Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann
(German: (ha neman) was born on 10 April 1755 and left this world in 2 July 1843) was a German Physician, best known for creating the Pseudosientific system of alternative medicine called Homoeopathy.
اس پیج پر مٹیریا میڈیکا پیورا اور دوسری سیموئل ہانیمن کی کتابیں فراہم کی گئی ہیں
The second volume of the Materia Medica Pura will ap pear in a few weeks.
CH. J. HEMPEL, M. D.,93 Spring-street.New- York, Dec. 26, 1845.
MATERIA MEDICA PURA VOL 1 by SAMUEL HAHNEMANN, TRANSLATED AND EDITED by CHARLES JULIUS HEMPEL, M. D.
مٹیریا میڈیکا پیورا جلد 1 سیموئل ہانیمن، مترجم چارلس جولیئس ہیمپل
PREFACE.
The day of the true knowledge of remedies, and a true system of therapeutics, will daAvn when physicians shall abandon the ridiculous method of mixing together large portions of medicinal substances whose remedial virtues are only known speculatively, or by vague praises, which is in fact not to know them at all ; and when they shall no longer use such mixtures for the cure of diseases without having even minutely inquired into their respective symptoms. In our com mon treatises on pathology, diseases are arbitrarily named and described; and, by treating them Avith the compound fabrics* of common doctors, in accordance with their mere names and Araguely described general forms, the physician never knows which of the remedial agents Avas either hurtful or beneficial; nor has he an opportunity of becoming more intimately acquainted with the curative power of each single remedy.
The day of the true knowledge of remedies, and a true
system of therapeutics, will dawn Avhen physicians shall abandon the systems and opinions which have heretofore swayed the minds of the profession; when they shall act upon the principle that every single medicinal substance is capable of curing a case of disease, the symptoms of Avhich shall be exactly analogous to those Avhich the medicinal substance is capable of producing upon a healthy organism.
Among the symptoms Avhich have been furnished to me by other physicians, and which will be mentioned together Avith my own, there are some which have been observed upon.
* As long as physicians are not convinced of the absurdity of their methods, they may continue sending their compound prescriptions to the pharmacy. They need not, for that purpose, know the correct and complete nature of every ingredient; and even if they did, that knowledge would be of no avail on account of the collective action of those ingredients being necessarily different from the individual action of each. This method is what they call treating a disease ; and they will contractor tinue this kind of treatment until the spirit of reform shall excite in their hearts a desire of curing disease. A cure, however, can only be accomplished by single remedies.
The genuine action of every medicinal substance may be ascertained by experiments. Experience alone can tell us whether a remedial agent has a specific curative power in a given case of disease. What conscientious man would be willing to assail the totterino-life of the patient with remedies which are capable of exercising a prejudicial and even destructive effect, without having a minute knowledge of their inherent virtues? No carpenter works with tools which he i^ not acquainted with; he has a correct knowledge of every tool, and knows exactly when and where he ought to employ it, in order to accomplish his work with certainly and precision. And, nevertheless, this man works only in wood, and is a mere carpenter!
sick persons. HoAvever, inasmuch as these persons were chronic patients, and their morbid symptoms had been Avell ascertained, care has been taken, at any rate by Greding, to distinguish these standing symptoms from the symptoms produced by the medicine. Symptoms discovered upon such patients are, therefore, not without some value, and may, at any rate, serve to confirm analogous or the same symptoms Avhen found upon healthy persons.
In those experiments which have been made by me and my disciples, every care has been taken to secure the true and full action of the medicines. Our trials have been made upon persons enjoying perfect health, and living in contentment and comparatiA'e ease.
When an extraordinary circumstance of any kind, fright, chagrin, fear, external injuries, the excessive enjoyment of any one pleasure, or some great, important event, supervened during the trial, then no symptom has been recorded after such an event, in order to prevent spurious symptoms being noted as genuine.
When that circumstance Avas of no importance, and could not be supposed to interfere with the action of the medicine, then the symptoms have been placed in brackets, for the purpose of informing the reader that they could not be considered decisively genuine.
As regards the duration of action Avhich I have noted after every medicine chosen for trial, I may here observe, that I arrived at the possibility of determining it, by a great number of experiments upon healthy persons ; this duration will, therefore, either be longer or shorter in proportion as the disease is more or less acute or chronic ; if the medicine is given in too large doses, or is not homoeopathic to the disease, then the duration which I have pointed out cannot be considered normal.In both these last cases the duration is considerably less ; for the medicine is expelled, and its remedial virtue destroyed, by subsequent evacuations, bleeding from the nose, hemorrhage, catarrh, flow of urine, diarrhoea, vomiting, SAveat. The living organism resorts to similar modes of evacuation in regard to the miasm of contagious diseases, which is weakened and partially expelled by vomiting, diarrhoea, hemorrhages, catarrh, convulsions, ptyalism, sweat, and similar processes, by which the organism tries to free itself from the poison. This explains the reason why the ordinary practice should not have succeeded in discovering either the true nature, or the duration of the effects of tartar emetic or jalap ; all these substances are
given in such large doses, that the organism is induced to react against them, and to expel them in the shortest possible period. Only when this reaction does not take place, and the remedies remain in the system, as it is expressed in common language, the true action of the medicinal substance takes place, and often manifests itself by important and long-continuing symptoms, which, however, have been seldom correctly observed and noted.
The vomiting which is consequent upon two or three grains of tartar emetic, or twenty grains of ipecacuanha ; the purging Avhich is induced by thirty grains of jalap, and the sweat excited by a decoction of a handful of juniper-berries, are much less the genuine effects of these substances than an endeavor, on the part of the organism, to annihilate, in the shortest possible period, the specific effects of those medicinal substances.
The reason why the homoeopathic doses have such an un commonly powerful effect, is this : that the organism is not obliged to expel them in the same sudden and violent manner as the large doses prescribed by alloeopathic physicians. And even those small doses, if they are not strictly homoeopathic, invite nature to artificial evacuations, which shorten the action of the remedy.
In my Organon of the healing art, 1 teach the principle that diseases can only be cured by remedies which produce analogous symptoms upon the healthy organism, and I moreover assert and prove, that every system of therapeutics in order to become a safe guide in the treatment of disease, ought to exclude all empty assertions and conjectures, as regards the supposed virtues of medicines, and ought to furnish a correct description of the symptoms by which remedial agents mani fest their action upon the healthy organism. Any one who admits the truth of these positions, will gladly seize the means which I here offer him, of relieving the affections of mankind in a speedy, durable, and much more certain manner.
This is not the place to show how the selection of a remedy, whose symptoms are analogous to the symptoms of a given case of disease, should be made. This may be studied in the Organon, which also contains the necessary directions in regard to the mode in which the homoeopathic doses should be exhibited.
To exercise its full curative action, a homoeopathic dose may be chosen of the highest degree of potency.
The symptoms of those remedies which have been studied with more care, have been arranged in a certain order. This facilitates the finding of the desired symptom. Among similar symptoms of different remedies, some ought to have been pointed out as parallel passages. My time did not permit me to attend to this.
The symptoms have been arranged in the following order :
Vertigo,
Obnubilation,
Defects of the Mind,
Defects of the Memory,
Headache, internal, external,
Forehead, Hair,
Face,
.Eyes and Sight,
Ears, Hearing, (articulation of the jaw,)
Nose, Smell,
Lips,
Chin,
Lower Jaw, (glands of the lower jaw,)
Teeth,
Tongue, (defects of speech,)
Saliva,
Throat,
Pharynx, oesophagus,
Taste,
Eructations, heart-burn, hiccough,
Nausea, vomiting,
Desire of eating and drinking,* hunger,
Pit of the Stomach, stomach,
Abdomen, Epigastrium, Region of the Liver, Hy
pochondriac Region,
Hypogastrium,
Lumbar Region^
Uterus,
Abdominal Ring,
Rectum, Anus, Perineum,
Stool,
Urine, Bladder, Urethra,
Genital Organs,
Sexual Instinct,
Generative Faculty, Effusion of Semen,
Menses. Leucorrhosa,
Sneezing, Cold, Catarrh, Hoarseness,
Cough,
Breath,
Chest,
Motion of the Heart,
Region of the Small of the Back, Lumbar Ver
tebrae,
Back,
Scapulae,
Nape of the Neck,
Neck,J
Shoulders,
Arms, Hands,
Hips, Pelvis,
Nates,
Thighs, Legs, Feet.
CH. J. HEMPEL, M. D.,
f This has sometimes been annexed to the symptoms of the back and the lumbar vertebrae.
X The symptoms of the neck are sometimes mentioned after those of the lower jaw
Common Affections of the body and the skin, Complaints in the Open Air, Exhalation, Temperature of the Body, Liability to Colds, Strains, Paroxysms, Spasms, Paralysis, Weakness, Swoon, Yawning, Sleepiness, Slumber, Sleep, Nightly Com plaints, Dreams,
Changes occurring in the Feelings, Affections of the Soul.
f This has sometimes been annexed to the symptoms of the back and the lumbar vertebrae.
X The symptoms of the neck are sometimes mentioned after those of the lower jaw
Common Affections of the body and the skin, Complaints in the Open Air, Exhalation, Temperature of the Body, Liability to Colds, Strains, Paroxysms, Spasms, Paralysis, Weakness, Swoon, Yawning, Sleepiness, Slumber, Sleep, Nightly Com plaints, Dreams,
Changes occurring in the Feelings, Affections of the Soul.
Fever, Chills, Heat, Saveat, Anguish, Palpitation of the Heart,* Uneasiness, Tremor,!
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
Coethen, January, 1830.
MATERIA MEDICA PURA VOL 2 by SAMUEL HAHNEMANN, TRANSLATED AND EDITED by CHARLES JULIUS HEMPEL, M. D.
مٹیریا میڈیکا پیورا جلد 2 سیموئل ہانیمن، مترجم چارلس جولیئس ہیمپل
PREFACE.
CHARLES JULIUS HEMPEL
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
MATERIA MEDICA PURA VOL 3 by SAMUEL HAHNEMANN, TRANSLATED AND EDITED by CHARLES JULIUS HEMPEL, M. D.
مٹیریا میڈیکا پیورا جلد 3 سیموئل ہانیمن، مترجم چارلس جولیئس ہیمپل
PREFACE.
The true homoeopathic doctrine will shine in beautiful relief in the presence of the alloeopathic nonsense ; it will chase away the night of antiquated errors. Who would despair of the ultimate triumph of common sense? It will triumph by affording certain help in diseases which have hitherto been treated with pounds and bottles of pernicious mixtures, sanctioned by routine and explained away by unintelligible twaddle.
What have you to say upon seeing the author of homoeopathy and all his true disciples cure a proportionally much larger number of patients, affected with the most inveterate chronic maladies, in a pleasant manner, and without any danger of a relapse ? Are you able to cure such chronic maladies ? Do not the results which we obtain in the treatment of such inveterate diseases, laugh to scorn your speculative skepticism, and the powerless routine of your orthodox corporation ?
If you are desirous of obtaining similar results, do as we do. If not, well, then, continue to grope in the dark, in the midnight of your theories, allured hither and thither by your celebrated authorities that leave you in the lurch just there where help is necessary, dazzling you at first like ignes fatui, and leaving you ingulfed in the slough of darkness and despond.
And then, overwhelmed with professional arrogance, headstrongness, weakness or indolence, continue to deride our sub lime art ; but remember that envy gnaws the rock of Truth in vain, and corrodes the very marrow of him who envies.
Avova §ootoTg, iEschyl. Eumen. 329.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
Leipsic, February, 1817.
MATERIA MEDICA PURA VOL 4 by SAMUEL HAHNEMANN, TRANSLATED AND EDITED by CHARLES JULIUS HEMPEL, M. D.
مٹیریا میڈیکا پیورا جلد 4 سیموئل ہانیمن، مترجم چارلس جولیئس ہیمپل
PREFACE.
He arranged the pathogenetic symptoms of drugs into asystem, which, it must be confessed, requires the most deter mined energy and perseverance to study and to master. The symptoms, as we find them arranged in the Materia Medica, seem to exhibit an incoherent skeleton of the medicinal virtues of our drugs. And yet it may be asserted a priori that all the symptoms which a drug is capable of producing in the animal organization, must be physiologically connected with one another by an invisible but nevertheless real bond. Considering the nervous system as a musical instrument and the nerves as the strings thereof, the symptoms would be like so many vibrations which the drug realizes upon that instrument.
What now remains to be done is to show the physiological unity of the symptoms of a drug, and thus to establish its unitary character, and its primary, secondary, tertiary, or its essential and accidental attributes, in a manner which shall reduce the selection of a therapeutic agent to something like a mathematical certainty. The great object of our symptoms, and that which will ultimately redeem them and cause them to triumph, is to use them as the groundwork of a new system of physiological medicine, which shall be free from foolish speculations and shall be based upon experience. The great object for us to know is, what tissues, organs, nervous trunks are primarily affected by our drugs, and how? what secondarily, and how? etc. ) and in what order are they affected ? what is the nature of the pain ? what the successive stages through which the pain may pass ? what are the exact equivalent expressions for those successive degrees of the same pain ? how is one symptom related to another or influenced by another ? How, for instance, is a buzzing in the ear related to nausea, or a darting in the temples to uneasiness and looseness in the bowels ? If we discover a certain symptom in one part of the system, in what other parts of the system ought we to look for affiliated symptoms, and what symptoms may we expect to find? These and similar questions the physiological homoeopathist ought to solve, and will solve if he understand his duty, and acquire that vast amount of anatomical and physiological science which is absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of that end.
This question is not only asked by the ordinary allopathic physicians, who vie with one another in prescribing large doses, but also by the beginners in homoeopathy.
It is very foolish in itself to doubt the efficacy of small doses, inasmuch as every practitioner can have an opportunity of witnessing their effect.
But although the effect of small doses cannot be denied, yet the deriders of homoeopathy are in the habit of ridiculing the minuteness of our doses by contrasting them with illusory similes.
" If a drop of such a highly attenuated drug were capable of producing any effect upon the system," they object, " in that case every drop of the water of the lake of Geneva, into which a drop of medicine has fallen, ought to be more highly medicinal than homoeopathic preparations, inasmuch as these contain proportionately much less medicine than the aforesaid drop would."
I reply : In preparing homoeopathic medicines, we do not simply add a small portion of medicine to an excessive quantity of an unmedicinal substance, mixing it but slightly, as must be the case in the simile above mentioned, which has been excogitated merely for the sake of derision ; on the contrary, we add but a small portion of unmedicinal substance to a drop or a grain of medicine, and by means of the processes of shaking and trituration, we not only succeed in impregnating gradually and most intimately every particle of the unmedicinal substance with the power of the medicine, but also in developing that power to an almost boundless extent. The fact that the inmost power of a medicinal agent can be infinitely developed by trituration and succession, had never been known heretofore.
We have not the means of effecting an intimate mixture of the medicinal substance with every drop of water in a lake. That mixture could not even be effected with a hogshead of water. A hundred weight of flour, if taken all at once, could not be mixed with a grain of medicine as intimately as if you took a hundred grains at a time, mixing them with the grain of medicine, and continuing to add another hundred grains of flour to one grain of every successive mixture until the whole shall have been taken. As I have said above, the peculiar mode which I have adopted for the preparation of homoeopathic medicines, effects not only an intimate union of the medicine with the nonmedicinal substances with which it is shaken or triturated, but it effects such an infinite development of the inherent virtues of the drug, that the processes of trituration and succession which I have introduced in our art, ought to be looked upon as one of the greatest discoveries of the present age.
Certain phenomena have led us to suppose that the physical virtues of some of those substances of Nature which we call matter, can be developed by trituration ; but no one has ever suspected to what an extent the dynamic power of drugs can be excited by trituration and subsequent succession.
Even the development of the physical virtues of material substances by trituration is astonishing. It is only the uninformed who consider matter something inanimate, whereas astonishingly great powers can be developed from its inmost depths by trituration.1
The uninformed see indeed the sparks of fire which start in all directions when we strike a steel against a flint ; but how many are they who have ever thought of what is really going on in that process? Almost everybody strikes thoughtlessly the steel against the flint, but very few see the wonder, the great phenomenon which is really taking place.
Those sparks are incandescent particles of steel, which, when allowed to fall upon paper, cool, and then appear as little globules of steel, which are frequently perceptible to the naked eye: or, at any rate, may be detected by means of the microscope.
What? Is it possible that the friction of steel against flint should produce heat enough to cause steel to melt? Does it not require three thousand degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer to melt steel? Whence comes this enormous heat? It does not come out of the air! For the same phenomenon takes place under the bell-jar of an air-pump. There remains nothing but friction to account for the phenomenon.
Can the common man, who thoughtlessly draws his steel out of his pocket to light a piece of tinder, imagine that this cold steel contains an inexhaustible provision of caloric in a latent condition, which is developed, or, as it were, called into existence by friction ? No, he does not believe it, and it is nevertheless true. It is only by friction that this inexhaustible provision of caloric can be elicited from the metals. Count Rumford, in the fourth volume of his writings, teaches us to heat rooms merely by quickly rubbing metallic plates against one another, without employing any fuel.
Caloric, odor,2 etc., are not the only things which are de-
1 See my treatise in the " Aligemeine Anzeiger der Deutschen," 1825, No. 194.
8 Horn, ivory, bone, limestone impregnated with petroleum, etc. have no odor in their natural form ; but when filed or rubbed they be gin to smell, and even to stink intolerably, on which account the latter has been named lapis fcetidus, although it has no smell in its original form.
veloped by friction, but the dynamic virtues of drugs are de veloped likewise.
I believe I have been the first to discover the great fact that the power of liquid medicinal substances can be developed by succession, and that of dry medicinal substances by trituration, to such an extent that substances, which in their natural crude form did not seem to have any power, acquire an astonishing medicinal power by being triturated. Gold, silver, platina, vegetable charcoal, have no influence on the human organism in their natural form. Even the most sensitive individual may take several grains of crude gold, silver or charcoal, without experiencing medicinal symptoms. But after triturating one grain of gold with ninety-nine grains of sugar of milk, and continuing this trituration up to the twelfth potency, the remedial virtues of gold become roused to such an extent, that a man who was suffering with horrible melancholy, and who was impelled by intolerable anguish to take his life, needs but to smell for a few moments of such a preparation of gold, in order to recover his cheerfulness and love of life.
It is self-evident, that in proportion as the power of medicinal substances is developed by trituration, they ought to be administered in smaller doses.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
ADDITIONS TO THE MATERIA MEDICA PURA, COLLECTED AND EDITED BY ERNST STAPF, M.D., TRANSLATED AND EDITED by CHARLES JULIUS HEMPEL, M. D.
اضافہ و ترمیم مٹیریا میڈیکا پیورا، مترجم چارلس جولیئس ہیمپل
PREFACE.
Every remedy is accompanied with extensive and most interesting clinical remarks and a variety of cases illustrative of its therapeutical uses. We doubt not but that practitioners will find a comprehensive knowledge of the pathogenetic virtues of these remedies a most valuable addition to the means of cure furnished by the Materia Medica Pura and the Chronic Diseases. Dr. Stapf has dedicated this volume to his friend Dr. Gustav Wilhelm Gross.
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
" Archive fur die homoeopathische Heilkunst." If I say against my own inclination, it is because I feel too keenly my inability to accomplish the undertaking in an adequate manner. The object which I have been desirous of obtaining, Avas to enrich the known pathogenesis of our new remedies by numerous, important, and certain symptoms, to delineate the existing symptoms with more precision, and to group them into a faithful and animated picture, and finally to illustrate the pathogenetic character of every drug by well-founded, practical remarks. No reasonable thinker who is well acquainted with the difficulties of such an undertaking, will deny that it is scarcely possible for one individual to accomplish it, and that it requires an experience of many years and of several practitioners united, to do justice to the task. 1 am confident that those whose opinion I value most highly, will judge my labor with great leniency, so much more as the work was necessary, and as practitioners are thus enabled to view and compare at one glance the pathogenetic effects of interesting drugs which had been heretofore scattered through many volumes.
The symptoms and practical remarks furnished by the able and industrious Dr. E. Seidel, of Leipsic, will be found especially interesting and useful.
I should have been glad to incorporate in this volume several drugs distinguished for their high pharmacodynamics and therapeutic importance, such as Platina, Mezereum, Anacardium, Cuprum, Antimonium. Many of their symptoms had already been recorded in the Archive ; but the request of Hahnemann to leave the arrangement of the symptoms of those drugs to him, has induced me to substitute in their stead remedies of less importance and less thoroughly proved. This can not be a subject of remark, inasmuch as Hahnemann himself has seen fit to introduce several remedies of a secondary importance, such as Taraxacum, Trifolium, etc., in his Materia Medica. If Hahnemann should not find time to communicate the above-mentioned remedies to the world, I shall then not fail to prepare them for publication, and to include them in the second volume of this work.
ERNST STAPF, M.D
To
SAMUEL CHRISTIAN FRIEDERICH HAHNEMANN
and the
GERMAN PROVERS
This Work Is Dedicated
No mere Words can Adequately
Express the Affection and Loyalty which every True Homoeopathist must feel for Hahnemann
and His Co-workers. If these Volumes of the History of Homoeopathy and its Institutions
in America in the Least Degree do Honor to Our Master, then They have not been Written
in Vain
INTRODUCTION
The homoeopathic school of medicine was founded
in Germany, but its growth has been most noteworthy in America. This has been due
not to greater ability on the part of Hahnemann's followers in this country, nor
to greater loyalty and enthusiasm among the adherents of homoeopathy here, but to
liberal laws which have enabled the physicians of this school to establish
colleges where the law of similia similibus curantur could be properly
taught, and physicians graduated who had not been prejudiced against it by contact
with the allopathic profession, whose chief aim was to imbue the mind of the
students with a belief in its supposed fallacies. The same spirit of liberality
that encouraged the building of colleges also opened the way for the founding of
hospitals and clinics, wherein the superiority of the homoeopathic treatment
has been established.
To record the growth of these institutions
in America and the labors of the men who established them under trying
circumstances, often fighting their way through storms of opposition, rising above
all difficulties, is the province of this work.
Thirty years ago Dr. Carroll Dunham undertook
the preparation of a history of homoeopathy, but ill health and an untimely
death prevented its completion by his hand, and others took up the task he was obliged
to relinquish. This history appeared in a supplemental volume of the transactions
of the World's Homoeopathic Convention held in Philadelphia during the
centennial of 1876. The substantial growth of homoeopathy in America has been since
that time. Then scarcely a homoeopathic college owned any property, and there were
few well-equipped homoeopathic hospitals in the land. To be sure, some vigorous
homoeopathic societies existed, and it is to their vigor and activity that we
owe the chief part of our advancement. These societies have been the organized force
of the school. They have furnished it with inspiration and have, at the same time,
been its critics. They have acted as censors on colleges and faculties, and m many
ways have been the parent of the vigorous homoeopathy of to-day. We owe much to
those men who, early foreseeing the difficulties which were to beset the
establishment of a new school of medicine, and recognizing the necessity of an organized
force, were moved to establish the first national medical society in the United
States, the American institute of Homoeopathy.
Like tribute may be paid to the genius of
those who organized the state societies, which in time came to exercise a strong
influence over state legislatures, as it is these bodies which govern medical practice
in this country, and conserve the welfare of the whole school. The history of medical
legislation as it relates to our school to-day is interesting, showing what was
done by a small band of men who believed in their cause, and asked for nothing
but justice against a powerful organization actuated by malice, hatred, and of times
by superstition. Were it not for the work done by our state societies most of
the institutions that we have to-day would not be in existence.
Another potent force in the building up of
the homoeopathic school of medicine has been its literature as presented in its
journals and text books. The same wisdom that foresaw the necessity of organization
foresaw the necessity of an individual literature. Homoeopathic journals were early
established, not only carrying each month fresh encouragement to the physicians
of the school, but bringing much help in the way of new proovings. thus widening
their therapeutic field. At the same time these journals kept abreast of the best
there was in the whole domain of medicine and surgery. Text books of 'homoeopathic
therapeutics were issued by the score within a comparatively short time after the
establishment of the school in America. Thus it was that the homoeopathic physician
became independent of his allopathic rival and enemy, and the increasing
strength of his school gave him confidence in his system and confidence in himself.
All this, however, was only the means to an
end. The real strength of the entire system lay in the superiority of the homoeopathic
principle over the empiricism of the then dominant school of practice. But no matter
how great an advancement our system may have been over that already in
practice, it could not by its truth alone have made headway against bigotry, which
is sometimes called conservatism, together with an animosity which is not scientific
and which in this case reflects no credit on the self-styled regular school of
medicine.
It was no easy task that our predecessors
set for themselves in establishing a new school of medicine under these conditions,
and what we are to-day. and what we will be in the future, we owe to the ability,
energy and self-sacrificing character of those who fought the battle when it was
raging hottest and who never swerved from the course they had laid out for themselves.
It is to preserve the work of these men that this history has been written.
This history of homoeopathy takes up events
in their natural sequence. After a resume of Hahnemann's life and the events attending
the founding of the system in Europe, it brings us to America with the landing in
New York of Hans Burch Gram and the planting of homoeopathy in the metropolis. Of
much greater importance, however, was the landing of Constantine Hering and his
comrades, and the opening of the Allentown Academy, afterwards the college in Philadelphia.
That was really the nucleus of the homoeopathic school in America. From these two
points the growth of homoeopathy in every state, city and territory, and the founding
of societies, colleges and hospitals are taken up in convenient order.
In preparing a comprehensive history of homoeopathy
and its institutions, it has been necessary to draw information from many and varied
sources. The names of the collaborators are sufficient to guarantee the sincerity
and thoroughness of the work. They are not only the representative men and women
of the school, but the subjects upon which they have written have been those of
which they were above all the most competent to treat, and their personal sympathy
and interest has given to their papers a value which could not attach to the work
of the ordinary writer of historical facts. Each contributor has done his work cheerfully,
and any words which might be set down here, no matter how fulsome in praise, would
but poorly express the appreciation which the editor and publishers feel for
their careful and faithful assistance.
The great aim has been reliability, and
no pains have been spared to make it such a work as will live in the annals of
true history.
HISTORY OF HOMOEOPATHY
and
ITS INSTITUTIONS IN AMERICA
CHAPTER I
The Subject Introduced—Discovery in Medical Science—Brief Allusion to the Founder —
Homoeopathy in Germany
— Bohemia—Austria—Russia—France—Italy—America
Sweden—Great Britain-Spain—Belgium—Cuba.
The discovery of glaring
and inconsistencies in the practice and administration of medicine during the last
quarter of the eighteenth century led to the promulgation of a safer method of cure
than the world had before known. It is said that evolution and development were
the talismanic watchwords of the nineteenth century, during which were made the
greatest strides in advancement in the arts and sciences that the world had known
in all history, and that among the thousands of remarkable discoveries which marked
that century most of them dated within the last half thereof. This may be true,
and if it is homoeopathy is to be credited to the advances in medical science
of the preceding century, and to have attained its greatest degree of development
and perfection during the last fifty years.
Homoeopathy at the beginning
of the twentieth century rests on the solid fundamental principle established by
its founder more than a hundred years ago, and from that beginning has advanced
in every conceivable direction, keeping even step with the grand march of progress
in every branch of science throughout all subsequent time.
It was not that Hahnemann
was raised up for his special mission in life; he was born and raised and trained
as were others of his time ; in childhood and youth endowed with mental qualities
as were those with whom he associated, not more gifted than they, perhaps, but,
unlike them, was possessed of a studious mind, an inquiring nature, and he
loved the companionship of his books more than the pleasures of idle hours, and
far more than he loved his father's workshop, v/here he was sought to be kept
with the brushes and paints and porcelain wares until he was skilled in the art
of his father. But whatever the environment of his youth, his early advantages in
education and his ultimate determination to enter upon the life of a physician,
Hahnemann was in many respects a remarkable man, and what he did was only the right
employment of the talents with which he had been endowed by nature and directed
by circumstances.
It has been said with much
truth that the early history of homoeopathy in Germany was only the history of Hahnemann's
life in that country, the story of which is told by Bradford in these pages, as
it has been told by hundreds of other commentators. "It is easy to show,"Pulhman
says of Hahnemann, "that when he advanced his new doctrine he not only made
opposition to the spirit of that time, but that he necessarily paid a tribute
to the latter by planting the roots of the new system into the old soil. We know
from his biography that he withdrew in disgust from the old shallow mode of
practice and devoted himself for some time to the study of chemistry."
To appreciate the worth
of Hahnemann's character one must also know something of the condition of medicine
in his time, but a thorough study of this subject leads into a limitless field,
dangerous and uncertain even to the cautious logician of the twentieth century,
for the greatest achievements in this particular branch of science are credited
to the last fifty years. This is true not only of the homoeopathic school, but as
well of the so-called (by themselves) regular school.
But the opponents of
the doctrine propounded by Hahnemann, and improved upon and elaborated by his more
modern followers, never have regarded homoeopathy in the light of advanced medical
science, and with the truth before them of the enlightened age in which they live,
still characterize the principles of similia similibus curantur as one of the fallacies
of a former era ; but they practice it, at times consult its " dogmatic "
theories, and having intelligently investigated and compared it with the teachings
under which they themselves were schooled, they are frequently led to accept its
truths and employ them in practice. It is a fact that in America to-day just about
one-sixth part of the medical practitioners employing the agencies of cure
taught exclusively in homoeopathic schools are graduates of- allopathic colleges,
and that notwithstanding the fact that of the hundred schools of medical instruction
in America only one-fifth of them are distinctly homoeopathic in teaching.
Hahnemann propounded his
startling dogma in Germany in 1790, after which the new school passed through many
wonderful and prolonged tests, trials and opposition before it was recognized and
tolerated in other countries. But the seed had been sown in fertile German soil,
grew there and flourished, and eventually spread out its branches into other lands.
According to Altschul, the new doctrine was introduced in Bohemia in 1817, and in
the next year Veith, the great nestor, had his attention directed to it by Krastiansky.
the famous army surgeon. In Austria it found lodgment in 1819, with Gossner practicing
in Oberhollabrun and Mussek in Seafeld. But in the same year Emperor Francis I ordered
that " Dr. Hahnemann's homoeopathic method of cure should be generally and
strictly forbidden;" but the prohibition was only temporary. In Russia the
system was first introduced by laymen as early as 1823, and soon afterward Dr. Adams,
the friend of Hahnemann, began practice in St. Petersburg. France caught the infection
in 1830. when the new doctrine found there its first expounder in Count des Guidi,
a doctor of medicine, doctor of science, and inspector of the University at Lyons,
who had occasion to consult de Romani, a homoeopathic physician of great
reputation in Naples.
In writing of the
introduction of homoeopathy into Italy, Dadea, M.D. of Turin, says the seed was
sown in the soil of Naples by the Austrians who entered that city in March, 1821,
"to deprive its noble inhabitants of the liberty they had gained by the
revolution of the same year. The general in command of the army of occupation, Baron
Francis Koller, a devoted friend of homoeopathy,
presented to the Royal Academy of Naples a copy of Hahnemann's Organon and Materia
Medica, inviting them to make use of it for the benefit of conscience and humanity."
Gram carried the new system
on his voyage to America in 1825, when he set foot on the soil of New York, then,
as now, the first city in the land, and he the first exponent of the doctrine, a
scholar, teacher, and in every respect a gentleman, but not well calculated to combat
the prejudices of those who made war on his principles. This was the home-coming
of Gram, but the tidings he bore found no warm welcome on this side of the
Atlantic.
Further than this it does
not become this chapter to treat of homoeopathy in
Dr. Johann Ernst Stapf.
America, that being the
principal subject of the greater work of which these comments arc only introductory.
The honor of having introduced
homoeopathy in Sweden is accorded to Dr. George Wahlenberg, a professor in the University
of Upsala, whose duties required him to lecture on the subjects of botany and pharmacia
and organica, and who in order to qualify himself for his work felt bound to study
the few homoeopathic books then extant; and having studied them, he became convinced
of their rational truth, although he himself never practiced the new system. This
honor fell to Leidbeck and Souden. whose first proselyte was Sonderberg, the eminent
botanist and ornithologist, who had settled in the little ancient town of Sigtuna.
History of Homoeopathy and its Institutions in America
Materia Medica Pura (PDF, editable)
Organon of Medicine 6th edition
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