LM or Q?

Summary

Samuel Hahnemann, in his posthumous 6th edition of the Organon, proposed a new process of production of the remedy - the fifty millesimal. However, in part owing to the secret development of it, the issue of its denomination was not resolved. After a brief review of the historical background of designations for the new potency since Hahnemann, we will see the suggestions of those who were, in the 20th century, the first ones to use them and help maintain, even today, the confusion on this notation. The choice is essentially between “LM” and “Q”. Arguments like the Latin rules for numbers and the meanings of sign and symbol as determining factors to name a homeopathic dynamisation will be the tools in helping to solve the impasse. The conclusion is clear: Q is the only coherent and justifiable symbol to appear on the remedy's label to identify the medicinal curative power of such potency.

Key words

LM potency - Q potency - Designation of homeopathic potency - Latin rules for Roman numbers - Sign and Symbol in designation of homeopathic remedy.

1 Haehl R, Samuel Hahnemann. Sein Leben und Schaffen, 2. Band, Leipzig: Schwabe, 1922: 391. (Samuel Hahnemann. His Life and Work, vol. 2, New Delhi: B. Jain Publishers, reprint 1992: 379).

2 Schmidt JM, History and relevance of the 6th edition of the Organon of Medicine (1842). Br Hom J 1994; 93: 42 - 48.

3 Haehl, op. cit., 1922, 1. Band: 357 - 360 (1992, vol. 1: 320 - 326). See: Jacobi UI, Der Hochpotenzstreit von Hahnemann bis heute. Heidelberger Schriften zur Pharmazie- und Naturwissenschaftsgeschichte; Band 12, Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994. And also: Tischner R, Geschichte der Homöopathie, Wien: Springer-Verlag, 1998: 583 - 585.

4 For example, as early as 1826, Hahnemann gives the indication “/XX” - 60th centesimal - in the introduction of the pathogenesy of Thuya (Reine Arzneimittellehre - Materia Medica Pura). In 1833, in the aphorism 287 of the 5th edition of Organon der Heilkunde - Organon of the Healing Art, even if he reminds us that the “X” is often satisfactory, he mentions potencies like “XX, L, C, and higher”, to mean, according to his code, the 60th, 150th and 300th centesimal!

5 Bönninghausen CFM von, Drei Cautelen Hahnemanns, Archiv für die homöopathische Heilkunst (1844), Leipzig: Carl Heinrich Reclam, 21, Heft. 1; in Bönninghausens kleine medizinische Schriften, edited by K‐H Gypser, Heidelberg: Arkana-Verlag, 1984: 322 - 326. The first notation with a Roman numeral (Mercurius I) indicated in the text of Bönninghausen quoted here seems to be an error of transcription; instead, in Ubiratan Adler's Table of Q Potencies (see note 15), for the same patient at the same date (case #834), we can see an Arabic number (Merc 1). Concerning the notation of Sulphur and Mercurius “II/o”, they have not been found in Adler's list. But we will never know what Hahnemann really wrote, because the manuscripts of the follow-up of these cases sent to Bönninghausen are now lost (Stahl, Martin, Der Briefwechsel zwischen Samuel Hahnemann und Clemens von Bönninghausen, Heidelberg: Haug, 1997).

6 Bradford TL, The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1895), B. Jain Publishers, reprint 1992: 474.

7 Haehl, op. cit., 1922, 2. Band: 437 - 440 (1992, vol. 2: 424 - 428).

8 Hahnemann S, Organon of Medicine, translation by Jost Künzli, Alain Naudé and Peter Pendleton, Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1982.

9 Adler UC, Identifizierung von 681 Q-Potenz-Verordnungen und ihr Nachweis in den Krankenjournalen, MedGG, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994, 13: 135 - 166.

10 Vortwort über das Technische in der Homöopathik, in Die Chronischen Krankheiten, Dritter Theil, 2. Auflage, Schaub: Düsseldorf, 1837: V - XII. (Concerning the technical part of homœopathy, in The Chronic Diseases, translated by LH Tafel, New Delhi: B. Jain Publishers, reprint 2001: 155 - 160).

11 Handley R, In search of the latter Hahnemann, Beaconsfield: Beaconsfield Publishers, 1997.

12 Kunkle L, Samuel Hahnemanns “Mysteriöse” Q-Potenzen, MedGG, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002; 20: 213 - 220 (Samuel Hahnemann's “mysterious” Q potencies, Homeopathy in practice, April 2003: 41 - 44).

13 Adler U and Adler MS, Hahnemann's experiments with 50 millesimal potencies: A further review of his casebooks, Homeopathy 2006; 95: 171 - 181.

14 Hahnemann S, Organon der Heilkunst, textkritische Ausgabe der 6. Auflage, bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Josef Maximilian Schmidt, Heidelberg: Haug Verlag, 1992, reprint 2002: XXXIV.

15 Schmidt JM (Organon, 2002), op. cit., p. 238 - note 47.

16 Blunt, The 6th Edition of the Organon and the “Plus Method”, Lecture to the British Homœopathic Society, June 4th, 1925; translated in French by B. Schmitz from Anvers - Belgique, La sixième édition de l'Organon et la méthode “plus”, Revue française d'homéopathie, 1927: 340. Pierre Schmidt, will later comment this “Plus Method” in 1952, in a famous lecture on the “6th” to the British Homœopathic Society.

17 Pahud C, Experiences with Hahnemann's 50,000th dilutions, Br Hom J 1950; 40: 78 - 82.

18 Voegeli A, Le dosage en homéopathie et l'influence de l'expérience dosologique sur la connaissance du phénomène “maladie”, L'Homéopathie française, no. 4 and 5, avril et mai, 1951: 212 - 229 and 277 - 300. Some had assigned the earliest denomination “LM” to Flury-Lemberg, recalling a related document with Boiron and Allouard (Les dilutions au cinquante-millième de la VI^ème édition de l'Organon, Lyon: Laboratoires PHR, 1950); nevertheless, Flury-Lemberg, surely one of the first instigators of the new potency, do not thus name the fifty millesimal in this essay.

19 Künzli von Fimmelsberg J, Zwei Heilungen Hahnemanns mit Quinquagintamillesimalpotenzen, Deutsche Homöopathische Monatsschrift 1956; 7: 451 - 461; quoted in Schmidt JM, Die Bedeutung der sechsten Auflage des Organons der Heilkunst (1842) für die Pharmakotherapie, Homoeopathia Internationalis. Die Anamnese in der Homöopathie, Wien - München - Bern: Verlag Wilhelm Maudrich.

20 Hahnemann S, Traité des maladies chroniques et leur traitement homœopathique (1839), traduction de Pierre Schmidt and Jost Künzli, 4^e édition française de la 2^e édition allemande originale, partie théorique, Maisonneuve, 1969, réimpression 1985.

21 Baur J, L'enseignement du Dr. Pierre Schmidt, 2 volumes, Similia, 1991.

22 Patel R, My experiments with 50 Millesimal scale potencies, 4th edition, Hahn. Homoeop. Pharm., 1980.

23 Patel (op. cit., p.vii) maintains, in 1951 - 52, that “[he] has seen […] the Medicines prepared in 50 Millesimal Scale by Dr. Hahnemann”, with photographs to prove it. However, if he means the wooden case of “médicaments aux globules” that was in possession of Haehl (op. cit., 1922, 2. Band: 437 - 440 (1992, vol. 2: 424 - 428)),, it is not actually known where those “Medicines” are now.

24 Bundeinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte (Homöopathisches Arzneibuch - HAB/2003) from Germany; the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States - Revision Service (HPRS/2002); Natural Health Products Regulations (Standards of Evidence (SOE)/2004) from Health/Santé Canada; Farmacopéia Homeopática Brasileira - FHB/1997, from Brazil.

25 Gaffiot F, Le Grand Gaffiot. Dictionnaire latin-français, Hachette, 2000.

26 Haehl, op. cit., 1922, 2. Band: 13. The unique original title page of Hahnemann's dissertation can be seen in Olivier Rabanes' Traduction commentée de la thèse de Samuel Hahnemann. Introduction à la lecture de son œuvre, thèse pour le doctorat en médecine (diplôme d'État), Université de Paris Nord - faculté de médecine de Bobigny, 1983 : 6; and also in Josef Maximilian Schmidt's Bibliographie der Schriften Hahnemanns, Rauenberg: Franz Siegle, 1989: 48.

27 Baur J, Avatars et aventures du remède homoeopathique, Lyon: à compte d'auteur, 1983; see also Jacobi UI, op. cit.

28 However, while Hahnemann clearly made an unmistakable statement in § 269 of the last Organon, the francophone literature often gives “dilution” for the result. And this is definitely inaccurate. The result of the process of preparing a substance to become a remedy should be named in French: “dynamisation” or “puissance”.