Potentising drugs was a discovery made by Homeopathy’s founder Samuel Hahnemann over 200 years ago while he was trying to reduce adverse reactions of popular drugs such as Mercury by diluting them with water. The problem was, when you dilute a drug with water. It dilutes and weakens it’s effect. His Mercury dilution because almost useless. Then something happened.

All of a sudden his weak, dilute bottle of Mercury stopped being weak. Patients started having strong reactions to his diluted drugs. When Hahnemann tried to work out what had changed the only thing he could think of was that the bottles had been vigorously shaken by the bumpy cart rid to the patients’ home.

So Hahnemann started banging bottles of diluted medicine on his bible and it worked. For a reason that he did not understand 200 years ago and scientists are still struggling to comprehend today. The more often he hit the bottle on his bible, the stronger the medicine became. He called this process potentisation. Because, the more it is done. The stronger and more potent the drugs became.

He also discovered some other very strange things. Such as the amount of water you add, the amount of times you hit the bottle and order in which it is done. Changes the strength of the drug. Homeopaths call these various strengths potentices.

Since Hahnemann’s initial discovery over 8000 drugs have been potentised. They range from simple items such as Table Salt, to snake venom, to minerals.

If you would like to see how pharmacies potentise drugs. Here is a short video from the English Pharmacy Helios.