1801 Alkali Pneum - Borax
After the discovery of Belladonna for scarlet fever at Konigslutter, Dr.Hahnemann changed his residence to Hamburg and various places in Germany between 1789 to 1805, then settled at Torgau While he was residing at Hamburg he announced the discovery of a new chemical salt that he called "Alkali Pneum." and offered for sale, but upon analysis it proved to be Borax. The "Alkali Pneum" and the Belladonna secret have been mentioned in every book that has been written against Hahnemann, and their number is many, in the last hundred years. Many homoeopaths use Borax for various clinical conditions such as aphthae mouth, Leucorrhoea, septic conditions in trituration to tackle acute exacerbation to day.
Hahnemann's residence at Torgau
In 1805, after several more moves, Hahnemann settled for a time in Torgau, where he remained for long time, nearly seven years. Numerous articles by him appeared, the most important of them was "The Medicine of Experience", which came out in 1806 and was the forerunner of his definitive theoretical work, "The Organon".
The Medicine of Experience was published in the Journal of Practical Medicine, edited by Hufeland - an eminent physician.
Medicines are to be chosen on the basis of the patient's symptoms, without reference to the supposed disease process underlying them. According to Hahnemann, the symptoms are the disease, and once they have gone the disease is cured.
The effects of drugs can be known only by means of experiments on healthy people. It is no use relaying on what is found in patient because the symptoms of the disease will be difficult to distinguish from those of the drug.
Medicines must be chosen for the similarity of their effects to the symptoms of the patient. This 'Similimum Principle' is of course the kernel of the Homoeopathic method.
Medicines are to be given in single doses instead of complex mixtures. Medicines are to be given in small doses to prevent "aggravations". Hahnemann believed that a correctly chosen medicine would always produce some slight worsening of the patient's condition, no matter how transient; this could be reduced to a minimum by judicious reduction of the size of the dose.Medicines are to be repeated only when recurrence of the patient's symptoms indicates the need. These principles constituted Homoeopathy as it stood when first formulated by its originator.
While in Torgau Hahnemann published a book, in Latin, on pharmacology. In it he described 27 drugs, giving the symptoms they produced in the healthy body. It seems he had already tested the drugs on himself and on his long-suffering family and the book is therefore the first published record of provings'.
Among the drugs described by Hahnemann were Aconitum napellus; Acris tinctura (Hahnemann's Causticum); Arnica Montana; Atropa belladonna; Laurus Camphora; Lytta vesicatoria (Cantharis); Capsicum annuum; Chamomilla matricaria; Cinchona officinalis et regia; Cocculus menispermum; Copaifera balsamum; Cuprum vitriolatum, Digitalis purpurea; Drosera rotund folia; Hyoscyamus niger; Ignatia amara; Ipecacuanha; Ledum palustre; Helleborus niger; Daphne mezereum; Strychnos nux vomica; Papaver somniferum (Opium) ; Anemone pratensis (Pulsatilla) ; Rheum ; Datura Stramonium ; Valeriana officinalis ; Veratrum album,all of which are still widely used in Homoeopathy today.
