http://www.homeopathic.co.nz/boericke/btmeth.htm
The Pharmacy of Boericke and Tafel
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A Discussion of Manufacturing and Potencies from the 1925 B & T catalogue
ATTENUATIONS OR DILUTIONS
Science today is acknowledging and demonstrating the might of the
infinitesimal. The massive doses of one hundred years ago have
disappeared and the leaders in scientific medicine are no longer
afraid to maintain that infinitesimal doses effect cures.
Samuel Hahnemann was the first to demonstrate that massive doses were
unnecessary. That the small dose is as or more effective. In the
early part of his career, Hahnemann made use of the pure mother
tinctures in ordinary doses, but observed that the primary or
poisonous effects of the drug were too active. This induced him to
reduce his doses until he came to make use of attenuations or
dilutions, and he found that when the attenuations were properly
prepared the drugs retained their specific or dynamic action and that
the disease was more speedily overcome than when cruder preparations
were employed. The truth of this observation became more and more
evident as experience with the attenuations increased among the
followers of Hahnemann.
During Hahnemann's time it is probably true that attenuations, or
potencies as they were soon named, higher than the three hundredth
were not used, surely not by Hahnemann himself. However, as
homeopathy spread from Germany all over the world the use of higher
and higher potencies also increased until in the time of Swan, Fincke
and others they reached the highest potencies ever used. Some who use
the high potencies up to say the hand-made thousandths, scoff at the
idea of the 10M, 50M and CM and while it is difficult to explain the
modus operandi of the CM, it is just as difficult to explain the
reason for the action of the hand-made two hundredths and yet the two
hundredth potencies are used by thousands of homeopathic physicians
with amazingly good results.
The action of all drugs upon the human body is twofold. There is a
primary action and there is a secondary action dynamic action.
Corresponding to these two manifestations of power there are within
the drug a material force or energy and a dynamic force or energy.
The effect of the material or physical force or energy is sharp and
violent, but short lived; the effect of the dynamic force is gentle,
strong and long continued.
Formerly it was thought that the force or strength of action is in
some way dependent on the mass or weight of the drug administered.
The violence of the primary action of a drug does bear a certain
relation to its mass or weight, but the strength of its secondary or
dynamic action has no relation to its mass or bulk. Its dynamic
strength is, no doubt, increased because of the diffusion of
molecules and their increased room for activity.
PREPARATION OF POTENCIES
Because of the extreme delicacy of these agents, too great a care in
their preparation cannot be exercised. In our preparation of
potencies for the use of homeopathic physicians, the utmost care is
taken. The alcohol used is the finest spirits, made of sound grain.
No chemical tests will determine the difference between grain and
molasses alcohol, but all perfumery houses use only grain alcohol or
spirits to hold in solution the delicate essence of the flowers from
which the perfumes are made. We believe that in handling the
homeopathic potencies we are handling substances far more delicate
than the finest perfumes, hence we use only pure grain alcohol or
spirits in making our potencies.
All vehicles are scrupulously clean- no bottle or vial used to
contain a remedy is ever used for any other remedy. All containers or
bottles are new, clean and have never contained any remedy or drug.
They are washed clean, rinsed in alcohol and sterilized. Those who
make or "run up" these attenuations are pharmacists of experience.
The physician who uses these potencies in the treatment of the sick
can be sure that he is using an accurately made and honestly marked
potency. The honest marking is highly important, also it is important
to use the Hahnemannian method in making the potencies and marking
them and not an arbitrary system of one's own as Jenichen did.
Jenichen potentized some hundred or two homeopathic remedies,
potentized them up to the "CM" and higher according to his owns
system, and his method was to consider that every ten succussions
given to a remedy raised the potency one centesimal; he did not add
alcohol between each potency, but just hammered away and marked them
up, but a Jenichen thousandth potency was not a thousandth potency at
all.
We use the Hahnemannian system in making and marking our potencies.
For ninety-five years we have been accumulating this set of
attenuations and years and years of work have been expended on them.
Such a list as we carry in stock cannot be made in a few years, it is
physically impossible.
Potencies are divided into two classes, hand-made potencies usually
made with alcohol, and fluxion potencies made with water by means of
a machine. We can best describe the hand-made potencies by describing
our own Boericke & Tafel's methods.
There are two methods of making and marking potencies, the
decimal method and the centesimal method. The first, the decimal, is
usually used to make the lower potencies or strengths. By this method
nine parts of the diluent are used to one part of the preceding
potency and the mixture pounded or succussed powerfully ten times on
a large pad; this pad is used to protect the hand. This method is
usually used up to the 6x after which the other method, the
centesimal, is used to continue the potency. The lower potencies such
as the lx, 2x, 3x and 6x we make and keep in glass stoppered bottles
for sale and for use in making the higher potencies. We make and keep
on hand at all times potencies of about 1500 remedies from the first
centesimal to the thirtieth. Each remedy is kept by itself in a
dust-proof box [seen at left]. Each box contains thirty vials
numbered from one to thirty and each vial contains the dilution of
this particular remedy corresponding to the number stamped on the
cork of the vial. Thus, at any time we can supply any dilution or
potency from the first to the thirtieth.
Alcohol is the menstrum or diluent used and as all potencies are kept
there is no waste. We mention this here because when we go higher
than the thirtieth, say to the one-thousandth, not all the
intermediate potencies are kept and there is a waste of alcohol and
consequently these two-hundreth, five-hundredth and thousandth
potencies are higher in price. The next higher potency above the
thirtieth which we have for sale is the two hundredth. These are made
from the thirtieth, the thirty first from the thirtieth by taking one
drop of the thirtieth potency and ninety-nine drops of alcohol and
pounding or succussing the vial containing the mixture powerfully ten
times. In the same way the thirty-second is made from the
thirty-first and the thirty-third from the thirty-second. Thus, up to
the two-hundreth. This takes time and it takes alcohol, as not all
the intermediate potencies are kept as is the case in making the
thirtieth potencies. We also make for sale the five-hundredth and the
one-thousandth potencies. These are all hand-made and the diluent
used in making them is the finest grade alcohol or spirits. There are
no finer therapeutic agents made than these hand-made potencies made
with pure alcohol. We catalogue them as Tafel's High Potencies, but
they are not so marked on the bottle, as we have no hand-made high
potencies other than these. These potencies are all made only by
experienced pharmacists and extreme care is exercised in keeping all
utensils scrupulously clean. To insure accuracy a specially
constructed mechanical adder is used to record each potency as it is
made.
TAFEL'S HIGH POTENCIES
Some of the most wonderful cures in the homeopathic school have been
made with the high potencies in cases which have failed to yield to
the well-chosen simillimum in the lower potencies.
Tafel's 200th 500th and 1000th potencies are all hand-made potencies,
made with the finest alcohol. Each potency has received twelve
succussions, therefore each 200th potency has received 2400, each
500th potency 6000, and each 1000th potency 12,000. By these
successive succussions something is liberated in the drug cells,
possibly the ions are to some extent disintegrated. At any rate a new
power seems to have been developed which has frequently cured a case
unaffected by the lower potencies.
The remedies in the following list having ** prefixed may be had in
the 200th 500th and 1000th potencies; those with one * prefixed in
the 200th and 500th potencies, while those with no asterisk prefixed
can be had in the 200th potency only.
(Higher potencies than 1M are discussed under "The Skinner Machine at
B & T." Click here to go to that page.)
