Dynamical Therapeutics

Dynamical Therapeutics is a clinical materia medica published in 1893 by Herbert T. Webster, an Eclectic physician. The book organizes several hundred botanical, mineral, and chemical remedies by the organ systems they affect — nervous, circulatory, digestive, urinary and sexual, skin and eyes — rather than alphabetically or by botanical classification. Its central doctrine is tissue affinity: the claim that every organ and tissue of the body possesses selective attractions for specific drugs, and that rational therapeutics depends on matching the right drug to the right tissue at the right dose. Webster distinguishes between dynamical agents, which act in small doses in concert with the body’s normal vital forces, and statical agents, which oppose or arrest vital action in large doses. The same drug may appear in both classes depending on dose. The book is a late expression of Eclectic therapeutic philosophy, drawing freely on homeopathic materia medica, Schuessler’s tissue salts, and clinical reports from across medical-school boundaries.

The Tissue Affinity Doctrine

Webster opens by asserting that every organ and tissue possesses drug affinities — selective attractions between specific drugs and specific parts — and that this principle forms the basis of rational therapeutics. (Webster, 1893) He grounds this in cell theory: cells possess selective properties of appropriation independent of other properties, and specific medication depends on these selective properties for therapeutic success. If cells did not possess selective properties and remedies could not be made to influence special portions of the body, the scope of therapeutics would be very much narrowed. (Webster, 1893)

The tissue affinity principle is applied systematically across the body. In the nervous system, Webster matches specific remedies to distinct neural structures: gelsemium to the vaso-motor system, lobelia to cerebro-spinal innervation, hyoscyamus to functional cerebral irritation without congestion. (Webster, 1893) (Webster, 1893) Lobelia receives particular emphasis as a vital stimulant acting on vaso-motor nerves to improve circulation while augmenting cerebro-spinal innervation generally; in full doses it functions as a prompt antispasmodic. (Webster, 1893) Hypericum perforatum is assigned to the spinal cord specifically, with Webster crediting homeopathic authors who call it “the arnica of the spinal cord” and endorsing it as the only remedy he relies on after spinal shock or concussion. (Webster, 1893) Quinine occupies a distinct functional category: it interrupts periodical paroxysms by inducing cinchonism, but is not a blood corrector and must be followed by agents such as alstonia, arseniate of quinia, or chionanthus to address the underlying blood depravation. (Webster, 1893) (Webster, 1893) In the circulatory system, he assigns remedies to specific vascular territories: chelidonium to the hepatic artery, grindelia to the splenic circulation, hamamelis to the venous system generally, erigeron to capillary hemorrhage, collinsonia to hemorrhoidal vessels. (Webster, 1893) In the digestive tract, he maps remedies to specific mucosal segments: epilobium for the small intestine, hydrastis for pharyngeal and gastric mucosa, geranium as a general mucosal tonic. (Webster, 1893) Epilobium is Scudder’s specific for muco-enteritis and was used extensively by Scudder in chronic diarrhoea during the Civil War with results he claimed superior to other remedies; Webster notes that the fresh-plant decoction is preferred but the specific tincture must substitute when fresh plant is unavailable. (Webster, 1893) (Webster, 1893) He also records that certain digestive remedies act through reflex pathways: one agent finds its best application in digestive disturbances caused by uterine irritation, particularly in chlorotic anaemia with anorexia. (Webster, 1893)

Webster distinguishes nutritional affinity from vaso-motor influence. Silica acts on cartilage and cineraria on the humors of the eye — tissues without blood vessels — which he takes as proof that drug affinity can operate through the formative force directly, not merely through circulation. (Webster, 1893) He also proposes that drug affinity for morbid growths depends on how closely the growth resembles normal tissue: enchondroma and warts may respond to drugs, but cancers are too far removed from normal tissue position to be reached by drug affinity. (Webster, 1893)

The Dynamical Dose Principle

The book’s title announces its second major doctrine. Webster divides remedies into two classes based on dose: dynamical agents act in small doses in unison with the forces of normal life, while statical agents oppose or arrest vital action in large doses. The same drug may appear in both classes. (Webster, 1893) He denies the “dual action of drugs” theory, arguing instead that a drug invariably acts in one direction: a large dose disturbs function through excess of action, while a small dose produces the proper molecular disturbance needed for healthy rearrangement. (Webster, 1893)

He illustrates this with ipecac: in large doses it produces emesis, an artificial disease; in minute doses, the same agent corrects nausea and vomiting when these occur in disease, because it retains its affinity for gastric centers. (Webster, 1893) The jaborandi chapter makes the point even more sharply: in full doses jaborandi produces profuse perspiration, but in minute doses it arrests excessive sweating due to relaxation of the cutaneous vessels. (Webster, 1893) Webster explicitly links this principle to Hahnemann, arguing that when an agent disturbs a part in massive doses, it is likely to seek the same part with good intentions in sufficiently small doses — and that this is the rational core of the Hahnemannian theory, though homeopaths do not frame it so. (Webster, 1893)

Webster positions Eclectic dosing as a middle path between old-school heroic doses and homeopathic infinitesimal attenuation. (Webster, 1893) He acknowledges that even some homeopathic high attenuations sometimes effect cures, attributing this to highly developed susceptibility in certain patients rather than to homeopathic theory. (Webster, 1893)

Clinical versus Laboratory Evidence

A recurring argument in the book is that the clinical experience of practicing physicians outweighs physiological experimentation on animals. Webster cites gelsemium as a case where laboratory tests showed no effect on blood pressure while clinical practice proved it one of the best fever remedies available. He takes this as evidence that experimentation with drugs in large doses will not always reveal their dynamical action. (Webster, 1893)

This is not anti-empiricism. Webster insists that correct diagnosis, quality of drug, size of dose, proper selection, and susceptibility of patient are all important elements in therapeutics, and that neglect of any will lead to failure. (Webster, 1893) But his empiricism is clinical rather than laboratory: the relevant evidence is what physicians observe at the bedside over thousands of cases, not what a kymographic experiment shows in a rabbit.

Acute versus Chronic Disease

Webster draws a practical distinction between acute and chronic disease that governs remedy selection. In acute disease, the principal therapeutic reliance must be upon agents that directly or indirectly influence the fluids. In chronic disease, the dependence must be more upon remedies that specifically influence the tissues. (Webster, 1893) The physician can aid the formative force of diseased tissue by selecting agents that specifically influence the affected part, improving its recuperative energies through successive cycles of breakdown and repair. (Webster, 1893) He reports using penthorum sedoides for a year to cure chronic pharyngeal inflammation of fifteen years’ duration, demonstrating that specific tissue affinity can effect repair even in long-standing conditions when administered patiently. (Webster, 1893)

Blood Correctives and Specific Diagnosis

Webster devotes a chapter to antiseptics, antizymotics, and correctives — agents that improve blood quality and tissue integrity in states of blood depravation. (Webster, 1893) He follows Scudder’s tongue diagnostic system, using muriatic acid as a near-specific for the dark-red “beefsteak” tongue indicating depraved blood, applicable regardless of the disease name when this tongue sign is present. (Webster, 1893) Therapeutic selection should be guided by specific indications such as tongue appearance and tissue state rather than by disease names. (Webster, 1893) He credits baptisia tinctoria as the principal indigenous remedy possessing marked antiseptic and corrective properties for blood depravation. (Webster, 1893)

This approach descends directly from Scudder’s Specific Diagnosis: the named disease is irrelevant to remedy selection; what matters is the specific functional indication the patient presents.

Cross-School Therapeutics

One of the most distinctive features of Dynamical Therapeutics is its systematic integration of sources from across medical-school boundaries. Webster cites Hale’s New Remedies, homeopathic pharmacies, Schuessler’s biochemic tissue salts, and old-school authors interchangeably. (Webster, 1893) (Webster, 1893) He uses homeopathic dilutions (3x, 6x triturations), borrows symptom-remedy correlations from homeopathic provings, and cites Hahnemann via Hughes’s Manual of Pharmacodynamics for skin therapeutics. (Webster, 1893) He employs lycopodium directly from homeopathic materia medica for urinary difficulties. (Webster, 1893)

The tissue salts of Schuessler appear throughout. Webster uses ferric phosphate as a fever remedy, calling it the most reliable sedative for persistent or chronic febrile conditions. (Webster, 1893) The remedy index shows Schuessler’s salts (ferric phosphate, potassium chloride, potassium phosphate, sodium chloride) integrated into a single index alongside botanical and chemical agents. (Webster, 1893) Electrical modalities also appear alongside botanical remedies, showing that Eclectics by the 1890s incorporated physical therapeutics within their materia medica framework. (Webster, 1893)

This is eclecticism in its literal sense: taking what works from wherever it can be found, while rejecting the theoretical frameworks that each school used to justify its practices.

Signature Remedies

Certain remedies emerge as centerpieces of late Eclectic practice. Echinacea angustifolia appears across six therapeutic categories and is credited with an unmatched influence on capillary circulation, endowing capillaries with recuperative power while simultaneously acting as sedative, tonic, and corrective. (Webster, 1893) (Webster, 1893) Webster reports never having lost a case of slow-form cerebro-spinal meningitis since beginning to use it. (Webster, 1893) Echinacea is listed under septicaemia in the clinical index, reflecting the Eclectic claim by 1893 that it was a specific antiseptic agent for blood poisoning. (Webster, 1893)

Hydrastis canadensis receives the most extensive cross-referencing of any botanical remedy, appearing across eight therapeutic contexts. (Webster, 1893) The cactus family (cereus bonplandii, cereus speciosissimus, cactus grandiflorus) is championed over digitalis for cardiac conditions, with Webster calling digitalis “a very much over-estimated remedy.” (Webster, 1893) (Webster, 1893)

Eclectic Identity and Rivalry

Webster’s professional identity as an Eclectic is visible throughout. He accuses the old-school author Shoemaker of making a “surreptitious study of the Eclectic materia medica” while publicly ridiculing Eclectic practice. (Webster, 1893) He credits Eclectic physician J. H. Bundy with introducing grindelia squarrosa to medicine through self-experimentation. (Webster, 1893) He warns against habitual use of opium, declaring that only quacks use opiates habitually, and recommends interrupting administration every two to three days to prevent addiction. (Webster, 1893)

Eclectic practice is characterized throughout as a synthesis of botanical knowledge and bedside clinical observation, with rejection of heroic dosing in favor of moderate, specific remedies selected by indication rather than by nosological category. (Webster, 1893)

The book also shows the limits of sectarian self-containment. Webster’s free borrowing from homeopathic and biochemic sources, his use of mineral remedies alongside botanicals, and his willingness to cite any practitioner whose clinical experience confirmed a remedy’s value all point toward a movement that was already dissolving its own boundaries by the 1890s.

Urinary, Sexual, and Skin Therapeutics

The urinary and sexual chapter covers over seventy botanical and mineral agents organized by their affinity for specific structures and disease states, spanning nephritis, diabetes, cystitis, gonorrhea, dysmenorrhea, and sexual dysfunction. (Webster, 1893) Populus tremuloides is assigned to the recuperative force of the kidneys, valued in granular degeneration of those organs. (Webster, 1893) For diabetes mellitus, Webster selects a remedy he describes as acting on substances destined to reach the kidneys rather than on the kidneys themselves, correcting urinary disturbance through an upstream metabolic influence. (Webster, 1893) Bladder affections complicating uterine irritation after parturition receive a separate tissue-specific indication, with the same remedy adapted to vesical disturbance arising from the parturient condition. (Webster, 1893)

The skin chapter is organized by tissue pathology rather than disease name. For old, stubborn syphilitic or scrofulous skin eruptions, iodide of potassium is used at the outset to break down deposits and prepare the ground for vegetable skin remedies to complete the cure. (Webster, 1893) Webster quotes Professor Goss’s endorsement of a vegetable skin remedy across the full range of chronic skin affections — eczema, lichen, pemphigus, herpes, acne, and others — and adds his own view that it will cure any chronic skin disease except syphilides, scrofulides, and parasitic conditions. (Webster, 1893) A second skin agent is said to exert a general influence on the nutrition of the skin analogous to arsenic, capable of both pathogenetic and curative effects depending on patient susceptibility. (Webster, 1893)

Reference Apparatus

The book closes with two complementary indexes. The remedy index (Section 9) organizes several hundred agents alphabetically, cross-referencing each to multiple therapeutic chapters. (Webster, 1893) Phytolacca decandra appears across eleven page references, spanning glandular, circulatory, digestive, skin, urinary, and surgical chapters, a breadth that reflects its standing in late Eclectic practice as a general alterative with wide systemic reach. (Webster, 1893) The clinical index (Section 10) inverts this, listing disease conditions alphabetically with the remedies indicated for each. (Webster, 1893) Together they create a bidirectional lookup system: from remedy to condition and from condition to remedy. (Webster, 1893) The clinical index reveals the scope of the Eclectic armamentarium for constitutional diseases: scrofula lists eighteen separate remedies spanning botanical, mineral, and biochemic agents. (Webster, 1893) Syphilis lists sixteen remedies including botanical alteratives and mineral agents, showing that Eclectics maintained a complex therapeutic approach to venereal disease while rejecting routine mercurial treatment. (Webster, 1893) Scarlatina is indexed with ten separate agents including belladonna, lachesis, ferric phosphate, and potassium chloride, illustrating how Eclectic clinical indexes integrated botanical, mineral, and biochemic agents for acute infectious disease. (Webster, 1893)

The ophthalmology section is attributed to Kent O. Foltz, indicating that the work incorporated specialist contributions from other Eclectic physicians while maintaining the unified dynamical framework. (Webster, 1893)

See Also

• Specific Diagnosis (1883)
• John Milton Scudder
• Eclecticism
• Homeopathy
• Tissue Affinity
• Specific Medication
• Echinacea
• Herbal Medicine
• Medical Reform

Sources

Primary evidence for this page comes from:

• Webster, H. T. (1893). Dynamical Therapeutics. Oakland, CA: Published by the author. [Source ID: webster-dynamical-therapeutics-1893] — Sole primary source; all claims derive from this text.