HOMOEOPATHIC PHARMACY


Pharmacy is built upon a comprehensive synthesis of Botany, Mineralogy, Biochemistry, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Hahnemann was well-versed in all these departments of Pharmacy. His brochure “On the distinction between Genuine and Adulterated Drugs” was without hesitation proclaimed indispensable to the medical and pharmaceutical knowledge of the time.


A DISCOURSE.

Paper read in the second session of the All Bengal Registered Homoeopathic Practitioners Conference.

Brother Physicians, At this second session of the Conference of Registered Homoeopathic Practitioners, Bengal, it is indeed a great privilege for any Homoeopathic medical man to be called for presiding over a section and addressing this august assembly. I believe this compliment has been fortuitously cast upon me an undeserving and modest seeker of knowledge, counting pebbles on the shores of the vast ocean of Homoeopathic science and philosophy.

Pharmacy is built upon a comprehensive synthesis of Botany, Mineralogy, Biochemistry, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Hahnemann was well-versed in all these departments of Pharmacy. His brochure “On the distinction between Genuine and Adulterated Drugs” was without hesitation proclaimed indispensable to the medical and pharmaceutical knowledge of the time.

His “Druggists Lexicon” became esteemed as classic. In the province of chemistry he also displayed practical skill and discovered a method for the detection of the adulterations of wine which has become known as Hahnemanns Wine Test; and one of the best preparations of mercury to this day bears his name as Mercurius Solubilis Hahnemanii.

In the days of yore every civilised nation had its own system of medicine and its relating pharmacy. When there was an opportunity for one nation to contact another, anything found profitable and virtuous in the domain of literature, art, science, medicine, astronomy, astrology, philosophy, theology, spiritual and temporal law used to be studied and absorbed by the visiting nation, ofcourse, with such amendments as would suit the natural tendencies of its countrys climate and peoples constitution. The State used to select, finance and send its accredited travellers for this purpose.

Historical anecdotes lead us to hold China to be a pioneer country in undertaking such adventure. In the domain of medicine she appears to be far more advanced than many other countries in that distant past. HUANG-Ti who was first known by the name Hsien-yuan, and called by some writers as the Yellow Emperor lived from 2698-2598 B.C. He soon showed himself to possess qualities above the ordinary, and in due course succeeded his father Chi-Kuan (Kung-sun was his family name) as governor of Yu- hsiung. Huang-Ti subsequently quelled the internal disorder of the country, defeated the Emperors forces, and was himself proclaimed Emperor.

He appointed a commission of the most learned men of his time, all of whom become famous for their accomplishments in the field of medicine and were raised to the status of demi-gods. Many legends concerning Huang-Ti have survived. He is said to have obtained his knowledge of medicine from the immortals. He is credited with the invention of nine needles for acupuncture and with the authorship of a treatise in 18 volumes on medicine and surgery. Chinese medicine and chemistry spread, through India, to the Middle East and Greece, extending its influence to the Muslim countries.

Missionaries sent by Emperor Ashoka to East and West, and invasions of Alexander the Great helped to propagate Indian culture, philosophy, medicine and astronomy far and wide. It did not omit Egypt which was also renowned for her wealth of knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, chemistry and medicine. Influence of Indias advancement in these subjects stands conspicuous, and it is manifest that by way of give and take the Asian nations materially profited to their mutual advantage.

In these subjects the role of India is quite distinct. Her enlightenments and acquirements date back to her epic ages, her knowledge of science and art is said to have been derived from divine entities whose blessings in the shape of inspiration, vision, instructions and perception bountifully flowed from their celestial sphere down to the holy Rishis who then passed these on to such disciples who were competent to practice and propagate same for the benefit of mankind.

We Indians naturally take interest in the extent and depth of such enlightenment of our Rishis. Coming straight to the subject of medicine and its concomitant pharmacy of the Aryan school we find meticulous divisions and subdivisions in Ayurvedic therapeutics and Ayurvedic pharmacy.

Therapeutics is a complex thesis in Ayurveda, and its pharmacy is no less so. In the pharmacy of Ayurveda, there is hardly any thing in common with the pharmacy of Homoeopathy, except that the “Arishta” of Ayurveda has only an apparent similarity with a Homoeopathic tincture and, secondly that the rubbing process of Ayurveda bears only a trivial analogy with the Homoeopathic process of trituration. “Arishta” is prepared by macerating the drugs in spirit for a week when the clear supernatant fluid is decanted and the residue is pressed out through a clean linen cloth mixing both together; in Ayurveda there is also another process in which 64 seers of the liquid vehicle, 800 totals of molass, 400 tolas of honey and 40 tolas of the medicinal substances are intimately mixed.

How different is the process of preparing Homoeopathy mother tincture! The attenuation and potentization of our tincture stand above any process of the therapeutic application of drugs in any other school of medicine, defunct or current. Some people entertain an erroneous idea of similarity of the rubbing process of Ayurveda with the process of Homoeopathic trituration. In Ayurveda the process is only a prolonged and continued rubbing of medicinal substance often a heterogeneous compound of several drugs with honey or any other vehicle having by itself some medicinal virtue, with no proposition to break the atoms of the principal drugs.

In Homoeopathic trituration the breaking of the drug-atoms ad libitum is the sine qua non. It has some analogy with the releasing of atomic energy which has now become a subject of international conflict; the difference being that in Homoeopathy it calculates constructive force while in the latter it calculates destructive force.

For Homoeopathic trituration a non- medicinal substance, to wit, the purest sugar of milk is the only vehicle admitted, so that the atoms of only a single drug is broken and attenuated and potentized perpetually. Administration of a single medicine in its purest form and in its minutest quantity, based upon similarity of symptoms, from the basic principle of Homoeopathic medicine, established upon unalterable laws of nature.

Hahnemann worked upon the discovering of the truth and immutability of the laws of similarity as far back as 1790 A.D., and after 15 years of arduous labour he published his “Organon of the healing art” in the year 1810. This book contains the laws of Homoeopathy and the laws of Homoeopathic pharmacy. The first “Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia” was compiled and published by Dr. Buchner in German language, this book is not available now.

We then find Dr. G.H.G. Jahrs “Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia and Posology” which was translated into English by Dr. James Kitchen, M.D. and published by W. Radde from New York in the year 1842, that was just one year before Hahnemanns death. Jahrs Pharmacopoeia is divided into four chapters, viz., (1) Of vehicles which serve for the preparation of medicines. (2) Of the preparations of medicines in their primitive states. (3) Of attenuations. (4) Of the dispensation and preservation of homoeopathic medicines.

Jahrs Pharmacopoeia asserts that the alcohol which seems to be the best for Homoeopathic preparations is that obtained from the dregs of grapes. (This is the refuse of the grape, after the juice has been pressed out in the process of making wine). He rejects the alcohol of rye or wheat because of its containing empyreumatic oil which, though possible of being separated by treating the alcohol with olive oil, cannot be taken as the purest alcohol.

We have innumerable medicinal substances obtained from the vegetable kingdom. Hahnemann enjoins, and it is found incorporated in Jahrs Pharmacopoeia as well as in all subsequent Homoeopathic pharmacopoeias, that these articles should be procured fresh and immediately be submitted for preparation of the medicine because their medicinal power is lost more or less in drying.

In regard to exotic substances, these should be obtained in the form of tincture prepared on the spot where they grow, or better still the substance in a dry state for preparing tinctures and triturations by the pharmacist under his own eyes. These should be imported in their dry condition and Jahr warns never to obtain these in powder form which are always undependable. The imported plants, barks, seeds, roots and animal substances should be finely powdered and dessicated before storing them.

Further, the pharmacist must be thoroughly acquainted with Hahnemanns instructions as to the particular parts of the plant to be used in his preparation, the particular season for collecting it, the particular method of storing and the particular process of preparing the tincture from it for fully maintaining its Drug power for all time.

Yamanendra Bhattacharyya