History of Homeopathy II (1)
In today’s post dedicated to the series The History of Homeopathy, we continue with Samuel Hahnemann and how the account of the Peruvian bark experiment epitomized Hahnemann. First, he was translating Cullen’s work, with suggests that he was one of the more respected translators of his day. By the time he was only 24, Hahnemann could read and write in at least seven languages. He ultimately translated over twenty major medical and scientific texts.
This story reveals Hahnemann as both an avid experimenter and a respected chemist. He had authored a four-volume set of books called The Pharmaceutical Lexicon, which was considered one of the standard reference texts for apothecaries/pharmacists of his day.(2) And this account also reveals Hahnemann as an audacious rebel. He was unafraid to speak his mind, even if it meant correcting the analysis of a very respected physician. He was unafraid to question commonly accepted truths. And he had enough initiative to seek his own alternative explanations.
Hahnemann was particularly disliked by the apothecaries, because he recommended the use of only one medicine at a time and prescribed only limited doses of it. (3) Because he recommended only small doses of each medicine, the apothecaries could not charge much for them. And because each medicine required careful preparation, Hahnemann found that the apothecaries did not always make them correctly or intentionally gave his patients different medicines. As he grew to distrust the apothecaries, he chose to dispense his own medicines, which was illegal at the time in Germany. The apothecaries then accused Hahnemann of “entrenching upon their privileges by the dispensing of medicines.” (4) Arrested in Leipzig in 1820, he was found guilty and forced to move.
He moved to Kothen, where he was delegated special permission to practice and to dispense his own medicines by Grand Duke Ferdinand, one of the many members of European royalty who supported homeopathy.(5)
Despite the persecution, homeopathy continued to grow. It grew not just because it offered a systematic approach to treating sick people but also because orthodox medicine was often ineffective and even dangerous. There is general agreement among medical historians today that orthodox medicine of the 1700s and 1800s frequently caused more harm than good. (6)
Bloodletting and the application of leeches were common practice up to the mid-1800s. One French doctor blood let so much that some people jokingly estimated that he spilled more blood in his medical practice than was spilled throughout the entire Napoleonic Wars. (7) Benjamin Rush, considered the father of American medicine, asserted that bloodletting was useful in all general and chronic disease.” As many as 41 million leeches were imported into France in 1833 alone. (8)
The most important reason that homeopathy developed such immense popularity was its success in treating the various epidemic diseases that raged throughout America and Europe during the 1800s. Statistics indicate that the death rates in homeopathic hospitals from these epidemics were often one half to as little as one eighth those in orthodox medical hospitals.
If homeopathy was proven so effective why was, and generally still is, there so much opposition from the orthodox medical establishment? Find out by reading: Opposition of Homeopathy I.
Beste Gesundheit,
Werner
1. Ullman D. (1991).Discovering Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. pp. 33-51
2. Cook T. (1981). Samuel Hahnemann: The Founder of Homoeopathic Medicine. Wellingborough, England: Thorsons. pp. 71-77
2. Coulter H. (1977). Divided Legacy. Washington, D.C.: Wehawken. vol. 2, p. 310
3. Cook T. (1981). Samuel Hahnemann: The Founder of Homoeopathic Medicine. Wellingborough, England: Thorsons. p. 127
4. Haehl R. (1983) Samuel Hahnemann: His life and work. B. Jain Publishers. p. 108
5. Cook T. (1981). Samuel Hahnemann: The Founder of Homoeopathic Medicine. Wellingborough, England: Thorsons. p. 130
6. Starr P. (1982). The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York, New York: Basic.
7. Cook T. (1981). Samuel Hahnemann: The Founder of Homoeopathic Medicine. Wellingborough, England: Thorsons. p. 39
8. Cook T. (1981). Samuel Hahnemann: The Founder of Homoeopathic Medicine. Wellingborough, England: Thorsons. p. 39