DOSE

The quantity of action necessary to effect any change in nature is the least possible : the decisive amount is always a
minimum, an infinitesimal.

TYPES OF DOSE
1) Physiological dose-A dose of drug empirically selected of sufficient quantity and strength to produce definite pre-
determined effect or a group of symptoms.
For example physiological dose of belladonna is one which is sufficient to produce dialatation of pupil, dryness of
mucus membrane and flushing and turgescence of skin. This is the quantity of medicine which could be administered
with safety.

2) Pathological dose-Quantity of medicine capable of producing pathological changes in the tissues of the
organisum. i.e. biochemical changes, bio physical changes .

3) Toxic dose-Dose which produces toxic effects upon the organisum.

4) Lethal dose-Dose which produces deletrious effects upon the organisum even death.

5) Therapeutic dose-Least quantity of medicine required to effect a cure or a palliation.

In homoeopathy therapeutic dose is the infinitesimal dose or the minimum dose or the sub- physiological dose .

5) Minimum dose-In $ 280 minimum dose is defined as the quantity of medicine required to produce a scarcely
perceptible homoeopathic aggravation.

Guidelines By Different Authors

Hahnemann
In his organon of medicine he says
$279 The dose of homoeopathically selected remedy can never be prepared so small that it shall not be stronger
than natural disease .
$280 fn
Let them learn from the mathematicians how true it is that a substance divided into so many parts still contains its
smallest part and the smallest part dose not cease to have some substance
$ 281
Every patient ever so robust will be effected by small conceivable dose .
An exception to infintesimal dose is given
In $ 282 fn there is an exception in the treatment of three great miasm while they still efflorescence on the skin ie
recently erupted itch ,the untouched chancre and the fig warts . These not only tolerate , but indeed require from
the very beginning large doses of their specific remedies of ever higher and higher dynamisation daily

Stuart close
According to Stuart Close there are 3 necessary requirements for the action of infinitesimal dose .
1) The development of special virtues of medicine by the process of potentisation .
2) The increased susceptibility to medicinal impression produced by the disease .
3) The selection of symptomatically similar remedy .

H.A. Robert
According to H A Roberts the law of dosage could be summarized from 3 fundamental laws .
1) Law of least action and quantity
The quantity of action necessary to effect any change in nature is least possible . The decisive amount is always the
minimum ie an infinitesimal
2) Law of quantity and dose
The quantity of drug required is inverse ratio to its similarity .
3) Law of quality
The quality of action of homoeopathic medicines is determined by its quantity in its inverse ratio.

Why dose should be minimum

1) When the disease attacks the body , it overcomes the body resistance . Now the body becomes vulnerable to the
action of a similarly acting disease producing agent . So this disease producing agent viz the drug need only be
applied in a minimum dose just sufficient to produce a cure .

2) Disease has already rendered the parts abnormally sensitive , so only a slight stimuli need be applied in order to
reduce aggravation

BASIS OF DOSE
Homoeopathic dosage is based upon law, as is the selection of the remedy based upon the law of similars.
***ACTION AND REACTION ARE EQUAL AND OPPOSITE : this is fundamental, and it is this law that must guide us in
the application of drugs.

PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF DRUG

he physiological action is toxic on nature, therefore injurious to the patient. The physiological action of a drug is not
its therapeutic or curative action; it is the exact opposite of a curative action and is never employed in homoeopathic
practice for curative effects

BENIFITS OF HOMEOPATHIC DOSEAGE

 The homoeopathic cure is produced without drug effects; it is accomplished without suffering; it is mild; it is
developed through growth; it is dynamic in nature, therefore it must be given on the dynamic plane and
never in a way to produce drug effects.

 Homoeopathic dosages required that no new symptoms shall be produced as a result of their
administration, for these would be drug effects; but we may find a slight aggravation of the symptoms
already present immediately following the administration of the homoeopathic remedy, which soon recedes,
and improvement continues.

 When the homoeopathic drug is administered, it is so similar to the natural disease that it therefore meets
with no resistance.
 homoeopathic dose is always short of the physiological or pathogenetic dose.

CHARACTERISTICS OF DOSE
It is the similarity of the characteristic symptoms of the drug to those of the disease

The greater the number of characteristic symptoms of the disease that are found to correspond to the drug, the less
the quantity and the higher the potency that can be used.

The whole relationship of drugs to disease rests on the susceptibility

The power of the drug over disease is solely in its similarity; without it, it has no power except in a physiological
from, and that is never curative.

A very high potency will cure intractable disease states where the low potencies do not even give relief.