Preparation of Medicines

Organon Aphorism §276

For this reason, a medicine, even though it may be homoeopathically suited to the case of disease, does harm in every dose that is too large, and in strong doses it does more harm the greater its homoeopathicity and the higher the potency selected, and it does much more injury than any equally large dose of a medicine that is unhomoeopathic and in no respect adapted to the morbid state (allopathic). Too large doses of an accurately chosen homoeopathic medicine, and especially when frequently repeated, bring about much trouble as a rule. They put the patient not seldom in danger of life or make his disease almost incurable. They do indeed extinguish the natural disease so far as the sensation of the life principle is concerned and the patient no longer suffers from the original disease from the moment the too strong dose of the homoeopathic medicine acted upon him but he is in consequence more ill with the similar but more violent medicinal disease which is most difficult to destroy.

Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine, 6th edition, translated by William Boericke (1922, public domain). Checked word for word against the 1922 printing in October 2026.

Study notes for this aphorism are not published yet. They appear here once a homeopath has reviewed them.