopharmacy)
272 aphorism
In no case it is requisite to administer more than one
single , simple medicinal substance at one time.
273 Aphorism
It was more consistent with nature and more
rational to prescribe a single well known medicine
at one time.
274 Aphorism
It is wrong to attempt to employ complex means
when simple means suffice.
 REPETITION OF DOSE
According to Hahnemann’s introduction in the
5th edition of Organon of Medicine-
Factors responsible for repetition of doses
Condition and progress of the patient
Nature of disease
Nature of remedy
 1.Condition and progress of the patient

• Perceptible and continued progress of

improvement contrindicates repetition.
• Repeat the doses when improvement ceases.
• Repeatition may be coninued till either
recovery ensues or different group of
symptoms arise and thus demands different
remedy.
 2. Nature of disease

• Acute diseases –

• 5 th edition- Repeated at every 24 , 12,8,4 hours

• 6 th edition- Repeated at every 2,3,4,6 hours

• Chronic diseases – Repeated at every 14,12,10,8

or 7 days.
 3. Nature of remedy
• Potency
Lower- Repeated
Higher- Not Repeated
• Duration of action
Deep acting remedy
Short acting remedy
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