FRAGMENTA DE VIRIBUS -The First Materia-Medica and Repertory of the Homeopathy – Articles

FRAGMENTA DE VIRIBUS -The First Materia-Medica and Repertory of the Homeopathy

(Fragmentary observation relative to the positive

powers of medicine on the human body)

By- Homeorizon Team

Fragmenta de viribus as it is most popularly called was one of the first attempts made by Dr. Sameul Hahnemann in the direction of a proper material Medica. This work was merely a glimpse of what was to come. It contained the accounts of his first provings,of Homeopathic medicines. It was THE PRECURSOR, the forerunner of Homeopathic Materia Medica.

It was written in LATIN  language and was published in 1805. Publishers were M/S Sumpter Joan Ambrose Barthii of Leipzig.

It was in two volumes:

i)                  The first volumes was published in 1805. It was called PARS PRIMA. It had 277 pages comprising of Introduction and the main Text of the book.

ii)                The Second volume was the Repertory or Index. It was called PARS SECUNDA. It had 476pages comprising of Preface and a Repertory of 460 pages.

In the later editions the two parts were combined in one volume. In 1834 Dr. F.F. Quin, the erstwhile father of British Homeopathy, called for this book and published it in one volume from London.

Contents:

It contained the pathogeneses or the symptoms by partly proving the drugs on himself and partly collected from the toxicological observation of others. The symptoms of these 27 medicines were recorded by Hahnemann and by others.

*Others’ does not mean Hahnemann’s followers but those authors from whose writings he has cited. Most of them were practitioners of old school.

+cuprum & Mezerium did not reappear till the Second edition of chronic disease.

#Cantharides, Capaifera and Valeriana were never included by Hahnemann in any of his later works.

Thus, of the above 27 drugs, only 22 were carried to Materia Medica Pura.

SYMPTOMS OF FRANGMENTA -

Hahnemannian schema i.e. anatomical schema of arrangement of symptoms was not followed by Hahnemann himself in Fragmeta.

SYMPTOMS INCLUDED IN FRAGMENTA-

Hahnemann recorded some symptoms of poisoning or excessive dosing in the Fragmenta. But the major number of  symptoms were those obtained by Hahnemann through proving on himself and others. In the preface Hahnemann writes

“I had instituted experiments in chief part on my own person, but also on some others whom I knew to be perfectly healthy and free from all perceptible disease.

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