Titel der Datei

by homeopath Luise Kunkle MA

Revised Oct. 2005 (Footnotes adding further results of research)

Revised for publishing on this site July 2004

Translated and revised for the English version by the author, Nov.2002, published in "Homeopathy in Practice"

First published in German in "Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte" - the yearbook of the Institute for the History of Medicine of the RobertBosch Foundation, Vol 20, year of report 2002, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart 2002

Synopsis: This paper deals with the so-called Q-potencies, the dilution of a substance according to particular augmentation methods, dating back to Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy. Hahnemann's method consists of a step by step dilution of substances. Until 1837 he only used the C-potency (dilution on the basis 1:100); beginning in1837-8, he experimented with the Q- potency, or quinquagenimmillesimas cale. (Potency on this scale is denoted by 0/1, 0/2, 0/5, 0/10, etc.,and generally referred to as "LM potencies"). The new method was only found documented decades after Hahnemann's death, but without explicit references to his techniques of notation. This is the reason why the Q-potency is still a mystery in Hahnemann's casebooks. This article examines the hidden references to the notations referring to the Q-potency and presents preliminary results.

In homeopathy, potentizing generally means diluting a substance in accordance with certain methods, which were established by Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy. A potency is the product of step by step dilution. In order to get ,e.g., a millionfold dilution of a fluid substance, he added one drop oft his substance to 100 drops of the diluting agent (generally an alcohol/water mixture containing a high percentage of alcohol) and mixed this by shaking. After that, he took one drop of this dilution and again diluted it with 100 drops of the same kind of agent. By that procedure a dilution of 1:10 000 was achieved. With another such step he got the desired dilution of 1 to one million. Dilutions on the base of 1:100 are the so-called C-potencies, where the dilution is 1:100 for each step, i.e. after the first step the dilution is 1:100. That is called the C1 (or 1C), after the second step the dilution is 1:10 000 (calledC2), after the third step the dilution is 1:1 000 000 (called C3) etc. Please note: The question of (possible) difference between "potentizing" and "diluting" as far as the effect of remedies are concerned, will not be discussed here.

Until his Paris period, i.e. until he was 80 years old, Hahnemann exclusively used the C-potencies. As evidenced by the 6th edition of his Organon, from about 1837/38 onward, he experimented with a procedure quite different from what he had so far used, in that he diluted the remedies at the ratio of 1 to "a little more than 50 000" and dynamised them by a hundred shakes at each potentizing step. The expression "Q"-potency derives from the first letter of the Latin word for 50 000.

Since the 6th edition of the Organon was not published until 8 decades after the death of Hahnemann, his students did not get to know anything about the application, the kinds of effects and the method of making those "mysterious" Q-potencies, which he called his "new, perfected process". Only his friend and student Clemens von Boenninghausen had received some news from him.

This was typical for Hahnemann, who e.g.wrote the following in his Chronic Diseases:

However, of all these extreme efforts I did not utter anything to the world, to my students (...), since it is improper, even harmful, to talk about immature matters. Only in the year 1827 (about 10 years after starting the research, LK] I told the principal parts of it [...] to two of my students, so that the entire knowledge should not get lost to the world, if perhaps before completion of this book a higher beckon would have called me off into eternity, which was not unlikely in my 73rd year of life."

As far as the Q-potencies are concerned, Hahnemann, who at that time had already passed the age of 80, probably thought that he could trust his widow, Melanie, to ascertain that this latest knowledge “should not get lost to the world”. This was, after all, a reasonable assumption, since she was much younger and had been his assistant all through the years in Paris. But it turned out different. His newest scientific findings remained hidden to the world for a long time, for the widow refused to have the 6th edition of the Organon printed and also refused to tell the friends and students about Hahnemann's new method. While it does appear that not only Clemens von Boenninghausen knew something about this new method, no details leaked out . Only when Richard Haehl in 1921 saw to the printing of the 6th edition of the Organon, the homeopaths learned that there existed, besides the C-potencies, another potency series that had been developed by Hahnemann himself. At that time, however, there was no longer any possibility to find out details firsthand. One had to make do with the things that could be found in the Organon

With the start of the editions of the casebooks from the Paris period in the beginning of the nineteen-seventies, the homeopaths hoped for more knowledge about the application of these potencies and about Hahnemann's experiences with this therapy. Thus, the first French casebook, which was published 1992 (DF 5) got a lot of attention in the circle of homeopathic medical doctors, who hoped to get from it more detailed information concerning the application of the Q-potencies in the Paris period. But those many readers searched in vain for Q-potencies in the text, because Hahnemann, as Robert Juette expressed it, "had not left any manifest perceptible information on how he used to abbreviate this kind of medication in his casebooks"

In this connection it should be pointed out that none of the notations resp. abbreviations commonly used to-day - thus e.g. C(x) - were used by Hahnemann. In his publications he mostly just described them (by their degree of dilution). In the casebooks, on the other hand, he used abbreviations that are no longer customary to-day. These had only to be intelligible to himself, for his reports were, after all, only meant for himself and a few assistants, including his wife Melanie.

The information for which homeopaths all over the world are searching,is exactly this; i.e. the abbreviations by which Hahnemann, in his Paris clinic, used to note down the remedies that were made by the method of diluting 1:"a little more than 50000 each step".

In the beginning of the nineteen-nineties, a Brasilian homeopath was the first to attempt to get on the track of the Q-potencies. He believed that he could show definitely why certain notations of remedy doses could without doubt be interpreted as Q-potencies. This homeopath, Ubiraton C. Adler, supported his hypothesis on the basis of close examination of the original manuscripts of Hahnemann's French casebooks, which are archived in the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart (Germany).

Since Hahneman, as mentioned above, did not leave any explicit references to his methods of notation, Adler, for identifying the Q-potencies, used two criteria. He describes them as follows:

2) potency less than or equal to 3, or potency higher than 3, provided that the treatment of the patient had been started with one of the potencies 1, 2 or 3 of the same remedy and that there had been a step-by-step increasing sequence of the potencies following the initial prescription.

There is much to be said for the second criterium. For one thing, Hahnemann, during his Paris time, no longer used very low C-potencies (e.g. C3); for another, he used to prescribe the C-potencies in decreasing sequence of potency , which means increasing concentration. As far as the Q- potencies are concerned, however, Hahnemann in his Organon instructed to use them starting from a lower level and increasing the potency at each repetition of the same remedy, thus decreasing concentration.

Thus Adler's identification of 681 Q-potencies in the casebooks appears logically conclusive.

The question is, whether exclusively these notations, as identifiedby Adler, are the notations for the Q-potencies.

This consideration seems justified as soon as one takes the trouble to find out on what dates Hahnemann prescibed those Q-potencies identified by Adler.

Year	No of prescriptions
?	4
1838	2
1840	3
1841	6
1842	437
1843	229
Total:	681

This table shows a glaring inconsistency - more than that: a downright contradiction - between those dates and Hahnemann’s statements in his Organon.

It is well-known and accepted that Hahnemann finished the manuscript of the 6th edition of his Organon in February 1842. This means that the prescription of the Q-potencies in the year of 1843 certainly did not occur before he finished it. Moreover, by far the greatest part of the prescriptions in 1842 did not occur before this February 1842 deadline. From Adler's detailed table it can be ascertained that up to this date the potencies that he identified as "Q" had at most been prescribed 27 times.

The only prescriptions before the date that his manuscript was finished were on the following dates:

02/24/1840, 10/22/1840, 10/31/1840, 01/13/1840, 02/05/1841, 07/26/1841, 08/20/1841, 11/05/1841, 01/03/1842, 01/04/1842, 01/16/1842, 01/18/1842, 01/22/1842, 01/25/1842, 01/27/1842, 01/31/1842 (twice on that date), 02/05/1842, 02/11/1842, 02/13/1842, 02/15/1842, 02/20/1842, 02/22/1842, ?/10/1842

There are also listed a few prescriptions without any year, which just possibly might be added: 8/16/?, 8/8/?, 8/29/?

Thus, limiting the Q-potencies to those identified by Adler, there would have been a maximum of 27 prescriptions of the Q-potencies before the completion of the manuscript. This in turn would mean that Hahnemann had prescribed his Q-potencies only 27 times at most before he wrote about them in his 6th Organon and also that all these prescriptions would have happened within the last 15 months before he revised his main opus.

Every single one of these suppositions would make a liar out of Hahnemann or would make it appear that he had become senile at that time of his life, for in the 6th Organon he specifically states that

for the last 4,5 years, however, by my then altered, new,perfectioned method [...] all these diffierences have been completely cleared away.

It is much more likely that Hahnemann had really tested the Q-potencies for a period of 4 to 5 years before completing his manuscript, i.e. approx. since 1837/38 and that he had prescribed them during this time to quite a few of his patients.

How then could be explained the fact that the Q-potencies seem to appear in the casebooks in a frenquency that would even come close to the term “often” only after the beginning of 1842, i.e. 2 months before completing the Organon? The answer is obvious:. The Q-potencies had existed before and had been prescribed before, but the notation in the casebooks for them had been different up to this date . Hahnemann more than likely changed his notations for them at this point and had used a different abbreviation for them before this date.

As mentioned before, Hahnemann always published results and freshly-gained knowledge only after,in his opinion, the period of development was over.(see the quotation from his Chronic Diseases above). Making public the Q-potencies in his revision of the Organon therefore meant that the period of experimentation was over.

Such a point in time would definitely have been suitable to change a logogram - i.e. a specific abbreviation -- to change from a more descriptive term to a sort of individualized one, as he had also done with his C-potencies years before.

In their case he had abbreviated in his German casebooks the potencies he commonly prescribed by using Roman numerals, e.g. X for C 30 (30C). While in his publications he mostly (although not always) used a descriptive term, e.g." the millionth dilution/attenuation", he employed for use in his casebooks a plausible abbreviation, i.e. those Roman numerals. This, however, is true only for those potencies he often, more than that, almost exclusively used. These are the potencies which to-day we call the 30C, 27C, 24C. 21 C etc - in Roman numerals those read: X, IX,VIII, VII. As can be seen he used steps, every third potency being one step and having its own specific notation.

By this hypothesis, the notations Adler identified would be those after the change-over to this more specific, more individual and also shorter notation. This in turn would mean: Before the date of this change-over there would have to be different notations in the casebooks for the Q-potencies, i.e. different from those Adler identified.

For them the criteria Adler listed would have to be modified, but still would have to be in agreement with the instructions Hahnemann gives in his Organon concerning the mode of prescribing.That means that in a sequence the potency prescribed must be higher than the one given before (it should be recalled that with the C-potencies Hahnemann started with the higher potency and the following ones were to be lower).

This is a crucial point, because it allows us to identify the Q-potencies by the mode Hahnemann prescribed them, regardless of the of notation used.

There is another clue, which Adler did not mention.

508 of the 681 Q-potencies identified by him are presciptions of Sulphur. Moreover, all except 3 remedies identified by Adler before the end of February 1842 were Sulphur. So it can be supposed that the notations for the Q-potencies mostly, and perhaps exclusively, would be found with prescriptions of Sulphur.

At this point it may be useful to summon up the criteria for identification of the Q-potencies:

1	Notation is to be found in the case books later than 1837
2	potency less than or equal to 3, or potency higher than 3, provided that the treatment of the patient had been started with one of the potencies 1, 2 or 3 of the same remedy and that there had been a step-by-step increasing sequence of the potencies following the initial prescription.
3	The prescription should be of sulphur

While the Paris casebooks have not yet been investigated with this question in mind, the casebook DF 5 has been researched thoroughly by Karl-Otto-Sauerbeck and broken down extensively and in a very detailed way. So at least from that casebook we have a lot of data, on which data we can base our conclusions: definite for casebook DF5, tentative, by extension and assumption, for the other casebooks, starting around 1837. In addition, together with Michalowski and Sander, Sauerbec published an article, where the authors list the patients in DF5 , together with the remedies prescribed. These data also we can use in the manner stated above.

Gueroult de, Mme, Sulph 1/190, Sulph 1/191, Sulph 1/192, Sulph 1/193, Sulph 1/198

The above up to now have been considered to be notations for C-potencies, where 190, 192 .....198 were interpreted as meaning 190C, 191C, 192C......198C.

The reason probably was that there seemed to be no other explanation. They, however, exactly fit the criteria set up above for the identification of the Q-potencies, while they do not at all fit the way Hahnemann all his working life as a homeopath had used the C-potencies (which has been fully ascertained in the published German casebooks, where he had used C-potencies exclusively..

It is of course quite possible that Hahnemann in Paris experimented with C potencies higher than 30C parallel to his developing the Q-potencies. Allowing for that possibility, there are quite a few objections to the above notations meaning those higher C-potencies:

It does not explain the meagre number of prescriptions of the Q-potencies before he made them public as his “new, perfected method”.

It does not explain his statement in the Organon that he had tried the Q-potencies for 4 1/2 years.

It does not explain why he should have used such "odd" potencies as 190C, 191C, 192C...199C instead of 200C as e.g. v. Boenninghausen (and probably all the other homeopaths who used them at all, including possibly his wife Melanie) were (and are still) doing. Look at the sequence: starting at the odd number of 190 or 191,going up in steps of one> (two things he had never done before)

He had in the Organon stated emphatically that he had experimented with the Q-potencies in exactly those years that the above notations occur in his casebooks, i.e.they start in November 1838.

Since we may be sure that he had indeed experimented with them during these years, notations for them should exist somewhere in his casebooks during all of that period.

However, No notations have been found except those that Adler identified that could conceivably mean the Q-potencies*. Of those only 27 have been found before the deadline for the completion of his Organon in all of his casebooks. Of the above notations, on the other hand, there are 28 even in DF5, i.e. in just one of his Paris casebooks.

Just as the notations Adler identified for the period starting 1841, the above are all for Sulphur.

This interpretation is fully in accordance with what Hahnemann told us in his Organon about how to use the Q-potencies:

Looking at the listing above, one notices that the last digit always increases, mostly in steps of one, mostly starting at zero or one. That easily could mean an increasing sequence of potencies, starting in all cases but two with the lowest Q-potency, i.e. zero.

If one remembers that the casebooks were not meant for publication, that therefore the writing, including the notations for the potencies ,had to be identifiable only to Hahnemann and a few co-workers, Hahnemann could choose for his notations whatever expressions he wanted, as lon gas they were easily identifiable to himself. He had, however, to be able to know exactly what remedy and what potency he had prescibed.Using the last digit, i.e. 191, 192, 193 .....198 as an identifier for the potency would be just as logical and useful as to-day's way of identifying them as LM1, LM2, LM3 etc.

The question then would be why he used the "19" as the non-changing element of the expression. There would have to be be some connection in this number to the specific property of the Q-potency, if the hypothesis that the notations stand for the Q-potencies is valid.

And this connection does indeed exist - it is an abbreviation for the dilution of the Q- potencies (As a reminder: Even in our modern notation we use the same scheme: the C in C(x) or (x)C stands for the dilution (C meaning 100). The same applies to the "LM" (meaning 50 000) etc. and the numbers after (resp. before) them show the potentizing steps).

Hahnemann himself gave us a clue to this. I describing his newprocedure in par. 270 of the Organon, he writes:

Taking one single globuli of the kind of which 100 weigh one gran in order to dynamise it with 100 drops (of alcohol), then the relation will be like 1 to 50 000, or rather even greater...

He thus is writing of a dilution of 1 to a number "which is greater than 50 000". A dilution of exactly 1:50 000 would yield the decimal fraction 0.00002. In this case Hahnemann probably would have chosenthe notations: 200, 201, 202, 203 etc.

According to what he says, however, the dilution is "greater than1:50 000".(This was determined by the size of the globuli and thus was something Hahnemann could not easily have adjusted in order to get an "even" number for his dilution). Expressed in a mathematical formula 1/x >50 000.

For every x between50 001 and 53 000 the result is the decimal fraction 0.000019...

This range of values between 50 001 and 53 000 would doubtlessly meet his rather vague description of "as 1 to 50 000 and or rather even greater"

It is a matter of course, for Hahnemann as for all doctors, that in writing down the case history and treament in the daily clinic, they use abbreviations, and so naturally Hahnemann would not have written out this fraction as 0.000019.

The 19 was enough to tell Hahnemann on reading the notes that the dilution of the remedy had been 1:approx. 50 000, the digit behind it served to identify the potency steps, the two together plus the name of the remedy identified it with absolute clarity. The I or II or whatever before the slash identified the number of globuli that had been given..

Those notations /19x can thus be logically identified as meaning the Q-potencies. It may be supposed that Hahnemann had used the "19x" notation first, for a while used both and then, towards the end of the experimental period, he changed the "19x" notation to the even shorter "1,2" consistently.

Doing specific research there should be found in the Paris case books cases where the change from notation 19x to 1,2,3 is documented, i.e. in which the notations for the same patient change within the course of treatment from 19x to (x + 2), thus e.g. from 191 to 3.(190 meaning LM-1 - Hahnemann obviously used the scale of numbers starting with "0" - a plain "0", on the other hand might have led to confusion, especiall since it may be mistaken for the letter "O" or "o" -even by the writer at the next appointment)

*It has come to my attention before this latest revision that an international group of homeopaths has for the last years been doing research in all the 13 “Paris Casebooks”. It seems that one of their goals also has been the identification of the Q-potencies. It also seems that they have come to different conclusions from Adler, on whose research in turn my conclusions were based. I am looking forward with great interest to the publishing of their results.

Adler, Ubiratan C.: Nachweis von 681 Q-Potenzen in den französischen Krankenjournalen Samuel Hahnemanns. In: Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte 13 (1994), 135 - 166

Dellmour, Friedrich: Homöopathische Arzneimittel. Geschichte, Potenzierungsverfahren, Darreichungsformen. Wien 1992.

Hahnemann, Samuel: Chronische Krankheiten. Theoretischer Teil. Berg am Starnberger See 1983.

Jütte, Robert: Die Enträtselung der Hahnemannschen Q-Potenzen: Eine wissenschaftliche Miszelle. In: Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte 13 (1994), 131-134

Michalowski, Arnold; Sander, Sabine; Sauerbeck, Karl-Otto: Therapiegeschichtliche Materialien zu Samuel Hahnemanns Pariser Praxis. In: Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte 8 (1989), 171-196

Organon der Heilkunst. Textkritische Ausgabe der sechsten Auflage. Bearbeitet von Josef M. schmidt. Heidelberg 1999.

Sauerbeck, Karl-Otto: Kommentar zu Samuel Hahnemanns Krankenjournal DF 5. O. H. (Unveröffentlichtes Manuskript im Homöopathie-Archiv des Instituts für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung.

Samuel Hahnemann's "Mysterious Q potencies