An Important Advance in the Homeopathic Treatment of Patients with Serious, Progressive Pathologies—A Practical Response to the Debate on LM-Potencies

Liga—Rio—August 29, 2015

I will address in this presentation the following six key points:

1. The curability of conditions that are generally considered incurable.
2. The importance of continually seeking the optimal posology.
3. The therapeutic possibilities offered by the very high potencies of Fincke’s fluxion remedies.
4. Who was Bernhardt Fincke.
5. How Fincke’s fluxion remedies were made.
6. A novel method of producing fluxion remedies.

Patients with serious, progressive pathologies present mighty challenges to homeopathic practitioners because of the following three requirements:

First, practitioners are required to have a very good knowledge of pathology.

Second, great accuracy in prescribing is required for these patients.

And third, but not the least, the posology must be impeccable.

In an interview given in 1994, I answered a question about the LM-potencies[i] by pointing out that Hahnemann started using the higher potencies in the last eight years of his life and that by 1840 he was commonly using the 200th potency.[ii]

However in 1841, he changed direction by regularly using remedies in the LM-potencies and two years later he was apparently sufficiently satisfied with them to make their announcement official when he sent his manuscript of the sixth edition of the Organon to his publisher. But in retrospect, it has since been reported by Robert Jütte that the 6^th edition of the Organon had been completed by February 1842 and that Hahnemann had about one year of experience of using the LM-potencies.[iii]

In the following table of Adler and Adler we can see that Hahnemann began using more intensively the LM-potencies in 1841  and from 1837 to the end of 1840 there were only 25 LM-prescriptions found in Hahnemann’s casebooks. Of all the LM-prescriptions found in Hahnemann’s casebooks 97% of these were between the LM 4 to LM 10.[iv]

If we disregard the length of experience Hahnemann had with these potencies, it is not possible to detect a greater value to the LM- versus the centesimal potencies by reading and analyzing Hahnemann’s casebooks.

I also remarked in that 1994 interview that after Hahnemann’s death, Hahnemannians started to experiment with the high and higher potencies, particularly Gross and Boenninghausen in Europe and Lippe, Fincke and Dunham in America. All reported more favorable results with the higher potencies.

In fact, the greatest results ever obtained by homeopathy came from this generation of Hahnemannians who were entirely relying on the higher potencies. The use of the higher potencies has since continued until now, which means that our experience with these is quite extensive, and we can clearly show their place in our therapeutics to have become a necessity.

And most importantly I said in that interview that I was not sure whether we could achieve similar results by limiting ourselves to the lower potencies, such as the LM-potencies. The results I had personally observed with the LM-potencies were not too dissimilar than the ones I had obtained with the lower centesimal potencies. I do not want to take any credit away from the LM-potencies but important shift in medicine must be clearly supported with solid clinical facts.

One of the fundamental principles of medicine, which guide our march forward, is that the recovery of health must be certain, rapid, gentle, durable and complete.

Like Hahnemann, we should all aim at perfecting our method, which includes the posology question, and like him we should favor positive changes.

Some time prior to 2008, David Little published on his website an article entitled, Misunderstanding Hahnemann’s Legacy—Dr. André Saine on the LM Potency, in which he criticized my views on the LM-potencies and said, “Dr. Saine is of the opinion that we could not achieve similar results if Homoeopathy was limited to the lower potencies and ‘In reality the LM are very low potencies.’ This idea can only come from a person who has very little if any real experience with the LM potencies.”[v]

I will now answer David Little and other critics who share a similar opinion on this point by presenting cases with serious, progressive pathologies with a novel way of making and using higher potencies and which will directly address the third requirement we constantly encounter with these patients, namely that the posology must be impeccable.

Incidentally, the term “posology” delineates four distinct aspects of the prescriptions of homeopathic remedies, namely the potency, the repetition, the medium and the way of administering the remedy.

The first case I will present is the one of a 45-year-old musician and conductor who was diagnosed in 2002 with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

From 2004 until I saw him in February 2007, he had tried homeopathy but it was unfortunately to no avail. The first practitioner he consulted prescribed two doses Gelsemium 1 M, one in April and the other in October 2004, one dose of Cuprum metallicum 1 M in February 2005 and one dose of Natrum Muriaticum 1 M in June 2005.

In September 2005, the patient switched to another homeopathic practitioner who prescribed Calcarea carbonica 200 C, Sulphur 200 C and Sepia 200 C over a two-year period without any improvement of his chronic condition.

At the time of his initial visit with me in February 2007, this musician and conductor had lost the ability to play two-hand piano and conduct an orchestra. He was losing his balance 15-20 times a day. He was writing with great difficulty. He was drooling throughout the day. His disease had steadily been progressing since its onset. He began taking medication two years ago and is now on 12 mg of ropinirole (a dopamine agonist) daily.

After taking his case thoroughly, he was prescribed Argentum nitricum, which was based on the following characteristic symptoms: stage-fright, constant need to be on time, cautious irresolution, anxious anticipating dreams, desire for company, better from physical exertion, fastidiousness, hurriedness, the instinct to dwell (“processing” (anticipating)), craving open air, sensitivity from becoming overheated in warm wet weather, warm room and the heat of the sun, the desire for salt, the history of eating sugar by the spoonful as a kid and the family history of OCD.

In February 2007, he was given one dose of Argentum nitricum 30 C. Nine days later, he reported having experienced a 40-50% improvement in his overall energy, having “more drive, motivation, positive outlook, being more resilient, more humorous. Demeanor in classroom is more fun and light. Less overwhelmed.” Left arm has been 10-20% better, i.e., washing his hair, playing piano for 1-2 minutes before tiring out.

His moods have been much better. The drooling had diminished by 10%.

His writing, the cramps, the loss of balance, the numbness of his left foot and the food desires were unchanged.

I told him to wait and repeat the remedy, as soon as he would notice his level of energy going down. He continued to repeat Arg-n. 30 C as needed until the momentum of his response slowed down and was switched to the 200 C potency and so on upward with the higher potencies for the next 2½ years.

Here is a table illustrating the number of doses and the period of time each potency was taken:

During this period of time he was reporting a steady and constant improvement in the majority of his symptoms. In February 2009 while taking the DM potency, he reported, “My neurologist gave me a glowing report on January 23. She says I am in the top 3 in her clinic of hundreds of PD patients. I see her every 4 months. She was astonished how well I walked, opening and closing my hands. She also commented about my posture.”

Now that we had reached the highest of the Fincke’s potencies with the MM, what potency could we use to follow with assured success?

Logically, we should continue to go higher and from pure necessity we began producing our own fluxion remedies.

Incidentally, the term “fluxion” Fincke used was borrowed from Newton’s work on differential calculus entitled, The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series. He wrote, “We propose to call them Fluxion Potencies, taking the notion from Newton’s infinitesimal calculus, which assigns to the fluxion, though of infinitesimal magnitude, a finite value.”[vi]

*In mathematics, geometry is the study of shapes and algebra is the study of operations, while calculus is the study of changes.

Calculus has two branches, namely differential and integral calculus.

Differential calculus is concerned with the measurement of changes.

A fluxion or a derivative is the measurement of the rate of change.

Fincke wrote that fluxion “is a physical process long known in natural philosophy and common life as the continuous flow caused by a syphon, or by running liquids. It is of importance in physical science that a substance can be submitted to a refining process by means of fluxion, and as such it is to be accepted as a new physical process depending on the law of hydrodynamics.”[vii]

Fincke began making and experimenting with higher potencies since 1850 and he explained how, after many years of experimentation, the idea of using fluxion came to him, “It was on the 20th of May 1863 while making the 9,000th potency of Thuja with a machine on Korsakoff’s plan that the first idea of fluxion potentiation came to me. I find in my notes the following remark: ‘The thought came to me, that nature accomplishes such potentiations only by fluxion and the finer potentiations are effected by finer fluxion which when it is only continued steadily as I have observed at Lake George also produces lasting formations.’ ”[viii]

Before examining our novel way of making the remedies, we first need to understand who was Bernhardt Fincke and the fluxion process he developed.

It was said, “Saxony, the smallest kingdom of the German Empire, the home of Luther; of Bach, Handel and Wagner; of Hahnemann, Stapf and Hering, produced also Dr. Bernhardt Fincke, the master potentiator, who was a man of uncommon intellectual attainments.”[ix]

“Fincke had a brilliant mind, which had already been noticed in his youth [as he attended high school still as a child]. He was particularly inclined toward mathematics and science, and he applied these abilities for the development of higher and more efficacious potencies.”[x]

In 1854, when he graduated in medicine from the University Medical College of the City of New York, “the famous [American surgeon] Dr. Valentine Mott said of him, ‘I have never known him surpassed among the thousands I have had an opportunity to examine.’ ”[xi]

Stuart Close said in his memorial to Fincke, who had been his mentor, “Homeopathy loses the deepest thinker and profoundest philosopher of his age and generation, and one of the greatest savants of modern times.

… [his] profound studies placed him at the head of our homeopathic philosophers.”

… At the age of fourteen he was officially certified as ‘remarkably proficient’ in arithmetic, geometry and trigonometry. Throughout his whole life he was devoted to mathematics and scientific studies.”[xii]

He wrote a great number of very insightful and scholarly papers on the clinical and scientific aspects of homeopathy.

It was this interest in mathematics in particular that led him to explore the domain of potencies. “While studying homeopathy in Germany, Fincke had prepared his own set of high potencies of centesimal preparations following Hahnemann’s instruction. He obtained results with the 100th potencies, and progressively increased his potencies up to the 20,000th [and then the 100,000th and the 1,000,000^th.][xiii]

He wrote, “Homeopathy thus taught, practically, how to cure with the least possible dose, unconsciously but surely applying the general law of the least quantity of action (minimis maxima), which was discovered and mathematically established by Maupertuis.”[xiv]

Who said, “When a change occurs in nature, the quantity of action necessary for the change is the least possible.”[xv]

He wrote, “On this principle, the least possible quantity of action being sufficient to cause a change, the curative properties and action of the homeopathic remedy are actually and necessarily regulated and governed by its preparation and application; in other words: the quality of the action of the homoeopathic remedy is determined by its quantity.”[xvi]

“Consequently, the Law of the Least Quantity of Action (maxima minimis)will have to be acknowledged to be the posological principle of homeopathy.”[xvii]

At first, he reserved his potencies for himself, Lippe and Hering, as he told Tafel, “Hering and Lippe have the merit of upholding the cause of high potencies from the beginning, and both they shall have a complete set as a token of gratitude from me,”[xviii] and said to Hering, “If you, Lippe, and I have my high potencies, that is sufficient [for their propagation].”[xix]

Lippe, who had been the leader pioneer in America to experiment with the higher potencies, had already said in 1860, “I am content to strengthen and augment the testimony given by older and more experienced men than myself, that in the direction of higher and the highest potencies homeopathy is progressive.”[xx]

From 1865 onward, Lippe used Fincke’s preparations “almost exclusively” until the end of his career.

*In 1868, he said of Fincke’s potencies, “The new preparations [of Fincke] were received with enthusiasm …

 “Lehrmann’s 200th potencies act very similarly to the 30th of Hahnemann, Jenichen’s act much more intensely, and Fincke’s far surpass them as to intensity.”[xxi]

Kent said in 1914, “The Fincke high potencies never failed me; they act quickly, long and deeply.”[xxii]

Skinner said, “It is to Fincke alone that the profession must be forever indebted for the conception of this best of methods of dynamizing all medicines. …

“Fincke has long ceased to believe in succussion as the potentizing agent, and I am now perfectly satisfied that Fincke, though standing almost alone is in the right of it, as I shall endeavor to show in my next paper on the subject. …

“Fincke’s beautifully simple process adapts itself to any scale: decimal, centesimal, millesimal, or any other—it is equally accommodating—as you have simply to change your calculation from every hundred to every ten or one thousand, as the scale may be. The drop over of the last potency forms the necessary link in the liquid-chain of the fluxion process.”

“My own machine, however excellent and truly centesimal, sinks into utter insignificance when contrasted with the mathematically true and physically simple process of attenuation of Dr. Fincke, and, although it may still prove useful for the lower powers up to 1 M, the fluxion process of Fincke must and will necessarily take precedence of all existing machines or methods of dynamization.”[xxiii]

Stuart Close said, “The production, for the use of the profession, of the immense collection of his celebrated high potencies, which has furnished our greatest prescribers the means of performing their cures for nearly forty years, and which will be sufficient with proper care, for the use of the profession for all time to come. …

“When the results of his life work shall have been finally collected it will be found that he has done more than any man since Hahnemann to place homeopathy on a firm scientific foundation, and this because he has not only conclusively, authoritatively and finally defined the basic principle of homeopathy, identifying it with the fundamental law of motion, and showing its harmony and correlation with other laws, but because he has furnished in his wonderful high potencies the means for making the principle effective and practical in the highest degree in healing the sick for all time to come.”

Today, Fincke’s original potencies continue to be used daily in our office with patients with all types of acute and chronic conditions. Samples from Fincke’s original preparations, as well as the ones from Dunham’s, were given to two European leading homeopathic laboratories in 2006 in order to make them again available to the homeopathic community, and many colleagues throughout the world have been employing them with satisfaction.

How were Fincke’s remedies made?

The water is siphoned from a graduated jar down a rubber tube that is connected to a glass regulator

“The regulator is a piece of glass tube four inches long and three-sixteenths inch thick, reduced at one end so as to leave a very small hole.

“After the regulator is attached to the siphon it is placed in the potentiating vial and will rest easily upon the bottom of the vial by adjusting the grooved gutter.”

Because of the general limitation of Fincke’s remedies to the MM or one million potencies, we began making remedies with a fluxion process similar to the one used by Fincke for more than 15 years.

This is done by using regular city water coming down from a tap at a height of about 25 cm with a flow of about 1.4 liter per minute, or 84 liters (84,000 ml) per hour (5,600  X  15 ml = 84,000 ml) into a 4-dram (15 ml) vial with a tight neck. Each hour is the equivalent of about a 5 M on the scale of Fincke.

For potentiating vial, Fincke used two by nine-sixteenths inches high vials, with a narrow neck, prominent lip and one dram volume (3.7 ml) (while ours are 2 inches high and a 4-dram volme (15 ml)).

At the beginning of making the highest potencies, Fincke used distilled water. As it took more than ninety-seven gallons to run up a CM-potency, it became impractical. He then tried the Nassau water of Brooklyn for potencies above the 30th and was satisfied with it. This water was very impure as it was pound water and many organisms, such as algae, could be seen living in it.

Fincke reasoned thus, “The initial potencies are made with alcohol, and the medicinal force in the sixth to the thirtieth has been so far potentiated that it can not be destroyed by anything chemical or physical, because it is of different nature: is, so-to-say spiritualized, though being not of spiritual, but of spirit-like, dynamic nature as Hahnemann said. Its very essence remains and can no more be changed by accidental substances contained in the vehicle in such a combination as found in the Nassau water.”[xxiv]

Impurities in the water or particles from the glass is not important: “May it not be that the intimate mixture of the different substances in the water prevents the separate action of each ingredient, just as the intimate mixture in the glass-particles of the vial will not yield their medicinal properties to the alcohol contained therein? Each water has an individuality of its own that does not interfere with the action of high potencies in using it as vehicle for potentiation.”[xxv]

The objective of using a tight neck bottle with the water flow mentioned is to create turbulence throughout the vial.

Fincke wrote, “If the action of the siphon progresses properly, it can be seen that the narrow neck exerts a controlling pressure upon the water in the vial which can sometimes be observed as the surplus escapes with regular pulsations, 120 to 130 per minute.”[xxvi]

Turbulence in action:

At the end of each hour that goes by, a drop of the water is taken from the potentiating vial, added to one-dram vial to which is added ¾ dram of 94% grain alcohol and a cap is screwed on. The vial is then succussed, emptied, filled with dry blank pellets and labeled.

If we started the process with Arg-n. MMF, after an hour we end up with Arg-n. MMF-1h.

Here is a table illustrating the number of doses and the length of time each new potency was taken by this patient with PD over the next 72 weeks:

This second table illustrates the continuation of his treatment over the following few years:

Treatment continued this way from December 2010 until November 2013, and resumed only in May 2015. When I first saw this musician in 2007, he had lost the ability to play two-hand piano and conduct an orchestra and has since been able to return to his full occupation.

In May 2012, he conducted in Washington, D.C. five 2-½ hour symphony work in only 4 days. He said that he did so well that no one could have ever suspected that he had PD.

It is extremely interesting to note that in the 18-month interruption from November 2013 until May 2015, he reported having maintained most of his gains and being stable at all levels. His neurologists said that his disease has not progressed in the last years and that he was in the top 1% of PD patients. He feels that his gait is normal. He walks 1½ mile (2.4 km) in 20 minutes 3-4 times a week. He doesn’t feel any physical limitation. He doesn’t lose his balance anymore. He doesn’t experience any tremors. He doesn’t drool anymore. His energy remained high at 8.5-9 on 10. He still conducts the orchestra with the same fluidity as when the treatment was interrupted in November 2013.

On July 30, 2015, he wrote that he was walking better now than at anytime in the past 5-6 years.

I will now present a second case with PD:

I first saw this 67 year-old man in April 2012 at the time of this convention in Reston, Virginia. He had first developed symptoms of PD 3 years earlier and was diagnosed with PD at John Hopkins a year later. He had to take early retirement from his work because of the disease and had to stop his favorite leisure, which was hicking, as could then only walk up to 15 minutes before his symptoms would worsen.

His paternal GF, aunt and uncle had all had PD.

He has been under homeopathic treatment for the last five months without noticing any success. The disease just continued to progress at the same pace. He received one dose of two different remedies, and each was followed by daily olfaction of the lower potencies of the same remedy. He wasn’t taking any allopathic medication.

He described himself as a caring person.

“I have not liked to be in the sun since early adulthood. I prefer the shade. After one minute I move to the shade. At a red light as a pedestrian, I look for shade to wait for the green light. My twin brother is also like this, while my father always liked to work in the sun.” (2)

“I feel good at the seashore. My energy is up.”

His favorite foods are seafood (fish, shellfish) (10/10), salted nuts (8-9/10), and salty-fatty foods (6/10). He used to eat several times a week double cheeseburgers, “because of the salt” (6/10).

He likes things to be fair and just (2). “I doesn’t like being with people that are angry.” He is sensitive to cruelty done to animals or children. “In the Peace Corps, I got used to deal with such people.” He is sensitive to lack of respect (2), “something I would not do, such as missing an appointment.” He tends to hold grudges (2).

He stopped listening to music (classical and soft rock) after having lost his younger brother in 1994. “I have never been happy ever since. We were four brothers. We grew up together. We shared the same room. I think of him almost every day. My father died one year later from the grief of having lost his son.”

The major traumas in his life were his brother’s death, an accident that occurred to his daughter, his uncle’s death, and an injustice that occurred at work.

As he presented a clear picture, a double dose of Natrum muriaticum 200 D was prescribed. I recommended that he changes his diet by decreasing fat intake and eliminating alcohol and of increasing fruits and vegetables. I recommended that he follow the diet in Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book Superimmunity. I told him to avoid stress, to never compromise sleep, to begin yoga, to do brain exercises and LSVT BIG therapy.

Like the previous gentleman, he took his remedy in increasing potency over the next two years.

Here is the table table illustrating the number of doses and the length of time each potency was taken over this time:

We have kept regular monthly appointments to adjust the posology.

In December 2012, eight months into the treatment, he reported, “The neurologist who follows me at John Hopkins was amazed by the improvement. He also noticed that I was better on the cognitive level than one year ago.”

In June 2013 or one year after the beginning of treatment, he reported that he had just been examined by his John Hopkins neurologist at the time of his six month visit. “They said I was doing fantastic, ‘awesome.’ I was much better than any patient they had ever seen. They found me alert, without tremors and with good balance.”

As of April 3, 2015, he reported that he could now walk 5 or more miles in on stretch without any problem. Also his handwriting had improved over time and was 95% symptom-free. Only minor stiffness in his left wrist and left leg was remaining.

All my predecessors in these two PD cases had all given infrequent doses of remedies, even in some case 6 months between each dose.

This bring up the concept of the minimal dose. Not too long ago I was preparing a lecture and was reading a case of a patient with cancer who had died under homeopathic care, and I didn’t get the point as it was reported that the remedies had been given “as infrequently as possible.”

How many other similar cases have failed under homeopathy partly because its practitioners have failed to apply a fundamental principle of posology that is absolutely crucial in patients with quickly ascending acute diseases and treatment-resistant chronic diseases like PD and that was enounced by Hering in 1844, namely that “the course of medicinal disease must correspond to that of the disease to be cured”?[xxvii]

It is clear from these example that the minimal dose is a completely wrong concept, and that the optimal dose and optimal posology seem much more appropriate.

I will now present a third case in whom the h-potencies were used:

This is a 60 year-old man who has experienced psychosis throughout his adult life. His psychosis is characterized by constancy of symptoms superimposed with intermittent acute psychotic episodes, which manifest themselves as acuteness of the senses, incoherent thinking, disorientation, distortion of reality, poor coordination, slowness, emptiness feeling in his head, chest, stomach and abdomen, anxious restlessness, intense fear of death and insanity, intense despair about death, sleeplessness and “insane delusions.” During these crises, he isolates himself and prefers to be alone, as he fears others. He then becomes “static” and is totally absorbed in his mind. He feels like suffocating (claustrophobia) and experiences a profound state of despair with the hallucinations.

Lights, noises, flavors and smells become unbearably intense. Lights particularly at night are the worse, as well as the intense sunlight during the day. He constantly looses tract of what he is thinking. At night he goes to bed early because of great tiredness and anguish: “I feel there is no more time before me. I am on the brinks of nothingness. All becomes a game of memory in the present. My surrounding becomes like a liquid.”

He tends to have 3-4 of these crises a year but they are usually worse in the spring and they can last from a few weeks to 6-9 months. He has currently been in a crisis for the last 6 weeks. It started after he had a long conversation on the phone and read afterward something that troubled him. When he woke up the next morning his perceptions were distorted.

During a crisis, he feels detached from the world, which creates even greater anguish. He has a feeling of floating on the air and of falling when walking and when sitting. He has hot flashes with the anguish. He is never violent or aggressive.

With the hallucination he tends to have nausea and vertigo. Times feels too long then, one hour is like three hours.

“I feel like my brain is being destroyed.” He then can’t be in crowds, as if feels being suffocated.

Perhaps The Scream by Edward Munch best illustrates the distress this man has been experiencing.

He has taken many homeopathic remedies over the last 30 years, mostly for acute problems and none has ever affected his psychosis.

Objectively, he is often absorbed and staring with a deep frown between his eyes. He often forgets what he was about to say or thinking, as if intruding thoughts distract him.

His case was characterized by his energy being always better when he washes with cold water, being worse from the heat of the sun, having strong photophobia, the sensation of floating, etc. He was prescribed on June 21, 2012 one double dose Asarum europaeum 200 D, which he took 8 days later on June 29, 2012.

For the first time in 30 years of homeopathic treatment, he noticed some improvement in his chronic psychotic state, which began soon after taking the remedy. From visit to visit, he kept reporting steady improvements in most of his symptoms.

In February 2013, 1½ years into his treatment, he reported that he had been experiencing in the last 2 months better coherence of his mind and comprehension and of having better memory.

In April, 2013 he reported not having anymore floating sensation, which was unusual for him.

In July 2013, he reported, “I have a better contact with reality. My memory is better. It has been improving in the last year but it has been particularly better in the last 3 months. I am more stable and I feel more confident.” By then the acuteness of the senses and mental coherence were 50-60% better. By then the floating sensation and the faintness on rising had gone.

In November 2013, he reported that the anguish was gone.

In January 2014, he reported that he had not experienced the acuteness of the senses for some time, which was unusual.

In May 2014, he reported that his memory and the clarity of his mind had continued to improve. There had been no acute episode of psychosis since the beginning treatment close to two years ago despite the fact that we are toward the end of the spring season. He continued to be free from the acuteness of the senses, floating sensation, vertigo, faintness or anguish.

In September 2014, he reported, “I don’t even think anymore about my mental state. I am thinking more about my diet because I tend to put weight easily.”

He repeated Asarum over the next 3 years in the following way:

Until proven otherwise I believe that the results obtained with these potencies are unique and novel for patients with treatment-resistant chronic diseases. It is clear that regarding the third requirement we face when treating patients with serious, progressive pathologies, namely that the posology must be impeccable, the use of fluxion remedies beyond the MM potencies has greatly helped solved it.

These h-fluxion potencies have also been used with success in patients presenting with cancer, genetic disease such as cystic fibrosis and very aggressive and treatment-resistant forms of autoimmune disease with the same consistant results.

I will give two bief examples: first, this 48 year-old woman, who was diagnosed with multifocal cancer of the left breast with metastasis to her axilla that was fast progessing, was started in February 2013 with Silica 10 MF. She has reported constant improvement in all aspects and at 26 months into her treatment she was taking Silica MMF-14h.

And second, from 2001 until 2013, I treated a patient with inclusion-body myositis (IBM) who developed the disease in the early 1980s and had been taking hypertension medications since 1999. In 1989 he had to stop steroids (prednisone 45 mg q2d) and an immunosuppressive drug (azathioprine 150 mg qd), as he had developed diabetes, leg ulcers and paper-thin skin from them. The disease remained quite stabled for the next 10 years but in 1999 it started to progress again with greater muscular weakness. A muscle biopsy was then done and the diagnosis was changed from polymyositis to IBM, which is known to be “resistant to all therapies and its rate of progression appears to be unaffected by currently available treatments.” As no further treatment was suggested, his rheumatologist said, “There is no treatment available for this condition. Clearly, I have no difficulty accepting that you wish to explore homeopathy.”

His CPK was at the beginning of treatment 600-800 u/L range (normal: 55-170) which is the same as when he was taking immunosuppressive drugs in 1989. He was suffering with “severe pain,” aching with stabbing pain in hips lumbar area, and shoulders with activity. He had difficulty getting out of a chair and could only walk about 300 feet before his feet began to drag.

For close to 12 years of homeopathic treatment, he took Sulphur in ascending potencies and by 2013 he was taking Sulphur MMF-44-h. By then his CPK was down to 85, his blood pressure had come done from 180/85 with medication to 140-75 and his energy had went from a 2 at the beginning of treatment and maintained 9 out of 10 throughout treatment.

The day he passed away in 2013 in a hospital while being examined for breathing difficulties his three children wrote, “We were so blessed to have found you and received your unwavering help and support, you helped him so much with his illness and kept him free from pain for so many years. As a family we have no doubts that your support and remedies allowed him to be so much more active and make the most of his life and for that we are truly grateful.”

From such experience with the h-potencies, we can conclude that the end-point in high potencies has not been reached and they fulfill a clear place in our therapeutic.

It would be very interesting to see if my colleagues who primarily use LM-potencies can show similar results with patients with intractable diseases such as PD. I will be the first one to raise my hat, as I don’t think that in all of medicine any well diagnosed case of PD has ever been reported as showing all the signs of complete and durable restoration of health.

Aside from the debate on LM-potencies, the two cases of PD clearly show that we can push further the limit of curability by constantly trying to find the optimal posology for each patient at each visit.

Once, Fincke made the following comments while presenting some challenging cases that necessitated frequent repetition of the remedies, “It is in the interest of the physician as well as of the patient to shorten the time of healing by repetition if the three conditions are satisfied, 1. when the medicine is correctly chosen, 2. when given in the finest least revolting dose, and 3. repeated at commensurate intervals.”[xxviii]

In this context, Fincke was discussing a case that had been presented before the International Hahnemannian Association in 1894 in which Dr. Nathan Cash reported the cure of a rheumatic patient who had become incapacitated by a continually enlarging of a testicle and whom Dr. Cash had so far treated unsuccessfully as well as numberless other physicians for 9 long years. Instead of giving single dose and waiting, as he had done in the past, in “sheer desperation,” Dr. Cash began repeating his remedy four times a day. After one week the beginning of a change was perceived by the patient. Dr. Cash decided not to stop the remedy but to continue for another week at four times a day. There was further progress. To make a long story short, the patient took the remedy four times a day for three months, and then after a pause the remedy was resumed at twice a day. So more than 400 doses of the same remedy in the same potency were needed to achieve a durable cure in this patient that had been a failure to all practitioners consulted.

He continued, “The fear of spoiling the case, as it is called technically, has its root in § 245 [of the fifth edition of the Organon], … But too much has been made of this sentence, for Hahnemann himself has approved of the mode of giving a dose in a quantity of water, as half a tumbler of water by teaspoonfuls, first introduced by Aegidi. This mode of giving the medicine was derived from the alloeopathic practice when they administered a drug-dose, as it was technically called, refracta dosi, i. e., in a broken dose. Ever since the introduction into homeopathic practice it has been found satisfactory, especially in acute cases, when the homeopathician thought it appropriate. And even in chronic diseases it may not be contraindicated, because there are some patients where it seems to have a more favorable effect than the dry medication. What cases would require it must be left to the acumen of the attending physician.”[xxix]

There is no need for prolonged arguments about a practical question such as posology, as it must be settled through experiments, as Fincke had already pointed out, “What will the effect of the frequently repeated doses be? It can only be answered by experiment and experience,” which I hope I was able to do today through the use of the highest fluxion potencies in patients with chronic intractable diseases.

As physicians, it would be a grave mistake to be stuck by faith on what Hahnemann did or said, as it is our absolute mandate to follow what he was himself pursuing, namely, the truth, and, in consequence, we must constantly seek to push further the limits of our art.

[i] Two abbreviations have commonly been used in homeopathy to represent the 50 millesimal potencies of Hahnemann, namely LM- and Q-potencies. No roman numerals can represent 1/50,000 and neither of these two abbreviations is correct, as “Q” replaced the “D” in medieval roman numerals and stands for 500, while 50,000 is not LM but a L with a bar over it to signify that the number is multiplied by a thousand. However, the term LM-potencies will be used in this presentation, as it was used in the original interview and by its critic.

[ii] How to Become a Homeopath. Homoeopathica, Journal of the Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis 1995 (Winter): 45-52. This part of the interview can be read at: http://www.homeopathy.ca/articles_det05.shtml

[iii] Robert Jütte. The LM Potencies in Homoeopathy: From their Beginnings to the Present Day. Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung. 2007.

[iv] Ubiratan C. Adler, Maristela Schiabel Adler. Hahnemann’s experiments with 50 millesimal potencies: a further review of his casebooks. Homeopathy 2006: 95: 171–181.

[v] http://www.simillimum.com/education/little-library/homoeopathic-philosophy/mhl/article.php

[vi] Bernhardt Fincke. On high potencies and homoeopathics: Clinical cases and observations, with an appendix, containing Hahnemann’s original views and rules on the homoeopathic dose, chronologically arranged. Philadelphia: Tafel, 1865.

[vii] Bernhardt Fincke. Letter from Bernhardt Fincke M.D., to the Editor. Organon 1880; 3: 162.

[viii] Bernhardt Fincke. Paracelsus and the fluxion potencies. Proceedings of the International Hahnemannian Association 1905: 93-95.

[ix] William F. Kaercher. The Fincke process of potentiation. Homoeopathician 1914; 4: 369-378.

[x] Stuart Close. In Memoriam—Bernhardt Fincke. Proceedings of the International Hahnemannian Association 1907: 309-317.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Bernhardt Fincke. Homoeopathic notation. Transactions of the American Institute of Homoeopathy 1860: 117-137.

[xv] Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. Oeuvres de Mr. de Maupertuis. Tome quatrième. Lyon: Jean-Marie Bruyset, 1756: 36.

[xvi] Bernhardt Fincke. On high potencies and homoeopathics: Clinical cases and observations, with an appendix, containing Hahnemann’s original views and rules on the homoeopathic dose, chronologically arranged. Philadelphia: Tafel, 1865.

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Bernhardt Fincke. Letter from Bernhardt Fincke, M.D. Organon 1880; 3: 164.

[xix] Bernhardt Fincke. Letter from Bernhardt Fincke M.D., to the Editor. Organon 1880; 3: 162.

[xx] Adolph Lippe. Doses. American Homoeopathic Review 1859-60; 2: 481-490.

[xxi] Adolph Lippe. The preparation of high potencies. Hahnemannian Monthly 1867-68; 3: 419-421.

[xxii] William F. Kaercher. The Fincke process of potentiation. Homoeopathician 1914; 4: 369-378.

[xxiii] Thomas Skinner. The dynamization of medicines. Organon 1879; 2: 394, 400, 401.

[xxiv] William F. Kaercher. The Fincke process of potentiation. Homoeopathician 1914; 4: 369-378.

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid.

[xxvii] Constantin Hering. Forwarts! Neues Archiv 1844; 1: 1-68.

[xxviii] Bernhardt Fincke. Clinical cases and thoughts on repetition. Proceedings of the International Hahnemannian Association 1895: 336-344.

[xxix] Bernhardt Fincke. Clinical cases and thoughts on repetition. Proceedings of the International Hahnemannian Association 1895: 336-344.