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H I STORY
OF
HOMCEOPATHY:
Its Origm ; Its Conflicts.
^if^ an ^ppen6t-e on f^c present sfafe of
^nit)ersifj? "§iTe6tctne.
WILHELM AMEKE, M.D.
(Of Berlin).
TRANSLATED BY
ALFRED E. DRYSDALE, M.B.
(Of Cannes).
EDITED BY
R. E. DUDGEON, M.D.
<4Eon6on :
PUBLISHED FOR
THE BRITISH HOMCEOPATHIC SOCIETY,
BY
E. GOULD & SON, 59, MOORGATE STREET.
LONDON :
PRINTED BY JOHN BALE AND SON, 87-S9, GREAT TITCHFIELD STREET,
MARYLEBONE, W.
Biomedicftl
Library
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
n^HE history of homoeopathy is the indictment of the
-•■ medical profession. A physician distinguished above
his fellows for his services to medicine, chemistry and
pharmacology, endowed with quite a phenomenal talent
for ancient and modern languages, and well read in all
the medical lore of past times, after mature thought and
at a ripe age, announces to the profession that, as the
result of years of arduous experiment, investigation
and reflection, he believes he has discovered a therapeutic
rule which will enable us to find the remedies for diseases
with greater certainty and precision than can be effected
by any of the methods hitherto taught. The reception
which this announcement met with, and which was given
to all Hahnemann's subsequent efforts to give certainty
and scientific accuracy to therapeutics, is described in
the following pages, and forms one of the most melan-
choly and deplorable episodes in the history of medicine.
Homoeopathy having had its origin in Germany, and
its founder having spent his long life chiefly in that
country, it is natural to expect that the historical events
of homoeopathy have occurred chiefly, at all events
primarily, in Germany. Hahnemann's active life was
carried on in Germany, and his works were written in
German or in Latin, which in his early days was the
language often employed by medical and scientific authors.
7639S5
iv Editor s Preface.
The main incidents of Hahnemann's life and the chief
sphere of his activity being Germany, the history of
homoeopathy is practically its history in Germany, and
the task of writing it could most appropriately be under-
taken by a fellow-countryman of Hahnemann.
How well Dr. Ameke has performed his self-imposed
task, the English reader has now an opportunity of seeing.
He has brought into full prominence the labours and
industry of his hero before he commenced those investi-
gations that led to his discovery of the therapeutic rule
which he first enunciated as the general principle of
medical practice. He clearly shows that Hahnemann
was as far in advance of his chemical contemporaries in
their special science, as he afterwards surpassed all his
medical contemporaries in their special art. He also
brings out the fact that Hahnemann, before his discovery
of the homoeopathic rule, had acquired a great reputation for
his improvements in the practice of medicine, in pharma-
cology, and especially in hygiene, a branch of medicine
which he may almost be said to have created. We see
in this history the high esteem in which he was held by
his contemporaries, and especially by the Nestor of Ger-
man physic, Hufeland, who never lost his respect for
Hahnemann's genius and services to medicine even when
he differed from him in opinion.
The high esteem in which Hahnemann was held by
the most illustrious of his contemporaries contrasts re-
markably with the unworthy treatment he received from
the next generation of medical men, who knew him only
as the propagator of a medical system, which, if it were
true or even only partially true, must upset all the teach-
ings and traditions of medicine. However we may regret,
we cannot wonder at the desperate efforts of the sup-
porters of Galenic medicine to discredit the new system
which threatened the annihilation of all their most cher-
ished doctrines and methods.
Editor's Preface. v
It must strike every unprejudiced observer as a very
hopeless way of suppressing a novel system of therapeutics,
to abuse and calumniate its author, to persecute its ad-
herents by criminal processes, coroners' inquests, expul-
sion from medical societies, deprivation of hospital ap-
pointments, exclusion from periodical literature, and social
and professional ostracism. One would think that the
right way would be to afford them opportunities in hospitals
to test its value side by side with traditional methods,
to court discussion in societies and periodicals, to make
careful experiments with the remedies and the mode of
their employment recommended by its partisans, more
especially as those partisans were the equals of the others
in social and professional status — integral parts of the
same professional brotherhood. That the dominant ma-
jority preferred the former plan, only shows that they
were doubtful of the superiority of their own methods,
which, nevertheless, they constantly vaunted as the only
" regular," " scientific " and " rational " ones.
Time has shown that Hahnemann was right at least
in his condemnation of the cherished methods of tra-
ditional medicine, for we have seen them all abandoned
one by one by the champions of orthodoxy, until nothing
was left but blank nihilism, euphemistically called " ex-
pectancy." After arriving at this zero, the mercury of
medical opinion was bound to undergo a reaction, which
we now see in the search for specifics (which, for the most
part, are sought for and found in the homoeopathic
materia medica) ; the physiological experiments on man
and beasts — but principally beasts — in order to discover
the remedial power of drugs ; the germ-theory with its
corollary germicide medicines and methods ; the tentative
employment of new and powerful drugs, and the use of ice-
cold bathing and other "anti-pyretics" in almost all dis-
eases with heightened temperature.
vi Editoi^s Preface.
As our old-school brethren have approximated so much
to the teachings of Hahnemann, chiefly by abandoning-
what he disapproved, but also, to some degree, by adopting
what he recommended, it might be expected that their
hostility towards his professed adherents would have
ceased. But this is far from being the case. The more
they are indebted to homceopathy, the less do they seem
disposed to admit its adherents to the full communion
of brotherhood. They have so long abused and calum-
niated Hahnemann and his doctrines that they seem
unable to give up their long-indulged habit. Not being
able now to revile us for our disparagement of the methods
they have themselves discarded, nor for our belief in the thera-
peutic rule of " similia siviilibiis awentui'l' which they now
generally acknowledge to be one of the methods of medi-
cine, their sole grievance is that we call ourselves homoe-
opathists (which we do not any more than they call them-
selves allopathists — we only accept the name for want
of a better, to avoid circumlocution, and to indicate that
we acknowledge a general therapeutic rule which our op-
ponents do not), and thus commit the unpardonable sin
of " trading on a name," an accusation which is manifestly
absurd, as that is but a poor trade in which all the gains of
the profession in the way of emoluments and honours are
withheld from those who exercise it. What is considered
a sin in us does not seem to be so regarded in their own
ranks when used by oculists, aurists, gynecologists, ovarioto-
mists, laryngoscopists and other specialists, who trade on a
name to all intents and purposes, and are quite right in so
doing. The objections to homoeopathy being practically re-
duced to this fanciful charge, it is evident that the attitude of
the representatives of traditional medicine towards their re-
forming brethren must soon change, and they must allow
homceopathy to take its proper place in medicine. When
that is the case, the history of the origin and the conflicts of
Editor's Preface. vii
homoeopathy will be read with interest by the school which
now presents a hostile front to that of Hahnemann, for it
will feel that it has purged itself of the reproach of op-
posing the truth by its late acknowledgement of its error.
My share in the work is that I have carefully revised Dr.
Drysdale's manuscript and have superintended its passage
through the press ; I have also added an index and a few
notes which serve to complete the history in some places
where it seemed defective.
R. E. DUDGEON.
London,
September, i88^.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
'"T^HE subject (homoeopathy) becomes all the more im-
^ portant," so Hufeland declared in 1826,* "if the
originator is a man who commands our respect. And
no one will be able to deny that this is the case with
Hahnemann, and least of all one who is in the position
of the author of this essay, whose acquaintance with
Hahnemann is of long standing, and who, connected
with him for more than thirty years by ties both of friend-
ship and of letters, valued him always as one of our most
distinguished, intelligent and original medical men."
The same author writes, four years later -.f '•' The first
thing that influenced me was the fact that I held it wrong
and unworthy of science to treat the new doctrine with
ridicule and contempt . Despotism and
oppression are obnoxious to me, especially in scientific
matters ; in science, impartiality, careful investigation, sift-
ing of evidence, together with mutual respect and strict
adherence to the matter in hand, should prevail, and per-
sonalities be strictly excluded. Added to this was the
respect I had long felt for the author, which was in-
* Jour. f. prakt. Arsneik., St. i, p. 7.
t L.c, 1830, St. 2, p. 20.
X Authors Preface.
spired by his earlier writings and the important services
he had rendered to medicine ; besides this, the names of
many worthy and unprejudiced men who testified to the
positive truth there was in the matter could not but carry
weight. I will only recall the names of President v. Wolf
of Warsaw, Medical Counsellor Rau of Giessen, and
Medical Counsellor Widnmann of Munich.
" I had subsequently the opportunity of observing many
instances of good results from the use of homceopathic
remedies, which necessarily drew my attention to this
subject and convinced me that it ought not to be con-
temptuously pushed on one side, but deserves careful in-
vestigation."
This judgment of the impartial Hufeland is in sharp
contrast with the utterances of the majority of allopathic
authors, who, on innumerable occasions, did not hesitate
to speak of homoeopathy as " a delusion " and " a system
of deception ;" of Hahnemann, its founder, as the " greatest
charlatan," and of homceopathic practitioners as "im-
postors" or "deceived deceivers," and who do not shrink
from expressing themselves in a similar strain even in our
own time.
There have been numerous replies from the homoeo-
pathic side, and it has been shown that much earnestness,
study and truth are involved in the matter. Strange to
say, no single adherent of Hahnemann has undertaken to
describe his pre-homceopathic labours, his studies and
achievements at that time, or his intense striving after
truth. What position did he previously take among his
medical colleagues ? What course of development did he
go through before he brought forward his medical prin-
ciples ?
These questions are of importance in forming a judg-
ment respecting the founder of homoeopathy. Many of its
adversaries have accordingly hastened to answer these
Author'' s Preface. xi
questions, and that in a hostile sense. Thus a certain Dr.
Simon, whose works serve even to the present day as an
arsenal from which most of our opponents draw their
weapons, writes thus : " Hahnemann is the same unreli-
able ignoramus, whether viewed as a man of science or
as a physician."* Further : " what we especially miss in
him is acumen. The want of the capacity to seize clearly
and to pursue a train of thought, appears unpleasantly in
everytJiing he ever wrote."
Another opponent. Professor Sachs — who is termed by
the Hanoverian physician, Stieglitz, " an author of great
talent," and that in reference to his anti-homoeopathic
books — holds the following views : " Hahnemann has
ahuays shown himself weak in the region of solid thinking.
He is incapable of radically grasping and following out
thoroughly even a simple thought."!
All his opponents seem to be unanimous in the opinion
that vanity and avarice were the moving springs of his
public career, just as in recent times all agree in the asser-
tion that his capacity and knowledge as a physician were of
the slenderest description. In the following treatise it is
proposed to consider the career of Hahnemann from a non-
hostile point of view. After a glimpse at his chemical
labours and a short review of his contributions towards
the perfecting of the art of pharmacy, we will proceed to a
consideration of his medical development, and conclude
with a description of Hahnemann as a man.
The second part is intended to give the reader an idea of
the methods used in combating the new doctrine, by means
of which a gap in the literature of the subject will be filled.
* AntiJiouwopathisches Archtv, Vol. I., Pt. 2, p. 25.
f Versiich zu cinein Schlitsswort iiber S. HaJuiemami^s Jwvi. Syst..
Leipzig, 1S26, p. 57.
xii Ajtthor's Preface.
and, in conclusion, a short sketch of the present condition
of medicine at the universities will be given.
AMEKE.
Berlin, end of iSSj.
CONTENTS.
Editor's Preface . . . . . . ' . . . . . iii
Author's Preface ix
PART I.
The Origin of Homoeopathy.
Hahnemann's Services to Chemistry and Pharmacy.
State of Chemistry in Hahnemann's days ...... i
Hahnemann's Translations of Demachy . . . . . . .8
Hahnemann's Arsenka/ Poisoning . . . . . . . -IS
Hahnemann's Contributions to Crell's Annalen ..... i8
Hahnemann's Detection of Drug Adulteration . . . . .21
Hahnemann's "Wine Test" ......... 25
Hahnemann's " Mercurius SoUibilis " ....... 30
Hahnemann's Apothekerlexicon . ....... 32
Hahnemann's Translations of Chemical and Pharmacological Works . 39
Acknowledgments of Hahnemann's services to Chemistry and Pharmacy
by Contemporaries .......... 41
Hahnemann as a Physician.
State of Medicine when Hahnemann appeared 42
Natural Philosophy 46
Contemporaneous Physiological Chemistry 49
Chemical Theories and Systems . . . . . . . -5^
Contemporaneous Therapeutics ........ 53
Pathological Anatomy .......... 5^
Medical Courtesy 57
Appeal for State Help .......... 5^
What medical instruction did Hahnemann get ? . . . ... 58
Hahnemann's work on the Treatment of Ulcers ..... 59
Hahnemann's work on Venereal Diseases ...... 64
Hahnemann's translation of Cullen 65
xiv Contents.
PAGE
Hahnemann's treatment of Lunatics ....... 67
Hahnemann's views on Venesection ....... 67
Contemporary views on Itch ......... 69
New medicines introduced by Hahnemann ...... 74
Hahnemann on simple prescriptions ....... 78
Hahnemann's attacks on the medicine of his day . . . . -87
Hahnemann's criticism of the treatment of Leopold H. . . . .88
Proving of medicines on the healthy ....... 99
Similia Similibus . . . . . . . . . . .103
Hahnemann's idea of disease . . . . ... . . .112
Hahnemann's mode of preparing medicines . . . . . .117
Hahnemann's attitude towards the sciences auxiliary to medicine . .132
Hahnemann and the Apothecaries . 139
Hahnemann's writings in chronological order . . . . . .145
Hahnemann as a JIan.
Birth and Parentage 150
Education 151
Wanderings 152
First Marriage . I53
Removal to Coethen . . . . . . . . . • 155
Personality and Character . , . . . . . . .156
Second Marriage . . . . . . . . . . .165
Death 166
Testimonies of old school physicians to his services to medicine . . 16S
PART n.
The Opposition to HomcEopatliy.
Criticism of Hahnemann's first homoeopathic essay . . . . .172
Der allgemeine Anzeiger del' Deiitsclien . . . . . . .178
Criticism of Hahnemann's Oi-ganoii ... .... 180
Criticism of Hahnemann's Dc Hcllcborisvio Vetcruin . . . .184
Hahnemann's treatment of Prince Schwarzenberg ..... 186
Attacks on Hahnemann in Leipzic . . . . . . . .187
Opinions of various authors on homoeopathy ...... 187
Opinions of the opponents of homceojjathy in regard to bloodletting,
emetics and purgatives . . . . . . . . .199
" Scientific " reasons for bloodletting ....... 218
Dietl's experiments .......... 220
Criminal prosecution of homoeopaths for abandoning "scientific" methods
of treatment 222
Hahnemann's attack on the blood-letters ...... 228
Behaviour of allopaths to honiceopaths 233
Contents. xv
PAGE
Cholera and its allopathic treatment 235
The censorship used to suppress homoeopathic writings . . . .251
Death of the Emperor Francis 1 256
Treatment of Goethe 258
Death of Cavour 259
Kopp on homoeopathy .......... 263
Allopathic opinions on the proving of medicines 268
Allopathic opinions on the probable duration of homoeopathy . . . 270
The spread of homoeopathy 275
Appeals for State help 278
Causes of the spread of homoeopathy 282
An anti-homreopathic periodical 285
Hahnemann's alleged avarice ......... 287
" Alkali pneum " ........... 288
Letter to the father of the epileptic 292
Hahnemann's alleged denial of the vis mcdicatrix natiircE . . . 297
Hahnemann's alleged theft of his system from older writers . . . 300
Trials of homoeopathy by its opponents 308
Public trials of homoeopathy by its partisans 312
Recent attacks on homoeopathy . , . . . . . .321
Retrospect 370
APPENDIX.
Modern University Medicine,
Historical 375
Virchow's cellular doctrine 379
Bacteria 3^9
Symptomatic treatment. .......... 395
Mixture-giving 39^
Frequent change of medicine ......... 39^
Medicines at present in vogue ..... .... 398
Treatment of pneumonia ......... 4^7
Anti-pyretic treatment 4^9
Treatment of diphtheria .......... 421
Conclusion ............ 425
PART I.
The Origin of Homoeopathy.
HAHNEMANN'S SERVICES TO CHEMISTRY
AND PHARMACY.
The condition of chemical knowledge at the time of
Hahnemann's appearance was briefly the following : —
Till Lavoisier's discoveries the teachings of John Joachim
Becher (1635-1683), and G. E. Stahl (1660- 1734), especially
the doctrine of phlogiston were of fundamental importance
to chemists. One of their ardent adherents was Neumann,
Professor of Chemistry in the Academy ©f Berlin. In
his book on medical chemistry, in 1756,* he writes :
" That the earth is the elementary principle from which all
things were derived and created, is clear from the descrip-
tion of the creation in the Bible where it is written : In the
beginning God created heaven and earth, and there is no
mention of water." Water is nothing else than a kind of
transparent earth called ice, made fluid by warmth. It
consists of four elements, {lb. ii. 399). There are three
kinds of earth, a terra vitrescens (from which with water
the principium salinum and acidum universale are derived),
a terra mercurialis and a terra sulphurea or inflammabilis.
* Ziillichau, 1756, 2nd edit., Preface to Vol. II. He died in 1737.
I
2 State of Chemistry
Bcchcr is the first to whom the properties of the principium
inflammabile were known. Stahl explained and elucidated
Becher's theory, he called the inflammable principle
" phlogiston." Without it nothing in the world can burn
{ib. II., 979)- Sulphur accordingly consists of sulphuric acid
and phlogiston. Phosphorus is composed of phosphoric
acid and phlogiston, &c. This work of Neumann's enjoyed
a great reputation, was translated into English, and by
means of extracts was made accessible to a still larger
German public.
Although Neumann was often cited as an authority even
in Hahnemann's times,* some progress had been never-
theless made since his day. In 1783, however, Dahlberg,
the president of the Academy of Erfurt, still considered it
necessary to undertake some careful experiments with the
view of discovering whether water can be resolved into
earth.-|-
There were even some alchemists still existing. In 1784J
authors could still speak of " the hope of our alchemists,
among whom there are many incredibly ignorant persons."
The great difficulty in the matter of chemical research con-
sisted in the fact that few or even no elementary bodies
were known and accepted into which the constituents of
compound bodies could be resolved. Now the chemist
asks of what known elements is this or that substance com-
posed. TJien chemists were still searching for the " funda-
mental essence " of bodies, they were inquiring : " what
unknown something lies hidden in them ? " A few
examples will show the great confusion which then pre-
vailed in chemistry.
The celebrated Scheele, an apothecary at Koping, in
Sweden,§ was searching in 1787 for the colouring matter
in Prussian blue. The search was still going on in 1796.II
* E.g.^ in the New Edinburgh Dispensatory^ translated by Hahne-
mann in 1797 and 1798.
t Ncio chemical experitnetits to solve the question: Can water be
changed into earth ? Erfurt, 1783-4.
X Crell's Chcmische Afinalen, I., 236.
§ Crell's Chem. Ann., I., 184
II lb., I., 45.
in Hahnemann's Time. 3
Morveau, in 1787, speaks of the " light principle " and of
the "illuminating matter" in phosphorus.* In 1789 the
excellent chemist Westrumbt " discovered " that acetic acid
was the basis of all vegetable acids. De la Metheriej believes
that all vegetable acids can be resolved into one single acid.
In 1790 Westrumb looked upon phosphoric acid as the
final result of the decomposition of vegetable acids and
inquired :§ "Does phosphoric acid perhaps lie concealed
in nitric acid ? " Two years before|j he had found the same
acid in Prussian blue, " I consider inflammable air," so he
wrote in 1791,11 "to be very composite and to be com-
pounded of phlogiston, caloric, water, phosphoric acid, &c."
" It can be theoretically explained, according to Herr Kir-
wan's theory," so wrote a chemist in 1789, "that common
mnriatic acid consists of the special basis, phlogiston, and
a certain amount of carbonic acid."**
Professor Winterl made known at about the same time
certain experiments,!! according to which " copper consists
of nickel, plumbago, silica and carbonic acid, and of a
certain substance which escapes in boiling which unites
plumbago, silica, and carbonic acid in the alkaline ley."
The same chemist changed muriatic acid into nitric acid.||
Professor Vogt, even in I795,§§ recognises an earthy, a
watery, an aerial, an acid, an alkaline, &c., basic element.
Lowiz, the principal apothecary and professor of chemistry
in St. Petersburg, discovered in 1793III! " true inflamma-
bility in the purest acetic acid, and separated phosphoric
acid from it by means of inflammable salt gas."
We may here insert the following extract from a table
of chemical relations by Professor Gren belonging to the
year iygi.^%
* Crell's Chem. Ann.^ II., 243 i| lb., 1788, I., 148.
and 460. 1" lb., I., 146
t lb., preface, 1789. ** lb., II., 136.
X lb., I., 276. ft lb., 221,
§ lb., I., 434. %% lb., I., 319
§§ Trommsdorff s /<7Z/fr. der Pharmacie, II., st. i, p. 187.
nil Crell's Ann., I., 220, 223. J. F. Gmelin, Gcsch. d. Chemie. Got-
tingen, 1799, HI., 391.
^^ M.o\\xo^s Materia :]Iedica, translated by Hahnemann, Conclusion.
4 Lavoisier s Overthozv of
(There were affinities in the wet way and in the drj' way.
FIRE.
AIR.
WATER.
RESIN.
GUM.
ALCOHOL.
Fire . . .
Accumula-
tion.
Phlogisti-
cated air.
Gaseous
steam
Carbon
Carbon
Vapour.
Air ...
Combustion
Accumulation
Penetrating
steam
Ash
Ash
Water.
Gaseous
steam
Water with
fixed air
(Carbonic
acid).
Accumula-
tion
'
Solution
Brandy.
According to this fire plus gas = phlogisticated air. Fire
plus water = penetration. Fire plus gum = carbon, &c.
The great Lavoisier was destined to put an end to these
vain speculations, but not without the most vehement
opposition and long-continued resistance of the upholders
of the phlogiston theoiy.
The struggle with regard to phlogiston took place at the
time of Hahnemann's chemical labours. In 1770 Lavoisier
showed that water does not change into earth, but that it
is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. In 1774 he proved
that the increase of weight that takes place when metals are
oxydised is caused by the incorporating of air. In 1777,
1780 and 1783 he published his experiments, which had
been made with an exactness hitherto unknown and with
the aid of imposing apparatus, and proved that the increase
of weight which takes place when phosphorus and sulphur
are burnt, is equal to the loss of weight of the air in which
the burning takes place. He concluded that that ingredient
of air which was transferred to the burnt substances was the
constituent common to all acids — hence he called it
" oxygen " — translated by the Germans into " Sauerstoff,"
and which Priestley and Scheele had discovered a short
time before as a peculiar kind of air (dephlogisticated air).*
The principles of chemistry which had been hitherto
accepted were discussed in Crell's Annalen ; in 1874, therefore
Comp. Gmelin, I.e. III., 279, ct scq.
the Phlogiston Theory. 5
14 years later (I. 95), we find the statement — " Lavoisier
and Landriani are said to have converted inflammable air
(hydrogen) and dephlogisticated air (oxygen) into water,"
and this was confirmed by Cavendish {ib. I. 479). In 1786
those celebrated men, Kirwan, Cavendish and Scheele
opposed Lavoisier, who disputed the existence of phlo-
giston.*
In 1787 the prize theme of the Academy of Orleans was
" Is water a compound substance, or is it simple and an
element ? " (I. 288). Professor Hermbstadt of Berlin spoke
against Lavoisier's analysis of water, and held oxygen to
be the primary originating matter of fire (I. 296). De
la Metherie was opposed to Lavoisier's experiments,
"which do not destroy the older view."t Kirwan (II. 156)
in Dublin and Dollfuss (II, 162) in London took phlogiston
under their protection. The latter speaks of " Kirwan's
masterly defence of phlogiston against the already fashion-
able theory of Lavoisier." The chemists, Morveau, Ber-
tholet, Foureroy, Mongez, de la Place, Vandermonde,
Cousin, le Gendre, Cadet, and Hassenfratz met during
three months three times a week at Lavoisier's house, in
order to decide upon new technical terms and new chemical
signs, " by means of which, as is the case in geometry,
savants of all nations may be able to understand each
other." The results were laid before the Royal Academy
of Sciences in Paris {ib. II. 58).
1788: Priestley (II. 49, 50) came forward to defend
phlogiston and to oppose Lavoisier's analysis of water.
Lavoisier (II. 51) converted phlogisticated air (nitrogen)
and dephlogisticated air (oxygen) into nitric acid by
means of the electric current. De la Metherie writes : (II.
139) "phlogiston still finds friends in Kirwan and Priestley
and in the majority of natural philosophers. The new
nomenclature (of Lavoisier and his French adherents) is
universally rejected." Lavoisier (II. 262) mentions a
method of increasing the effect of fire in chemical opera-
* Trommsdorf 's y(9z^r. d. Phariii. II., St. 4, p. 2i7-
t Crell's Attnalen, I., 552, and II. 332.
6 Opposition of the Chemists
tions by means of oxygen. He gives tables showing
" the quantity of oxygen which combines with various
metals when dissolved in acids and when precipitated by
one another" {ib. 464). According to the opinion of
the court apothecary, RUckert of Ingelfingen, the green in
plants is derived from phlogiston (II. 513). A prize theme
of the academy at Copenhagen requires the analysis of
phlogisticated air (nitrogen) and asks " whether phlogisti-
cated air loses phlogiston by detonation " (II. 479).
1789 : Professor Klaproth says : (I. 1 1) " I reduced some
white manganese calx, which I had precipitated from the
solution in phlogisticated nitric acid by tartaric alkali
in a crucible and obtained a regulus of finely grained
structure. Hardly had I freed it from the adhering coal
dust and placed it on paper in an open cup, when I
became aware of a distinct smell of inflammable air — on
the third day I still perceived by the smell the phlogiston
which was escaping from it."
Crell writes : (ib. Vorbei'icht p. 2) " Westrumb made the
discovery that nearly all metals ignite with emission of
sparks in dephlogisticated chlorine, and thereby give a new
and strong proof in favour of phlogiston."
At a further stage in the controversy the defenders of
phlogiston proved that all acids were not compounds of
oxygen, and used this as a weapon against Lavoisier. They
saw that metallic oxides, if mixed with carbon, could be
reconverted into the metals. They had therefore received
phlogiston from the carbon which they had lost as oxides.
Lavoisier : " Those who attempted to delude mankind
into believing that what is new is not true and that all that
is true is not new, have made too much of the discovery of
the germs of my discoveries in an old author" {ib. II. 149)
1790. Hahnemann (II. 52) urges that experiments should
be made for the purpose of deciding this question. The
labours of the French chemists were disturbed by the
revolution
1791 : Crell writes: {ib. Voi'bcricJit) Herr Lowiz has
solved the difficulties concerning the dephlogisticating
action of carbon, so also Wiegleb in his pamphlet defends
to Lavoisier' s Viezvs. 7
phlogiston, in which he (II. 387 — 469) attributes false
statements to Lavoisier. Kirwan announces {ib. I. 425)
that he has given up Stahl's system of phlogiston.
Professor Gren : (II. 56) " My principal objection to
Lavoisier's system is that he opposes obstacles to the
progress of natural science."
1792 : Crell (ib. Vorbericht) says : The doctrine of
phlogiston divides chemists into two parties ; he dwells
on the difficulty of changing the whole method of thought
of chemists. Westrumb (I. i) speaks of the system of the
" gasists " to avoid giving offence by using the word
phlogiston. Hofrath Herrmann writes: (II. 44) "Inflam-
mable gas is for me a compound of phlogiston, fire, air,
finely divided aqueous vapour, and, if obtained from a
metal, some of the metal in solution."
Hermbstadt (II. 210 and further) says: " Stahl, that
clear-sighted and philosophical physician, would have been,
if he had lived, one of the first to recant his opinions
Wiegleb, Westrumb, Gren, Gmelin, Crell do not
think so. The desertion of Kirwan and Klaproth, at
one time earnest and enthusiastic advocates of phlogis-
ton, is significant." Professors Hermbstadt, Klaproth and
Karsten instituted experiments relative to oxygen which
favoured Lavoisier (II. 387). A prize was offered at the
academy of Harlem for the best paper on the " Nature
of Fire" (II. 480).
1793 : Another prize was offered at Gottingen for an essay
"On the Composition of Water" (I. 287). Hermbstadt
showed A. v. Humboldt experiments in the Royal La-
boratory at Berlin, which favoured Lavoisier's views (I. 303).
This enthusiastic partizan of Lavoisier in Germany com-
plains : " I often advocated the new doctrine at the expense
of my honour and good name, for I was more than once
saluted as ' a quack, imbecile, propagandist, and antiphlo-
gistic town-crier,' as will be seen by a glance at the Salzburg
Med. chir. Journal 2lX\(\ other periodicals" (II. 480).
Professor Gren (I. 31) states that if oxygen can be ob-
tained from oxide of mercury, he will never again conduct
8 Hahnemann's Translation of
an experiment, and consider himself no chemist. Never-
theless, he soon adopted the new theory.
In 1794, as we all know, the meritorious Lavoisier
perished miserably. In order to provide the means for his
prolonged and expensive experiments, he had accepted the
post of farmer-general, he was thereupon called to account
by the blood-thirsty Robespierre, and was guillotined on
the 8th of May. Nevertheless, the spirit which he had
infused into chemistry survived, and continued his work ;
the ranks of the " Phlogisticker " thinned from year to year,
the number of chemical text-books written on " antiphlo-
gistic principles" continually increased, though among others
Priestley still contended against Lavoisier's theory in 1796."*
In 1799 Gmelinf states that Lavoisier's system was
accepted by the majority of chemists.
Hahnemann made his debut as chemist without having
had more instruction in the art than other medical men,
and without ev^er having been assistant in a laboratory.
He was self-taught.
In the year 1784 he translated Demachy's '■'Art of Manu-
facturing Chejuieal Produets^' two volumes.
Demachy was one of the first chemists of the day, a
member of the Berlin and Paris Academies. The French
Academy published this work because most of the chemical
manufactures mentioned in it had been kept secret by
their several manufacturers, particularly the Dutch, and
it was now desired to introduce their manufacture into
France. This was urgently necessary both for France and
for Germany, and it was a great service rendered by
Hahnemann that he not only made Demachy's processes
accessible to his countrymen, but also enhanced the value
of the book by suggestions for their improvement and
perfection. After he had completed his translation, a
translation appeared by the chemist, Dr. Struve, of Bern,
also with additions. Hahnemann added Struve's com-
ments to his translation, making his own notes upon them.
* Crell's Annalcf!, 1798, II. 30S and 376.
■f Gcsch. d. Client.^ III., 278.
Demachy zoitJi Notes. 9
The nature of chemicals and the notions with regard to
their composition were, in many respects, very defective, as
appears from this work. We find here, to give a few
examples (I. 54), mention made of a very good blue aqua
fortis obtained by distilling arsenic and saltpetre with equal
portions of water. Every nitric acid turned white, i.e., a
white precipitate resulted when a solution of silver was
added to it, owing to admixture with hydrochloric acid
(I. 62). The purity of the nitric acid was estimated by the
amount of this deposit. Demachy considered it impossible
to estimate the strength of hydrochloric acid by means
of the areometer (I. 15). Such impure nitric acid must
indeed have acted as aqua regia, and it is therefore not
astonishing that that excellent chemist, Struve, observed
a deposit of gold from a "solution of silver" (I. 55).
(Hahnemann calls this idea "an alchemistic fancy.")
Demachy divided aqua fortis into that which contains
hydrochloric acid only and that which also contains sul-
phuric acid (I. t6)).
Lime was added to potash in order to remove its
"oiliness" (II. 39, 40), and it also rendered it somewhat
caustic. According to Demachy, potash contains all the
more vitriolized tartar (sulphate of potash) the older it is ;
in that case, carbonic acid must have been converted into
sulphuric acid. Salts of wormwood, plantain, gentian and
centuary was still sold (II. 39, 40). Glauber salt was
prepared with the expensive alum. Hydrochloric acid was
dearer than even the costly sulphuric acid (II. 32.)
Weathered Epsom salt was sold instead of Rochelle salt
(tartrate of soda and potash) (II. 47). According to
Hermbstadt, milk-sugar consisted of one portion of chalk
and three of saccharic acid (II. 77.) Wiegleb has proved,
says Struve, that the beautiful red colour of cinnabar
depends upon the fatty acid which it has derived from fire
(II. 143). Demachy thinks that in red precipitate the
corrosive part of nitric acid is retained (II. 162). To add
to this confusion, wholesale adulteration was practised,
and a narrow-minded secrecy observed. The Dutch,
especially, were accused of this. The ethereal oils were
10 Hahnemann's Corrections
adulterated with oil of turpentine and balsam of copaiba,
&c. (I. 241.242) : lead was mixed with cinnabar, (II. 143)
arsenic with corrosive sublimate (II. 146). The prepara-
tion of white precipitate was kept secret (II. 165). There
were as many secret modes of making lead preparations
as there were manufactories. Red lead was adulterated
with brickdust and oxide of iron. Dutch white lead was a
mixture of one part of pure white lead, and one to three
parts of chalk (II. 194). The mode of preparation of
verdigris was rigidly kept secret (II. 2Co), as was also the
manufacture of vinegar by the Dutch (II. 196). " From
time immemorial," says Demachy, " the same family has
always refined borax, another prepared corrosive subli-
mate, and so on " (II. 217). The Dutch would not com-
municate their method of refining borax to his agent.
(II. 97) ; he also speaks of antimony works which could
not be visited.
In his remarks Hahnemann displays an astounding
knowledge of all the questions connected in any way with
the contents of the book. His knowledge of the literature
of the various subjects is exhaustive. He cites, e.g., ten
authors on the subject of the preparation of antimonials
(II. 129), and quotes a number of works on lead (II. 175),
quicksilver (II. 172), camphor (I. 254), succinic acid (II. 82),
borax (II. 91), &c. Where Demachy remarks that he
knows no work on the carbonification of turf, Hahne-
mann mentions six (I. jS) \ where Demachy speaks
of a rare Italian book, Hahnemann gives further details
concerning it (I. 6) ; where Demachy speaks of a French
analyst without giving his name ; Hahnemann subjoins
the name and the work. Demachy mentions a " celebrated
German doctor." Hahnemann is able to give the name,
work and passage ; and so on in many other cases.* Where
Demachy touches on a discovery, Hahnemann narrates its
history fully. -f- In numerous places he gives more precise
information in explanation of the text and explains the
* Comp. II., 41, 66, 186, 199, I., 249, &c.
t 11., 44, I-, 143, &c.
of Donachfs Errors. 1 1
chemical reactions more in detail.* Hahnemann also
frequently corrects errors and mistakes.f His notes on
nearly every page are almost equal in value to a new
work. The following examples show that in addition to
botany and zoology he was master of all desirable know-
ledge on the subject of physics, and especially of tech-
nology which was then beginning to attract attention.
Under distillation (I. 200) he shows by calculation that
the worm then in ordinary use produced less refrigeration
than the cap over the receiver. Now the worm is disused
in pharmaceutical labaratories, partly on account of the
difficulty in cleaning it, to which Hahnemann also calls
attention (I. 202). He speaks of the areometer^ with much
knowledge of the subject and experience, and shows in
this respect his superiority to Demachy and Struve. He
describes, too, an improved areometer invented by himself §
Demachy advised among other things blowing with the
mouth to increase a flame where there was not a proper
current of air. Thereupon remarks Hahnemann (I. 34),
" This can be dispensed with either by removing from the
furnace the cause that hinders the draught, or if there is
nothing of this sort present, by closing all the openings of
the laboratory with the exception of one door, or window,
especially, however, by placing a tinned iron pipe 4 to 6
feet in height over the smoke hole of the furnace and plas-
tering it over with glue, for by this means the ingoing and
outgoing currents are at different heights of the column of
air, and the draught is increased more than by means of
straw, the bellows, or even blowing with the mouth."
Hahnemann corrects Demachy's mistake in the matter
of scarlet dyeing (I. 69 — 70), and also Struve's mistake with
regard to copper engraving. He gives numerous directions
to the mason, il and the potter, e.g., (I. 11) for special retorts.
* I., 16, 17, 22, 31, 62, 86, 130, 186, 237, 267, 279, &c.
t I., 55, loi, II., 44, 48, &c.
X I., 281—282, 288—296.
§ I., plate 4, fig. 6.
II Im4, 30, 31, 39, 171, 174, 176.
12 Hahnenianiis Improvements and
Hahnemann gives the measures for these, and he is ac-
quainted with the cements necessary for various purposes.*
He gives precise directions as to how hearths and grates
should be made, whether of iron or earthenware, and of
what height they should be and how the fire is to be
regulated, whether retorts with long or short necks, or
whether receivers or intermediate tubes are to be used.
He is well acquainted with the manufacture of chemicals
in other countries.! Thus he corrects Demachy (I. 21)
with regard to alum in Russia, Sweden, Germany, Italy,
Sicily and Smyrna. He gives full details (I. 25.26) as to
pit coal and coke in England and in the province of
Saarbriick. He frequently and with vehemence defends
the use of pit coal,| against which there was then a general
prejudice, and points out the increasing scarcity of wood.
Later, in 1787, he published a special treatise on the
Prejudices against tJie Use of Coal as Fnel ; 172>7, Crell's
Annalen mentioned as a novelty, (p. 288) that : " at Creusot
in Burgundy the smelting and refining of iron is carried on
on a large scale by means of coal which has been pre-
viously burnt."
The translator intercalates various improvements and
inventions, e.g., "A special mode (p. 49 — 53) of distilling
aqua fortis " in a continuous stove, the retorts of which did
not burst, while in the ordinary arrangement mentioned
by Demachy, five, six, or more retorts are generally spoilt,
and the works must be interrupted at heavy cost. He
proposes a method (I. 60) of purifying saltpetre from salt
before distillation in the preparation of nitric acid to avoid
its contamination with muriatic acid.
Hahnemann introduces a new test for muriatic acid. The
ordinary method of using lunar caustic might also indicate
sulphuric acid, if this was present in a certain degree of
concentration, in which case there would be a precipitate
of sulphate of silver. This could of course be avoided by
* I., 81, 84,99, 154-
t 11-, 12, 29, 32, 81, 98, 176, 1S3, 184, &c.
t I., 25, 27, 180, &c.
Discoveries in Cliemistry. 1 3
the dilution of the fluid. Hahnemann's reagent was a
solution of sulphate of silver ; a precipitate of chloride of
silver only was thrown down and the sulphuric compounds
remained in solution (I. 63). The idea underlying the
method is still used in qualitative analysis of employing
gypsum water to distinguish lime from baryta and strontia.
At the same time Hahnemann gives directions for deter-
mining the precipitate quantitatively.
Hahnemann uses the same idea for a new test for
sulphuric acid, viz., a solution of chloride of lead, since
that used hitherto (" a few drops of solution of mercury "
would also indicate muriatic acid if this were present in
any considerable amount. But he adds another test, which
had just been discovered by Scheele, viz., baryta (I. 64).
Further Hahnemann calls attention to the amount of
magnesia in the brines of salt works, and indicates a
method of separating it. He returns later to this subject*
We see from Crell's C/iem. Annallen\ that his idea had
attracted the attention of chemists. Magnesia was little
known in those days. Professor Neumann's work on
medical chemistry in 1756^ declared the discovery of
magnesia alba a " delusion," and the substance itself " ex-
hausted lime."
Careful experiments were instituted by Hahnemann§ on
the subject of crystallization, on the solubility of salts at
different temperatures, and the possibility of separating
them by means of crystillization, and he gives many useful
hints for the detection of impurities. His remarks on the
various preparations of mercury,|| which he had carefully
investigated, are especially numerous and suggestive.
How earnestly Hahnemann strove to secure accuracy
and certainty is shown by his careful determination of the
quantitative relation of alum and salt in the formation of
glauber salt (H. Preface). Professor Gren had given the
* KennzeicJien der Giite^ Szc, p. 174.
t 1 79 1, II., 30, note.
t Ziillichau, 1756, II., 879.
§ II., 13, 31,37.
li II-, i35> 139— 141, 145) 149—150, 158, 161, 165, 166 168, 171.
14 Criticisms on Hahnemann.
proportion of alum to salt as 7 to 12, Professor Gottling as
2 to I, another chemist as i to 2. Hahnemann found that it
was 17 to 6. He had to go carefully to work. First he pre-
pared soda from common salt, according to his method; he
decomposed alum with this pure carbonate of soda and
weighed the glauber salt separated by crystallization. In
order to ascertain how much common salt was equivalent
to this glauber salt, he decomposed glauber salt by means
of chloride of calcium into gypsum and common salt.
Wiegleb had represented the proportion of 17 to 6 as the
most incorrect. Calculation with our present equivalents
gives 17 to 6^ and shows therefore the correctness of
Hahnemann's statement.
He lays great stress on the purity of preparations, since
some of the uncertainty in chemistry depended upon im-
purity of the chemical preparations.
We must not omit to mention, though of course it could
not have been otherwise, that Hahnemann was incorrect
on many points in chemistry. He shares the mistaken
notions concerning phlogiston and the current false views
of the origin and composition of many bodies. In the
case of borax, e.g., he believes (II. 95) that boracic acid
(sedative salt) is composed of fluor spar, phosphoric acid and
silica, and he thinks (II. 80) that cream of tartar can be al-
most converted into sal acetosellae by the addition of a small
quantity of sedative salt. In consequence of Gren's asser-
tion that sedative salt will only enter into combination with
caustic soda, Hahnemann starts the hypothesis (II. 95) that
calcination would be very useful in the refining of borax.
In the second part of this work we again find his error con-
cerning this substance.
The following criticism of the translation appeared in
Crell's Annalen (1785. II. yy') :
If ever a work was worthy of translation this is one, and fortunately
for its readers it has fallen into the hands of a writer who has improved
and perfected it. Demachy's original work has long been prized b\'
all readers of French. In the second edition, notes were added by Dr.
Struve. Dr. Hahnemann translated it with these additions and added
a great many notes of his own, by which the scope of this work was
increased and its errors corrected. We can affirm that no more com-
Hahnemann's Work on Arsenic. 15
plete treatise exists on the subject of the manufacture of chemicals
than this work. The author (Hahnemann) has described a special
distilHng apparatus for aqua fortis, which well merits attention. In
the chapter on the preparation of muriatic acid, the notes are greater
in amount than the text, and are more important.
In the review of the second part {ib. II. 277), it is men-
tioned that Hahnemann has added a special mode of pre-
paring salt of amber (succinic acid) in the purest state. In
1 80 1, a new edition appeared.
In 1786, he published On Poisoning by Arsenic, its
Treatment and jfudicial Investigation.
Before Hahnemann, Neumann, the Professor of Chemistry
in Berlin, made investigations with a view to ascertaining
the presence of arsenic,* but without obtaining any reliable
results. He " hesitated about carrying his investigations
further, lest he should be the cause of undetectable poison-
ings." The last author mentioned as such in works on the
history of chemistry, and designated by Hahnemann as the
chief writer on this subject, was Navier.f The conceptions
of the chemical constitution of arsenic were very hazy.
Haller looked upon it as " an extremely narcotic form of
sulphur." Gmelin thought its principal component was
muriatic acid ; Neumann thought it consisted of muriatic
acid and sulphuric acid, and Porner of muriatic, sul-
phuric and silicic acids. Navier considered it proved
that " arsenic consisted of a volatile semi-metallic earth
combined with muriatic acid." "O, holy chemistry, have
mercy upon us!" Hahnemann exclaims. He adduced proofs
against all these statements. An example of the method
then pursued for detecting arsenic is to be found in Crell's
Annalen.\ It could not be recognized by the taste,
because at first there was no smell of garlic, it was not
mercury. The author thought he might conclude that
" the drops are nothing but a so-called fixed arsenic."
He does not venture to determine the quantity. Crell's
Annalen was the best of the chemical journals.
* L.c. II., 495 — 501.
f P. T. Navier, Antidotes to Arsenic, Corrosive Sublimate, Verdigris
and Lead, Paris, 1777. Trans, by Weigel, Greifswald, 1782.
X 1784, II., 128-131
1 6 Tests for Arsenic.
Hahnemann does not mention any new antidotes in this
treatise, but he subjects the large number of those recom-
mended to a careful examination, even making physio-
logical experiments on dogs, indicates the best remedies,
and gives precise directions for their use.
The most important part of this work is the chapter
on the mode of ascertaining chemically the presence of
arsenic, because chemistry, and especially juridical chemistry
made thereby an important step in advance. After show-
ing that the tests of Neumann, Morveau, Haller, Sprogel
ordinarily employed, were unreliable, he gives three tests
which appear essential to him : Lime-water, water satu-
rated with sulphuretted hydrogen, and ammoniaco-muriate
of copper (sulphate of copper recommended by Neumann
gave no reaction). Water impregnated with sulphuretted
hydrogen had already been used by Navier,* but, and this
is the point — without any addition of acid, so that the re-
action was extremely uncertain. Hahnemann was the first
who recognised and laid stress on the necessity of adding ,
an acid,t a very important discovery to which we shall
again return. Further on (p. 246) he states that :
" Deliquesced potash makes the precipitate disappear."
Even now chemical analysis knows no other means of
separating the metals of the arsenic-antimony group from
those of mccury — silver — copper, &c., than that of dis-
solving the sulphurets of the first group in an alkaline
solution as was done in the above way by Hahnemann.
Hahnemann went still further. The precipitate of the
sulphide could not be quantitatively determined on
account of the change that took place in drying. But
the copper precipitate remains unchanged, and, accord-
ing to Hahnemann's calculations and repeated experiments,
267 parts of it were equivalent to 165 parts of arsenic.
Together with the well-known smell of garlic, this test ap-
pears to him decisive. The limit of the reaction with
ammoniaco-muriate of copper he gives as at a dilution of
I to 5000. The precipitated arsenious oxide is soluble in
* L.c, I., 28. t P. 127, 136, 236, 239.
Tests for Arsenic. ly
2100 parts of lime-water, and is, therefore, a less sensitive
test.
It is characteristic that Hahnemann in his chemical
writings always endeavours to determine vv^ith the greatest
accuracy the limits of the activity of agents. This he
does here also. He discovers that exposed to a tempera-
ture of 96° F. {i.e., nearly blood heat), for ten minutes, the
solubility of white arsenic is i in 816; the solubility of
native arsenic (according to the time of boiling), i in 4000
— I in 1 100; of regulus of arsenic i in 5000, of natural
orpiment (which, like the two preceding substances, is
converted into arsenic by boiling) i in 5000, and so he
proceeds with all the chemical bodies mentioned, not with-
out drawing conclusions therefrom and estimating their
value for his purposes.
He earnestly opposes those cheap-jacks and hawkers
who are allowed to sell arsenic as " a fever powder," and he
makes circumstantial proposals respecting prescriptions of
poisonous drugs, which have now been carried out exactly
as he proposed. He suggests that there should be a locked
chamber for poisons in the apothecary's shop, of which only
the owner of the shop or his representative should have the
key ; he also demands that a special book should be kept
for entering the poisons sold, and suggests that special
forms of receipt should be attached to it which should
specify the receiver, and which should be submitted to
the doctors who examine the shop once a year.
This is not the place to discuss the equally valuable
medical part of the book. The book is a model of con-
scientious work, wide knowledge, and a devoted love of
science ; it is well worth studying even now, after the
lapse of a hundred years. The remarkable industry of
the author is shown by the fact that he quotes 861 passages
from 389 different authors and books in different languages
and belonging to different ages, and gives accurately both
volume and page.
The following criticism is taken from Crell's* Aiinalen : —
* 1788, I., 18:
1 8 CreWs '' Aiinalen"
" As the author starts from chemical principles, and has
confirmed them by his own experiments which are here re-
counted, this product of exceptional literary industry deserves
to be noticed by us." Hahnemann's investigations are then
described. The reviewer does not attempt to decide on
the question whether Hahnemann's statement that arsenic
does not contain muriatic acid, &c., was correct, and thus
shows Hahnemann's superiority.
In the Neiie lit. Nachrichteji fiir Aerzte, Sic* the work
is reviewed at greater length, and the reviewer says, " These
last portions (viz., judicial investigation, pathology, chemical
tests, determination of lethal doses) give the whole work
extreme value."
The Councillor of Mines, Dr. Bucholtz, of Weimar,-f- who
has rendered so many services to pharmacy, calls this book
" The very valuable book of my esteemed friend, Dr.
Samuel Hahnemann."
Professor Hencke praises in Horn's ArcJiiv fiir
medic. ErfaJiriingenX "the classical work (for that time) of
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann on arsenic, by means of which
the best modes of analysing arsenic w'ere introduced into
medical jurisprudence." We must add that Hahnemann
not only introduced the best existing methods of arsenic
analysis into medical jurisprudence, but also improved them,
and discovered the reaction with ammoniaco-muriate of
copper, on which fact stress is laid by the historian
Wiegleb.§
Hahnemann's Contributions to Crcll's Chemische Annalen.
Crell was Professor of Medicine and Philosophy in the
Brunswick University at Helmstadt. His Annalen possess
very great importance for the history of chemistry.|| They
appeared monthly from 1784 and were the first regularly
* Halle in Saxony, 1787, 49, 51.
t Hufeland'syi9z^r;w/, 1798, Vol. V., p. y]"].
X 1S17, 1., 181.
§ J. C. \\' iegleb Gcschichtc dcs VVachsthums und dcr Ei-findungen
in der Chcinie, Berlin and Stettin, II., 2)72,-
II Previously he edited the Chemischcs Journal in six parts since
1778, then, since 1781, the Neueste Entdeckungen^ in 12 vols.
Soda from Connnon Salt. 19
appearing chemical periodical, at least, in Germany, and
they were soon imitated in the French Annales de
Chiniie. Crell met the expenses of his undertaking (as
was then usual) by subscription ; the list of subscribers
contains many names of princes, academics and students in
all countries ; apothecaries are especially numerous. The
foremost chemists and natural philosophers, such as
Scheele, Bergmann, Gmelin, Gren, Hermbstadt, Kars-
ten, Klaproth, Rose and A. von Humboldt were con-
tributors ; the last mentioned from the year 1792, after
his journey through Belgium, Holland, England and
France. French chemists also contributed papers. Hahne-
mann published a series of interesting and approved ex-
periments and discoveries in ih^sc Annalen ; lyZj (H. 387-
396) he wrote " On the Difficulty of Preparing Soda front
Potash and Common Salt." We should be surprised now-
a-days if any one used potash, which is much dearer than
soda, in the preparation of the latter. Then potash was
obtained from the ashes of a good many plants, and soda
only from a few sea-shore plants. The amount obtained
from the natron lakes was unimportant, because chemists
did not then know how to purify it from admixture with
foreign substances. Chemists had made numerous pro-
posals for obtaining soda from nitrate of soda, or from
muriate of soda, as Scheele did by means of oxyde of lead.
One pound of soda prepared in some of these ways cost nine
shillings. Hahnemann thought that its preparation from
common salt was the only means of obtaining cheap soda.
In 1784* he stated that he had obtained soda from com-
mon salt by means of potash, by crystallization at different
temperatures and different degress of saturation ; he gives
the amount of heat and quantity of water required for
obtaining soda, but dwells on the difficulty of separating
foreign salts in this way. Gmelin mentions this process of
Hahnemann's in his History of Chemistry (HI. 497), and
in Crell's Annalen (1789, I. 416) there was a paper en-
dorsing the whole treatise.
* Translation of Demachy's Laboraiit^ II., Preface, vii.
20 TJic Gas that causes Fermentation.
1788 : Hahnemann attempted to ascertain what the gas
was which converted alcohol into vinegar, and described
his investigations in an essay " On the Influence of certain
gases on the fermentation of wine" (p, 141-142). He tried
the effect of three gases on wine. I, Dephlogisticated air
(oxygen). 2. Phlogisticated air (nitrogen), 3. Chalk gas
(carbonic acid), i.e.., those gases which were already known
to be constituents of the atmosphere. He introduced these
gases into bottles, each with four ounces of wine, closed
them hermetically, kept them for two months at the same
temperature (that of the room), and shook each thirty times
at three periods during the day. The result was that the
wine in the oxygen bottle " had become pungent vinegar."
The method of manufacturing vinegar rapidly by letting
alcohol run repeatedly over chips of beech wood was
discovered in 1833. Hahnemann discovered in 1788 that
it is the oxygen of the air that brings about the change,
and that the conversion can be promoted by repeated
contact with it.
Soon after he published his observations on the effect of
lunar caustic as a preservative from decomposition.* He
found that it was most useful in a dilution of i to lOOO in
the case of indolent ulcers, and stated that he had observed
antiseptic effects from a solution of i in 100,000, but this
was not confirmed by subsequent experiments-f of others.
On various occasions Hahnemann showed his desire to
make chemistry useful to medicine, as, for instance, in a
special article, " On bile and gall stonesTX He took the
fresh bile from a man who had been shot while in full
health, and tried the effect of various salts upon it so as to
ascertain their value in various liver complaints and ob-
structions of the bile.
It would not be consonant with the object of this work
to discuss all Hahnemann's works ; we shall have occasion
subsequently to refer to two other papers of his from this
journal.
1788, II., 485—486. t lb., 1792, I., 213.
X 17SS, II., 296-299.
Tests for Drugs. 21
Detection of tJie adulteration of drugs. By J. B. Van den
Sande and Samuel Hahnemann, 1787.
Van den Sande, an apothecary in Brussels, published
there in 1784, La falsification dcs incdtcaments devoilce.
Hahnemann made use of the correct descriptions of roots,
barks, &c., given in this book. He mentions in two
different passages of later works that the greater part of
this work was his, and in the preface he begs " that the
discerning critic will acknowledge my rights." The critic
will observe that the chemical part is by Hahnemann, so
too is the accurate statement of the component parts of the
several drugs ; also that the most important parts are
from Hahnemann's pen, may be seen by the accuracy and
the conciseness of the style and the direction taken by his
investigations.
The signs for recognising purity and adulteration are
given in a masterly manner.
Hahnemann gives such a concise, exhaustive and excel-
lent account of the tests for the drugs that we are re-
minded of the pharmacopoeas of to-day as eg., pp. 293-295
and various other passages. Among these are the tests
which Hahnemann proposed in Demachy's Laborantl'^ for
muriatic and sulphuric acid, founded on the different
degrees of solubility of precipitates usually considered
insoluble.
The article on ammonia is excellent. He examines
(p. 290) it among other things for the carbonic acid it
attracts, precipitates this with lime and finds that 240 grains
of the precipitate correspond to 103 grains of "fixed air"
(carbonic acid). A result which is perfectly correct ac-
cording to the calculations of to-day.
In this work, too, as everywhere else, Hahnemann shows
his earnest efforts to determine the limits of the activity of
substances and their solubility. Thus he found (p. 243)
that the solubility of the precipitate from solutions of
nitrate of mercury by salt (both answering the purposes of
tests for one another) was i to 86,000 of water ; in the case
* I., 63 and 64.
22 Hahneinamis extreme accuracy
of sulphate of lead, i to 87,000 parts of cold water ; in the
case of white lead, i grain in 17,000 grains of water of
I2|°R, and so on in the case of many other substances
(p. 251).
Accuracy prevails everywhere, he gives the melting point
of metals, the specific gravity of them and of their prepara-
tions, the solubility of salts at various temperatures ; in the
case of important salts, e.g., sal-ammoniac, also their solu-
bility in alcohol at different temperatures. The determina-
tion of the specific gravity appears to him especially
important in the case of acids ; he introduced dilute acids
into medical use such as are now used. He even determines
their degree of concentration according to their specific
gravity and approaches closely to the methods used now-
a-days. In the case of vinegar the strength is to be
determined by neutralisation with an alkali just as is now
done.
Hahnemann complains in various passages of the un-
trustworthiness of pharmaceutical preparations, e.g., p. 317,
" which no conscientious doctor could prescribe," or, p. 316,
" on what can a doctor rely ? "
Owing to the extreme care he employed in his labours
Hahnemann discovered and published in this work much
new matter. White lead was looked upon as a combina-
tion of vinegar and lead, because it was prepared by means
of vinegar. Hahnemann found that carbonic acid was the
essential constituent, and he determined its proportion in
100 parts. In 1784, in Demachy's Laborant (II. 198)
Hahnemann did not attribute the film formed by carbonic
acid in solutions of sugar of lead to its true cause, but it did
not escape his notice. In the treatise on arsenic (p. 288) he
was already aware of it, in opposition to other chemists,
who falsely attributed it to an arsenical reaction, and even
then he pronounced sugar of lead to be a good test for car-
bonic acid. He was the first to show that the long known
white lead was nothing else than the combination of lead
and carbonic acid. Later chemists, as Monro* and Pro-
Translated by Hahnemann, I., p. 214.
ill Chemical researcJi. 23
fessor Gren,* do not yet know the presence of carbonic acid
in white lead.
Scheele had declared that the black colour of lunar
caustic, which at that time was always black when used,
depended on the presence of copper.f Hahnemann showed
that the blackness of lunar caustic depended on deficiency
of acid, which had evaporated with heat.
On p. 274, Hahnemann gives an incomplete, but, for that
time, not unimportant method for the detection of Glauber
salt in Epsom salts, an adulteration which was then almost
universal. He precipitated the whole of the magnesia by
boiling with lime water ; Glauber salt remained in solution,
and showed the sulphuric acid reaction. The crystalliza-
tion of Glauber salt in such a manner that its crystals
were of the same size as those of Epsom salt, was a special
industry. Some, e.g., Monro, still considered both salts
identical. Hahnemann's method of distinguishing them is
especially commended in Crell's AnnalenX
Further on (p. 283) Hahnemann gives a carefully de-
scribed method for refining saltpetre founded on the
different solubility of saltpetre and common salt in cold
and hot water. This method is still practised. He is
opposed to the usual method of preparing tartar emetic,
and thinks that it should be obtained by means of crystal-
lization, as Bergmann and Lassone had already recom-
mended. Tartar emetic used then to be prepared in very
different ways, and this difference affected the quality of its
preparations. Bergmann's method up to Hahnemann's
time lay hidden among a great number of other methods.
Monro complained (I. 310) that "three grains of one
kind of preparation are often as strong as six or seven
of another." Hufeland proposed in 1795 (eight years
after the appearance of Hahnemann's book), in Tromms-
dorff's Joiwnal der Phavmacie^ that since the prepara-
tions of tartar emetic were of such different strength,
* Ha7idbuch der Pharmacologic. Halle, 1792, II., p. 274.
t Crell's Annalen, 1784, II., p. 124.
X 1791, II., p. 30, note..
§ Vol. III., St. 2, p. 83.
24 Crystallization of Tartar emetic.
it would be better to obtain it from one source in the
capital as had before been done in the case of theriac and
mithridate.
As early as 1784* Hahnemann advocated the crystalli-
zation of tartar emetic, " so that we may at last obtain a
trustworthy standard of the strength of this remedy for
medical use," If his suggestion of crystallizing had been
followed in 1784, the subsequent complaints would not
have been heard. This remedy is now obtained from
algaroth powder by means of crystallization, as Hahne-
mann recommended. In other passages he calls attention
to the importance of crystallization and advises chemists
to buy, if possible, crystallized and not powdered salts,
because adulteration can be more easily detected in the
former case. Hahnemann advocated the preparation of
drugs by the physician himself, in all cases in which the
detection of adulteration was not easy.
This work was thus criticized : " This book does not
need any special recommendation ; from the quotations
already given every doctor and apothecary will recognise
its importance and indispensable character."! Professor
Baldingerl earnestly recommends the work : " This book
is extremely important and indispensable to every medical
practitioner, but still more so to every physicus whose duty
it is to examine the apothecaries' pharmacies There is
a great deal of valuable matter in this important and indis-
pensable work, and I cannot too strongly recommend it."
Eleven years later, in Tromsdorff s Journal der PJiarviacie,
the work was recommended to apothecaries who wished for
information concerning their wares.§
In the same work Hahnemann first explained his so-
called " Wine Test'' ; he gave further details about his
discovery in Crell's Annalen.\\
* Demachy's Laborant, II., pp. 118 and 119.
+ A'eue inedicinsche Litteratiir^ v. Schlegel and Arnemann, Leipzig,
1788, Vol. I., St. 3, p. 34.
X Medicmisches Journal^ ^7^9: St. 21, p. jj.
§ 1798, Vol. v., St. 2, p. 272.
II 1788, I., St. 4, pp. 291—306.
HaJincnianiis Wine Test. 25
Wine was not unfrequently sweetened by means of
sugar of lead, which was supposed to cause not only colics
and cramps, but also emaciation and a languishing death.
The feeling was, therefore, very strong against the
adulterators and they were severely punished. The
ordinary test for the detection of lead used in most
countries was the " Wirtemberg Wine Test," known since
1707. This was made by boiling or digesting two parts
of orpiment (arsenious sulphide), four parts of unslaked
lime in twelve parts of water. " Arsenical hepar sulphuris "
was thus obtained and added to the wine ; a dark precipi-
tate testified against the wine merchant. The lead present
caused a turbidity, but so did other metals, e.g., iron. If
there was any abnormal amount of iron in the wine as was
possible through an iron tool or a piece of chain remaining
in the vessel after cleansing, or if the nails projecting in
the inside of the cask had been partially dissolved by the
acid in the wine, the wine dealer would be unjustly con-
demned by this method of investigation. Hahnemann
gives an instance in which a certain wine dealer, of
the name of Longo, was exposed to a severe exam-
ination and heavy costs, and lost his means of livelijiood
because there was a precipitate when his wine was tested
by the Wirtemberg wine test. Two chemists succeeded
after a thorough investigation in proving that there was
not a trace of lead, but that there was some iron in the
wine. Such errors occurred frequently. A simple test zuas
zvmiting by means of which iron might be distinguished from
lead in solution, and also all metals in solution from one
another. On a subsequent occasion when a large number
of wine dealers were to be tried by the Wirtemberg test,
Hahnemann determined to make experiments in order to
discover a better one.
Very carefully observing the degrees of temperature and
the conditions of quantity and solubility, he instituted a
series of investigations with the substances which caused a
precipitation of lead from its solutions and the limits of
reaction in order to ascertain the most delicate test. Finally
he chose " water saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen
26 HaJinemann's Wine Test
gas," which he already knew from his investigations on
arsenic to be the best test for metals. Hahnemann took
two ounces of wine in which -^^ of a grain of sugar of lead
was dissolved and poured two teaspoonfuls of sulphuretted
hydrogen solution into it ; the fluid became of a brownish
yellow colour. Four drops of sulphuric acid not only
did not remove, but deepened the colour.
Then he applied the same test to a corresponding solu-
tion of sulphate of iron. An " olive green colour with a
bluish tinge " was produced, distinctly darker than in the
former experiment, but in this case a drop of sulphuric acid
removed all the colour immediately, " the wine regains
its natural clearness and former appearance." He further
ascertained how concentrated the iron solution might be,
and yet not interfere with the re-solution of the precipitate
of sulphide of iron on the addition of the smallest quantity
of sulphuric acid. Other acids had the same effect as
sulphuric acid in iron solutions, varying in strength from
I in 30,000 to I in lOO. Hahnemann made further investi-
gations which we cannot here describe, and arrived at the
following important discovery : Acidulated sidpJmretted
hydrogen zvater precipitates arsenic, lead, antimony, silver,
■niercury, copper, tin or bismuth, present in a suspected fltiid.
(Platina, gold, cadmium, are therefore the only important
metals omitted). By the addition of the acid, metals of
the iron group in the fluid to be tested remained in solution.
This fact was only known by him at first in the case of
iron, but it is now well known that nickel, cobalt, chrome,
alumina, uranium, manganese and zinc share the same
property.
This is a great chemical discovery, pregnant with im-
portant consequences, which has spread Hahnemann's
name far and wide. Hahnemann first applied it to the
examination of wine in the following terms : " TJie lead test
is acidulated i^'ater saturated with stdphuretted hydrogeny
He advised the preparation of sulphuretted hydrogen gas
from hepar sulphuris calcareum in order that it might always
be freshly made without difficulty. " Dry hepar is pre-
pared by keeping at a white heat for twelve minutes a
a Test for Metals, 27
mixture of equal portions of oyster shells and sulphur,
both in powder. The whitish grey powder obtained is
our hepar which can be kept unaltered for years in a
properly closed glass bottle, and does not become damp —
an advantage which renders it more useful for our purpose
than any other hepars." He took two drachms of this and
shook it up in a bottle for ten minutes with a pound of
water and added ten drops of muriatic acid for every ounce.
This acidulated wine test was freshly prepared each time.
Now-a-days the muriatic acid is added to the fluid under
investigation, which amounts to the same thing. On the
application of this test iron remained in solution in the
suspected fluid, while lead fell as a blackish precipitate,
and the innocent wine dealers were saved !
This is " Hahnemann's Wine Test " — a designation
which is too narrow and must give rise to misunder-
standings. Our opponents are constantly assuring the
public that Hahnemann's test has long fallen into
disuse. On the contrary ! It is used every day and is
indispensable in every laboratory, though it is no longer
necessary in the analysis of wine. It ought not to be called
" Hahnemann's wine test," but " Hahnemann's test for
metals'' — the analysis with sulphuretted hydrogen water
to an acid solution.
After Hahnemann's discovery, or as Crell* states at most
simultaneously with it, sulphuretted hydrogen was re-
commended in France as a test for wine by the celebrated
chemist Fourcroy. In the following year, 1789!, it is
stated in an extract from the y4/^7;,7/^i- <^^ ^'//zV/^zV, that lead
could be detected by this new substance in a solution of i
to 1,000. Hahnemann had detected it in the proportion
I to 30,000, i.e., in a degree of thirty times greater dilution.
His addition of an acid, of which the French knew nothing,
brought about this result. The advantages of Hahne-
mann's discovery could not be placed in a more favourable
light than by a contrast with the French test of lead, des-
* L.c, 1788, I., 301. t n., 549-
28 Hahnemann in Advance of
cribed in Crcll's Annalen* Three of the foremost French
chemists, Thourct, Lavoisier and Fourcroy, propose an
arsenicated liver of sulphur, such as had long been found
quite inadequate in Germany. The directions for ascer-
taining the quantity present are very circumstantial.
Forty to sixty pounds of wine are evaporated to dryness ;
a furnace is necessary in order to obtain lead in the
metallic form ; a part is reduced to ashes, various salts
are required, &c. Finally, " in order to be quite sure," this
and that must be done. " These experiments must be
repeated and comparisons instituted with good wines in
order to be able to arrive at trustworthy conclusions."
Hahnemann used hardly half a wine glassful of wine and
one minute sufficed for a reliable qualitative investigation.
He made a quantitative analysis by dropping in sulphuric
acid into wine boiled to a fourth to eighth part of its bulk,
by which means a sulphate of lead was precipitated. " The
dried precipitate is weighed, the amount of sulphate of lead
left in solution in the fluid is added, and the calculation is
made; 143 grains of this precipitate (sulphate of lead) prove
the presence of 100 grains of metallic lead, according to
Bergmann. In twenty ounces of fluid one grain of sul-
phate of lead remains in solution, which is to be included
in the calculation." (The precipitated sulphate was of as
little use here as in testing for arsenic, because it is de-
composed by drying.)
Afterwards he used cream of tartar wuth the addition of
tartaric acid instead of muriatic acid ; but he soon returned
to his original method.
In 1788, Hahnemann discovered the solubility of such
precipitates of metallic sulphates in boiling nitric acid.
This process is now employed by chemists in order to dis-
tinguish the metallic sulphides which are not soluble by
alkaline sulphides (mercury, silver, bismuth, copper, cad-
mium) from one another ; it is known that sulphide of
mercury is not dissolved by heating with nitric acid, while
the others are.
* 1792, H., 455—461.
Contemporary Chemistry. 29
Hahnemann soon turned his discovery to practical
account. As early as 1787 he recommended this method
for the detection of lead in various suspected liquids.* In
Crell's Anuak]i-\-h.c says that chemists will find this method
indispensable for the analysis of minerals. He thereby
shows that he had realised the importance of his discovery.
Recognition on the part of the chemists was not wanting.
In 1789 the court physician, Scherf, of Detmold, states that
it was intended to introduce Hahnemann's " wine test " in
place of that in general use.:}: Professor Eschenbach, of
Leipzig, writes in the same year :§ " Among the many new
observations and investigations in chemistry, the test for
wine invented by Dr. Hahnemann has especially pleased
me. I have tried it, and it has fulfilled my expectations," &c.
Other authors speak of " Hahnemann's excellent test for
wine."]' The volume of Crell's Annalen, with Hahnemann's
analysis of metals, was translated into EnglishlF — '' Hahne-
mann's infallible test for wine."** " Most of our readers arc
acquainted with Hahnemann's excellent test for wine."tt
Investigations for the detection of metals by Hahnemann's
method of analysis in judicial cases also are to be found in .
various places. t| How widely known this was is best shown
by the fact that ignorance of Hahnemann's test is quoted in
Trommsdorff s Journal derPharmacieW as damning evidence
of the incompetence of many apothecaries. " Certainly a
proof of true knowledge !" remarks the narrator ironically.
* Kennzeichen der Giite, &c., pp. 229, 252, 286.
t 1794, I-, St. 2, p. III.
X Crell's An?tale?i, 1789, II., p. 222.
§ lb., 1789, II., p. 516.
II lb., 1792, I., p. 185.
IF lb., 1793, I-,P- 188.
** lb., 1793, I., p. 246.
ft !(>■, 1793, II., p. 124.
tt lb., 1794, p- 567. Further: Salzburger Med. Chir. Ztg., 1794, I.,
p. 103 ; Trommsdorff's yirwr. d. PJiannacie, 1795, H-? St. i, p. 39 ; III.>
St. I, p. 115 ; III., St. I, p. 312 ; 1797, v., St. I, p. 82 ; 1798, V., St. 2,
p. 129, and in many other places. It was also mentioned in Scherf s
Beitr. sum ArcJiiv der Med. Polizei, 1792, III., and in the Iiitelligenz-
blatt der Allg. Lit. Ztg., 1793, No. 79.
§§ 1795, II., St. I, p. 176
30 Hahnenianii's Soluble Mercury.
Mercurius solubilis Hahncvianni.
Chemists had long been searching for a preparation of
mercury which was less corrosive and " poisonous " than
sublimate, i.e., muriate of mercury or turbith mineral, i.e.,
basic sulphate of mercury.* Hahnemann shared in these
endeavours to discover a milder preparation of mercurj^ In
Demachy (II. p. 107) he expressed the opinion that a pre-
cipitate of mercury from its solution in nitric acid by means
of ammonia might be the least " corrosive " form of mercury.
The Berlin Professor Neumann! had already dissolved mer-
cury in nitric acid and had obtained a precipitate with am-
monia, but this preparation had different properties, e.g.,
it was white, while Hahnemann's mercury was a velvety
black. The Edinburgh pharmacopoeia^ contained a mercurius
prsEcip. cinereus which was obtained from a solution in
nitric acid by means of ammonia ; this, too, had different
properties, besides being grey. Hahnemann mentions on
the first publication of his mode of preparation,§ that
besides Black's mercur. cinereus, Gervaise Ucay had used a
precipitate similar to the soluble mercury in 1693.
Hahnemann first dissolved the mercury in nitric acid in
the cold. II The difference of the solubility of mercury in heat
and cold was not as yet known to chemists. Professor
Hildebrand even wrote in his exhaustive treatise " On the
Solution of Mercury in Nitric Acid :"% " A saturated solu-
tion can only take place with heat."
Hahnemann tried to obtain pure metallic mercury from a
solution of the sublimate by means of metallic iron. The
mere mechanical process of refining by squeezing through
leather did not content him. He dissolved mercury thus
* Comp. Demachy's Laborant, II., p. 168; also Gren's Hattdbuch
dcr Pharniakologie. Halle, 1792, II., p. 224.
t L.c, II., p. 840.
% Translated by Hahnemann, II., p. 246.
§ Unterricht fiir Wundiirztc abcr die vcncrisclicn Krankheitcn, 1789,
Preface.
II Crell's Atinalen, lygo, II., pp. 22—28 ; he here gives some modi-
fications of the former mode of obtaining pure regains of mercury and
the precipitant.
^ Crell's Annalcn, 1796, II., p. 299.
Its excellence acknoivledged. 3 1
obtained by nitric acid in the cold, allowed the salt to
crystallize, washed the crystals with a very small quantity
of water, and dried them on blotting paper.
He thus obtained a pure nitrate of the oxide of mercury.
Here was a salt which is still retained in the German phar-
macopoeia. Even Hahnemann's proportions, the constant
excess of mercury, solution in the cold, washing the crystals
with a very small quantity of water, drying on blotting
paper, without heat, is retained, because all these details
are recognised as essential.
He treated these crystals with a certain quantity of
water, and precipitated the solution by means of specially-
prepared ammonia free from carbonic acid, for which he
gives exact directions. The precipitate, after having stood
six hours, forms a black paste, which is then dried without
heat on a filter of white blotting paper.
Hahnemann did not neglect to weigh the amount of the
mercury obtained by means of sheet iron from the sub-
limate. One part of sublimate contains 0.624 of mercury.
Hahnemann says 0.634, which, considering the instruments
then used, certainly shows the accuracy of his work.
Professor Gren* wrote of this preparation : " The
problem of Herr Macques, to obtain a preparation of mer-
cury which is at once very soluble (in the acids present
in the body according to the views and intentions of
those days, here in acetic acid), and yet free from corro-
sive properties, is fully solved by Herr Hahnemann's ' Mer-
curius Solubilis.' " " According to my opinion, mere, solub.
is to be preferred to mercurius dulcis " {ib. p. 267). He
even wished this preparation to be used for making Ugt.
Neapolit. {ib. p. 509), And Gren was no blind eulogist,
as was shown by his previous attack on Hahnemann
in the matter of his test for metals — a contest which
was decided by Professor Gottling and others in Hahne-
mann's favour.f
Physicians considered that "science had to thank the well-
* L.c, II., p. 224.
t Salzb. Med. Chir. Ztg.^ 1794, I-, p. 103 ; also. Prof. A. N. Scherer
in his Jour. d. Chcin., 1799, II., p. 402.
32 HaJuieinaniis ApotJiekerlexicon.
known, and for this immortal, Hahnemann, for one of the
most effectual and mildest preparations of mercury."*
Kurt Sprengel, the historian : " Hahnemann's mercury,.
an excellent and mild preparation, the usefulness of which
has been proved."t
We could fill many pages with the acknowledgments
which Hahnemann received on account of his mercur}^
from non-homoeopathic doctors. Chemists, too, and among
them the first of their profession, have written a great deal
on the subject of this mercury, but have arrived at the con-
clusion that chemically it is not an ideal preparation.
Samuel Hahnenianiis ApotJiekerlexicon, published
1793—1799-
" I have in this work endeavoured to describe all the
simple remedies " — so he says in the introduction — " which
have been in use from the beginning of this expiring
century up to the most recent times, either ofificinally
or otherwise, also those used only by a few physicians
and some which have gained considerable repute as do-
mestic remedies."
He not only mentions the most efficacious and approved
drugs — this is what ought to be done in every good pharma-
copceia. In an "Apothecaries' Lexicon," the disused, the un-
fashionable, and the little used remedies, as well as those that,
are inactive, disgusting and superstitious must be included
because a great deal may depend even upon these. " And
is there not often a great deal of merit in the so-called
antiquated remedies, some of which might certainly dispute
the palm with many of our fashionable remedies ? From
time to time these old remedies emerge from their obscurity.
In such cases it is important both for the doctor and the
apothecary to know what the ancients knew concerning
these drugs. All this must be found in an Apothecaries'
Dictionary."
* Recepte ttnd Ktt?-artc/i dcr besicii Acrz/c allcr Zcitcn. Leipzig,.
1814, 2nd edit., IV., p. 24.
t Geschichte der Arz}2cik. Halle, 1828, Part V., p. 591.
Its originality and Excellence. 33
So much as to the scope of this great work. The
subjects are arranged alphabetically and it treats of every-
thing which could be of use to the apothecary in his work.
The style is concise, lively and attractive. A careful
description is given of the proper arrangement of a phar-
macy and its various parts under the words " Apotheke"
" Keller" " Trockenbodenl' " Laboratoriiun" &c. The neces-
sary utensils too, are carefully described with full know-
ledge of the subject. It is only necessary to read the
articles on Evaporating Saucers {Abdanipfschalen) or
Vessels {Gefdsse) or Oils {Dehle) to perceive the numerous
suggestions derived from his great practical experience.
Each of these articles shows how thoroughly well ac-
quainted Hahnemann was with the subject, but every
other article shows this in no less degree. He often describes
new apparatus improved or invented by himself, illus-
trating them by diagrams. The apothecary's business of
making up prescriptions and his laboratory work are
accurately and clearly described. Take for instance what
is said under the head " Rc.'^epi.'" Here Hahnemann gives
many directions which have now become legal enact-
ments. How complete are the articles under the head-
ings : Abdampfen (evaporation), Abgiessen (decantation),
Abklaren (clarification), Auflosen (solution), Auslaugen
(elixiviation), Auspressen (expression), and others in letter
A alone. In the matters treated of, detailed instructions
for the apothecary are given ; when we read under " Emul-
sion," the various modes of making it from seeds, fats,
resins and camphor, with gum Arabic, tragacanth, eggs,
&c., or turn up " Distillation " or " Crystallization " we see
the zeal with which Hahnemann must have worked, and
the intelligent use to which he put his experience.
The interest too that he displays in seemingly insig-
nificant matters that can be of importance only to a
man who has worked himself, shows how completely he
was master of the subject. This is the case in his remarks
on the lining with cement of furnaces (I. iii) on distilla-
tion, in the directions for making apparatus that cannot
be bought ; in his observations on the various kinds of fuel
34 Hahnemann's iuiprovements in
for different purposes (I. 294), on reducing all sorts of
substances to powder (II. i, 246), on the construction of
the special crucibles required for different purposes
(II. 2, 161) and various kinds of furnaces (II. i, 145, 150),
&c. A number of Hahnemann's recommendations with
regard to the supervision of apothecaries, have now been
generally adopted, so too have his proposals regarding
the regulation of the sale of poisons, distillation in vapour
baths, the construction of tin vessels from pure tin, the
inspissation by evaporation of extracts over water baths
(I. 223), the distillation of ethereal oils in the steam bath
(II. I, 152), the preservation of odoriferous substances, of
plants, e.g., valerian, hemlock, &c., in tinned boxes (I. 338
and 411); the necessity of a herbarium in every chemist's
shop for instruction and for the purpose of aiding their
proper collection (II. 2.1 15).
In the case of remedies belonging to the vegetable
kingdom, he gives not only their botanical description,
but their habitat (II. 2. 115, 119), their time of flowering,
the time for collecting the parts useful medicinally, and
refers to works containing plates — this he does too with
regard to the animals mentioned. The literature here
referred to proves how thoroughly Hahnemann had studied
the subject. Among the works mentioned are those of the
first botanists and zoologists, such as Buffon, Pallas,
Dryander, Regnault, Scopoli, Jussieu, Linnaeus, Slaone,
Gleditisch, Haller, Bauhin, Rumpf, Kampf, Tabernae-
montanus, Tournefort, &c., &c., more than lOO works in
different languages, including the most recent books of
travel.
By his recommendation not to boil the extracts of
narcotic plants, but to evaporate them over water baths,
he deserves the credit of having contributed largely to the
introduction of these important medicines. The advice of
Professor Neumann* had been followed only two generally
" to boil freely in making extracts, since boiling for a
<:onsiderable time with a large amount of water, is the best
* Medic. Chciiiii\ I., 661.
PJiaymaccHtical Preparations. 35
corrective of too powerful medicaments." Professor Hecker
admitted that " the directions given by Herr Hahnemann
for the preparation of narcotic plants are the best that we
have."*
Wc should here remind our readers of Hahnemann's
mode of preparing tinctures from fresh plants, which was
justly considered to have enriched our therapeutic thesaurus
medicaminum.t
The chemical part is treated in the same spirit. There
is everywhere thoroughness without diffuseness; compare
for example the articles on mercury, antimony, phos-
phorus, potash, ammonia, sulphur, &c. He gives the
history of many important preparations, e.g., sulphuric
acid, tartar emetic, phosphorus, sal-ammoniac, &c., at the
same time without overlooking the latest achievements of
chemistry.
In order that medicines should be of a definite
character, he insisted upon them being of a fixed specific
gravity if they were fluids, as in the case of ammonia, of
diluted acids (H. 2.363) and of alcohol.
In order to be able to obtain good preparations, the
apothecary is to pay attention to the habitat of the plants,
if possible to collect them himself and to make the more
delicate chemical preparations himself, since this trouble
will be compensated for by the good quality of the articles.
In the case of a good many medicines he briefly
describes their medicinal use. On this subject he writes
in the preface : " By mentioning in the case of simple
drugs their principal uses and their medicinal properties,
I am departing from the practice of many recent authors
who omit this as though such information were useless or
even injurious to the apothecary, because it favours the
practice of counter-prescribing. A short notice of the
uses of drugs could not be the means of causing apothe-
caries who had a proper sense of the dignity of the calling
* Hufeland'syi£?«^'«., 1800, Vol IX., St. 2, p. 83.
t Buchholz, Tasckenbtich fur ScJicidekunstler imd ApoiJicker, 1815,
p. 57. J. R. Bischoff, Ansichten ixbcr das bisJier. Heilverfahren., &c.
Prague, 1819, p. 121.
36 Laudatory reviews of
to indulge in unauthorized practice ; they have it in their
power to earn far greater renown by faithfully performing
their duty. They would not degrade the position of the
apothecary upon whose integrity depends life and health,
and by whose knowledge should be formed the weapons by
means of which the shattered machinery of the human
body is restored, to that of an ignorant quack who is as
much beneath him as a pestilent bog is beneath the
beneficent sun.
" Such a short indication of the uses of drugs cannot
give rise to dabbling in medicine. If they read that
powdered oyster-shells relieves acidity of the stomach,
this does not tell them when such acidity of the stomach is
present, or by what morbid symptoms it is manifested.
" But a short notice of the use of a drug is useful to the
apothecary, since he will be much more likely to remem-
ber the dry description of the remedy if it be impressed
on his memory through its medical properties, whereby it
ceases to be indifferent to him, but on the contrary, becomes
more interesting and worthy of his attention. Things, the
use of which we do not know are indifferent to us, they
interest us as little as the mere letters of a word, the sense
of which we have forgotten. Only an indication of their
utility, whether real or imaginary, gives us an interest in
the otherwise useless knowledge of their history, which
now acquires life, substance and interest,"
The Apothekerlexicon appeared in numbers and was
thus noticed by the Medicimsch-cliirurgiscJie Journal* " The
author has written a work which is of great use to the
practical apothecary, and even to the physician. It com-
pares favourably with other similar works and enables
us to dispense entirely with Fiedler's ApotJiekei'lcxicon.
This work is not a mere compilation, but it contains
many new ideas, hints and valuable improvements. Some
articles are especially good (examples are given). If all
apothecaries would attend to what the author says \\ith
regard to the extracts (especially of the narcotic plants),
* 179.3, HI,, i;!"!
Hahnemann' s Pharmaceutical methods. 37
many practitioners would obtain successful results from their
employment and would no longer doubt the efficacy of
these remedies. The reviewer ardently desires the continua-
tion of this work." A distilling apparatus invented by
Hahnemann is then spoken of
With regard to the next number, complaint* is made
that Hahnemann had introduced many disused drugs, and
that some articles were inferior. Hahnemann completely
refutes these criticisms in a reply he made,-f " Neverthe-
less some of the articles are very well done, and the
reviewer would pronounce the whole work excellent if they
were all equally so. Everything the author says on the
subject of fermentation and poisons is to the purpose and
convincing."
Apropos oi 'CiXQ next number the reviewer writes (i799)
n. 411) : "A work of this kind by a man who has made
himself a name in Germany, both as a chemist and as a
practitioner, deserves especial recommendation. Especially
excellent articles in this number are those on the laboratory,
precipitation, furnaces, oils, pills, modes of preparation.
In the article on phosphoric acid, the author gives a new
method, peculiar to himself, of obtaining phosphoric acid
and from it phosphorus. Every article gives evidence of
having been written with the greatest care."
Trommsdorff, Professor in the University of Erfurt, thus
criticises the work in his Journal der Pharinacie : ^ " An ex-
cellent work which every apothecary ought to procure.
Brevity, lucidity, decision and yet completeness, seem as far
as we can judge from this first part to distinguish this work
from all others of a similar character. (Certain articles are
then discussed.) We see from these few extracts that
this work is not a compilation of an ordinary character.
In examining the work more closely we can find very much
new and important matter, and every page shows that the
well informed author speaks from experience. We refer
our readers to the articles : evaporation, evaporating
1796, I., p. 393. t Z'^., IV., p. 15-
X 1794, H-, St. I., p. 185.
38 Hahnemann's services to
vessels, clarification, separation glasses, decoction, phar-
macies, elixiviation, tartar emetic, distillation, extracts.
We only hope that what is said by the author in these
articles will be laid to heart. We recommend this work to
our readers, and we wish the author leisure and continued
health for the completing of this important work, which
will be of great service to pharmacy."
The critic writes thus of its continuation : * " We present
with sincere pleasure to our readers the continuation of this
useful work which every apothecary ought to obtain.
Some of the articles are extremely well written." As an
example, the reviewer quotes the article on " poisons " ver-
batim. " Some of the other articles are equally good, and
we may, therefore, expect that this work will diffuse much
useful information."
We hope that this account of some of Hahnemann's
works will suffice to give at least a superficial view of his
services. Those who wish to understand his mental atti-
tude must make themselves acquainted with the litera-
ture of the day on the subjects, and then read and study
Hahnemann's works ; no one will put them down dis-
satisfied and without paying a tribute to his brilliant
intellect. He shares with the rest of mankind the fault of
having been occasionally in error. All who strive to achieve
great things are liable to occasional error.
In judging his powers of observation and his accomplish-
ments we must not forget that he — a busy practitioner and
a private man — had to contend with the foremost apothe-
caries, whose calling made a laboratory and chemical
investigations a necessity, and with the professors of chem-
istry, who obtained pecuniary assistance from the State ;
and that he not only showed himself equal to these pro-
fessionals, but surpassed most of them in knowledge of
the subjects as in the services he rendered.
* 1796 III. 2.359
the Manufacture of Chemicals. 39
Finally we quote some more of the reviews of some of
his works, and we will also cite the recognition he received
from professionals (further on we give a list of all Hahne-
mann's works).
His translation of Demachy's Liqiieiitfabr leant was inci-
dentally mentioned by Westrumb* in an essay on the
distillation of brandy. " Few manufacturers have listened to
my suggestions to arrange their retorts as Demachy and
Hahnemann describe. These writers increased the height
of the distillery vessel, gave to the helmet the form of a
sugar loaf, provided it with a tube and surrounded it with
a Turk's head. They thus saved half the time that would
have otherwise been expended, a third of the materials and
obtained considerably more brandy (spirit). Distillers
should entirely reject the old distillery apparatus and should
use the French arrangement clearly described by Hahne-
mann." Government should insist on the use of pit coal,
"against which there is a deeply rooted prejudice."
Hahnemann translated Demachy's Art of manufac-
tnring vinegar., in 1787. The Neue MedieiniscJie Literatur\
says : " Compared with the many wretched descriptions of
the way to construct vinegar manufactories, Demachy's
essay deserves commendation, and is worth being trans-
lated into German, especially as Herr Hahnemann has set
his author right in many points, flahnemann has taken
the opportunity to correct the mistakes in instructive notes.
Herr Hahnemann's appendix on the manufacture of vinegar,
particularly that from grain is both thorough and clear."
The Economic Association of Florence, in 1785, pro-
posed as a prize question, " the discovery of the theory
of vinous fermentation, as also the description of a
method adapted to the capacity of country folks of
examining must, in order to treat it in a rational manner
by the light of this examination." Fabbroni won the prize
and Hahnemann translated the essay, The art of making-
wine in accordance zvitJi rational principles, which had
* Crell's A}tJiale?t, 1792, I., 490.
t Of Schlegel and Arnemann, Leipzig, 17S8, pp. 56 — 59.
40 His translations of Monro and
been warmly received in Italy in 1790. In Crell's Annalen
(1790 I. 562) is mentioned "the well merited applause,"
which this work had received on account of its lucid
investigation of the process of fermentation. " A trans-
lation was all the more desirable, and for this we are
indebted to a man who has conferred so many benefits
on science, both by his own works and by his valuable
translations. Besides the fact that this translation is
faithful and successful, Herr Hahnemann has added
precious notes which expand and elucidate Fabbroni's
principles ; he has thus enhanced the value of the work."
Hahnemann's translation of De La Metherie On Pure
Air was thus announced by Professor Crell : " All German
physicists have cause to anticipate eagerly the translation
which we may shortly expect from such a chemist as
Hahnemann, a translation which he has enriched with his
own notes."*
The appearance of the translation was thus welcomed :t
" No one will doubt that this wish is realised when we
name the translator, who will certainly allow us to do so
though he has not given his name himself. It is Dr.
Hahnemann, a man who has rendered many services to
science both by his own writings on chemistry and by his
excellent translations of important foreign works. His
services have been already recognised, but deserve to be
still more so."
The translation of Monro's ]\Iateria JMedica, was thus
reviewed in Crell's CJiemiscJie Annalen (1792, 11. 183) : "A
translation of this work was very much wanted Herr
Hahnemann has added a great many explanatory and sup-
plementary remarks which give the translation a great ad-
vantage over the original Hahnemann's excellent wine
test his excellent soluble mercury his suggestion of
obtaining tartar emetic by crystallization, etc., etc. By the
thoroughness of his emendations Herr Hahnemann has
deserved anew the gratitude of the class who will read this
book."
* Chcm. Annal., 1790, I., p. 85. f //'. 1792, I., p. 475.
tJie Edinburgh Dispensatory. 41
After the appearance of the translation of the Ediii-
burgh Dispensatory, the Medicin. cJiir. Journal wrote (1799,
I. 154): "Hahnemann has displayed much industry in
editing this work and translating it into our language.
His notes are short and not numerous, but they serve to
explain the text from a chemical, pharmaceutical and
practical point of view."
In ll\xie.\din<Xs Journal* we read : " The usefulness of this
work has been recognised, and it is enhanced by the
translator's notes,"
The Berlinische Jahrbuch der Pharuiacie (1799, p. 141)
remarked : " The thorough pharmaceutical knowledge and
the industry of Dr. Hahnemann may be recognised in this
translation."
Trommsdorff's Journal der PJiarniacie^ thus criticised it :
" Although there is no lack of treatises of this kind in
Germany, yet the present work is welcome, especially as
the translation is an improvement on the English original
on account of the notes by the learned Dr. Hahnemann."
In 1792 Hahnemann is alluded to in Crell's Annalen
(I. 200) as " this celebrated chemist ;" in another place,
1793 (11. 124), "this meritorious physician;" reference is
also made to his services to materia medica (1793, I. 93).
Professor Gottling, in the Medic. cJiir. Journal (1794,
I. Ill), calls Hahnemann and Gren two men " whom
chemistry has to thank for many important discoveries."
Professor Scherer speaks, in his Journal der CJieniie
(1799, II., p. 462), of the " meritorious Hahnemann."
Professor Gmelin, in a review of the progress of
chemistry in the i8th Century,^ mentions (besides those
services of Hahnemann to which we have already alluded)
his improvements of the apparatus and process for distilling
brandy, as well as for the production of soda.
In reviewing a longer article by Hahnemann on the
chemical examination of wine, Trommsdorff calls him the
* 1798, Vol. v., p. 469.
t 1799, Vol. v., St. I, p. 227.
X In Crell's Annalen, i8or, I., pp. 16, 17.
42 Testimonies to his cJiemical knoivledge.
"esteemed author."* In another place,t when describing
the then condition of pharmacy, he writes : " It is un-
doubtedly true that pharmacy has made great progress.
The efforts of Grcn, Gotthng, Hagen, Hahnemann, Hermb-
stadt, Heyer, Westrumb, Wiegleb and others have not
failed to bear fruit but, notwithstanding this, its pro-
gress is by no means general, but only partial."
Kraus says, in his MediciniscJies Lexicon, 1826 ;|:: " Hahne-
mann is recognised as a good pharmaceutist, and has won
for himself unfading laurels by his preparation of mer-
curius solubilis and by his treatise on arsenical poisoning,
although our knowledge of this subject has since his time
been considerably advanced by others."
Hahnemann's spirit of research and his indefatigable
industry also largely contributed both directly and in-
directly to the improvement of medicinal agents, which are
the foundation of the art of medicine. But all these services
fade into insignificance when compared with the everlasting
fame he has won in the narrower field of medical science.
HAHNEMANN, AS A THYSICIAN.
State of medicine wJien he commenced practice.
In order to judge of Hahnemann's achievements in the
field of medicine, it is necessary to glance at the condition
of medicine at the commencement of his career, when no
such method of investigation, founded on natural laws, as
we have to-day, was as yet in existence. The conceptions
of the phenomena presented by the healthy and the sick,
were forced into systems, deduced from scanty observations
by individual authors, and altered from time to time to
suit the views of the period and new discoveries by them.
Thus, L.Hoffmann (172 i-i 807), found that most diseases
were produced by impure and acid humours which were to
be expelled from the body, or ameliorated by " antiseptic "
or "dulcifying" remedies.
* Jour, der Pharinacie, 1794, II., 48.
t lb., 1795, II., St. 2, p. 25.
% Gottingen, 1826, 2nd edit., p. 404.
Medical theories of the period. 43
Stoll (1742-1788) taught that diseases arose from the in-
fluence of a predominant constitution which was deter-
mined " by the prevaiHng weather and epidemic fevers."
In all diseases the physician had to pay the greatest atten-
tion to the condition of the " primje viae "; most illnesses
resulted from gastric impurities, especially bile. The re-
moval of these matters by emetics and purgatives was
the principal means resorted to. If signs of bile were
absent in the evacuations, in the appearance, and in the
taste of the patient, it was a case of latent bile " bilis
latens." Purgatives and emetics demonstrated the truth of
these theories. At the same time, " latent inflammations "
had to be contended against, wherein lay a great danger in
many diseases. According to the- testimony of A. F.
Hecker,* this doctrine was regarded as one of the most
brilliant advances in the medical art, and doctors betook
themselves to Vienna from all parts of Europe to learn
" the successful Stoll method."
Another physician writes : -|- " Stoll is the greatest living
physician. He stands, as he deserves, in a position of great
repute, and all intelligent persons in Vienna are attended
by him."
Kampf (1726-1789) alleged that most diseases have their
seat in the abdomen, and are due to " infarcts." " B)-
infarctus, I understand an unnatural condition of the
bloodvessels, especially of the portal veins and larger
bloodvessels, in which they are plugged and distended in
various places by ill-concocted, variously degenerated, fluid-
bereft, inspissated, viscid, bilious, polypous and coagulated
blood, tarrying and eventually sticking in the circulation,
or in which the inspissated serum in the blood, in the
glands, in the cellular tissue, together with the above-
mentioned blood-dregs, collects, corrupts, dries, and takes
on various forms of degeneration in the digestive pas-
sages "
* Die Heilkunde aitf iJwen Wegeji, Erfurt and Gotha, 18 19.
t Median. Lite7-at. f. prakt. Aerzte, von Schlegel. Leipzig, 178/
XII., p. 99.
44 StolPs Infarctiis.
" These infarctus spare no age, sex, or temperament ;
even infants are not free from them. I can think of very
few diseases or accidents which do not arise originally
from infarctus." He gives as instances, epilepsy, grey and
black cataract, deafness, consumption, abdominal diseases,
bladder affections, all kinds of exanthemata, cancer, scurvy,
fever, tympanites, dropsy, jaundice, &c."
Clysters consisting of taraxicum, rad. graminis, saponaria,
card, bened., fumaria, marrub. alb., millefol., chamomill., ver-
basc, rye- and wheat-bran; to which various "appro-
priate " drugs were added, all being made into extracts by
means of rain or lime-water, were employed to disperse
these infarctus.
" Without detriment to the health, two to three clysters
can be taken daily for as many years Often the
labours of a Hercules are required to cleanse such an
astoundingly laden, old, intractable bog, and to overcome
the stony, and as it were wedged-in degeneration of the
blood."*
A physician wrote : f " I have treated many sick persons
who have taken more than five thousand clysters before
they entirely got rid of the infarctus."
Kampf also recommends his method for prolonging life.
He found a great number of followers among physi-
cians, who expressed their approbation and gratitude for
this discovery. " Here again is an achievement of which
Germans maybe proud let me offer my heartfelt
thanks to the author. "| Another§ says : " Kampf s method
has too many generally acknowledged advantages ever to
lose, at all events, with sensible people, its well-earned re-
putation This universally- read book." At the same
* Joh. Kiimpf, Oberhofrath, erster. Leibarzt, S^z.^fur Acrzte und
Kranke bestimmte Abhandlung von einer neuen Methode, die hart-
ndckigstcn Kra?ikhcifen, &c., 2nd Aufl., Leipzig, 1786, p. 576.
t Bei G. W. C. Miiller, Job. Kampf, Abhandl. &c., Leipzig, 1788,
p. 86.
J Median. Literat. von Schlegel. Leipzig, 1785, p. 34.
§ Neiie liio'ar. Nachrichten lilr Aerztc, &c. Halle, 1787, p. 319.
Kdvipf's Clysters. 45-
time, the number of its mutilated reprints and spurious
editions was complained of.*
Hecker, /. c, testifies that many patients used thousands
of such clysters, and the method of treatment by clysters
was in much vogue among physicians, patients and even
healthy persons, for many years.
" Stases, stoppages and obstructions " in all manner of
organs figured as the chief cause of many diseases, so that
a homoeopath could write, many years later, perhaps with a
little exaggeration -.f " By the belief in the existence of
stoppages, obstructions, &c., we can understand why among
ten prescriptions nine contain senna, spirits of wine, dande-
lion, rhubarb, sal-ammoniac, mercury, dog's grass and anti-
mony ; for these drugs were originally suggested because
they were supposed to cleanse the tubes and passages of
the human body from their foul accumulations like brooms,
scrubbing brushes and clearing rods. Whether the patient
be red or pale, fat or thin, consumptive or dropsical, whether
he have lost his appetite or suffer from ravenous hunger,
be constipated or have diarrhoea, it is all one ; he has obstruc-
tions and stoppages, and must be sweated and purged,
puked, bled and salivated. If you see a physician
pausing in meditation, believe me, if he is not thinking of
* inflammation,' he is thinking of ' stasis.' " To illustrate
this a well-known writer, Scheidemantel,| is quoted.
He says that a student was cured of melancholy through
being greatly frightened during a sea voyage by a col-
lision between two ships. Explanation : " Perhaps the
melancholy student had obstruction of the bowels which
was removed when his ship struck against the other, and
thereby shook him severely."
Towards the end of 1790, the system of the Scotchman,
John Brown (1736 — 1788), began to spread over Germany.
Brown was possessed of great assurance. In his own
opinion he first raised medicine to the position of a true
* Medic. J021J'., von Baldinger, 1787, XL, p. 25.
t Die AUdopathie, 1834, No. 19.
X Die Leidenschaftcn ah Heilinittcl bctrachtef., Hildburghausen, 17S7.
46 BrozviCs System of Medicine.
science to which the name of " the Science of Nature "
was soon given. According to this every human being
possesses a greater or less degree of irritability. Health
depends upon the possession of just the right amount of
irritation. Disease is produced either by two much irritation
(sthenia) or want of irritation (asthenia). The task of the
physician was simply to moderate the excess of irrita-
tion, or to strengthen the too weak irritation. Thus
all diseases were divided into two classes and also all
remedies, these were " sthenic " and " asthenic." In affec-
tions depending upon too much strength, " irritation
diminishing " drugs were employed, which in the order of
their efficiency, were bleeding, cold, emetics, purgatives,
diaphoretics. In the asthenic forms of disease, sthenic
remedies were employed, which, in the order of their
efficiency, were meat, heat, prevention of vomiting, purg-
ing and sweating, by meat diet, spices, wine, exercise ;
in the more severe cases of disease, volatile stimulants:
musk, ammonia, camphor, ether and opium.* Cinchona was
first added by the followers of Brown. Knowledge of the
structure and functions of the organism was only of minor
importance, for everything depended on the irritants and
the degree of irritability. " So great," says Brown, " is
the simplicity to which medicine can be reduced, that a
physician when he comes to the sick-bed will only have
to elicit three things. First, whether the disease is
general or local ; secondly, if general, whether sthenic or
asthenic ; thirdly, in what stage of irritation it is. When
he has satisfied himself on these three points, nothing
remains but to settle his indications and plan of treat-
ment, and carry it out by means of the corresponding
I'emedies."! The diagnosis was only of minor importance.
Contemporaneously with Brown, the natural philosophy
founded by Schelling} made its appearance and quickly
* Comp. B. ll\rsc\'y&\.,GcsL/iiLhtc dcs Bi-cnai'schcji Systems. Dresden
and Leipzig, 1846, p. 2>7-
f K. .Sprengel, Geschichtc dcr Hcilkundc. Halle, 1828, V. I., p. 455
X First edition of his System dcr A'niurphilosop/iie., Jena u. Leipzig-
1799.
ScJielling and Steffens. 47
distanced all inferior conceptions. It grappled with and
explained all phenomena by the absolute. We may
form some conception of its influence on medicine by read-
ing the following sentences : " The mouth masticates and
the stomach digests by the same process of vegetation ;
the difference of these phenomena is only the result of
their different mechanism." " Living matter is a print or
picture of absolute nature ; and, again, absolute nature her-
self is absolute life, and the prototype of the organism."
" Life is cause ; phenomenon and existence are its results.
Life as cause is immortal, for immortal cause is life."
" Life is the infinite, disease the finite, and the cure is to
be considered as the synthesis of both (the third power)."
" Contagion is the magnetic moment of the dynamic pro-
cess reigning in the organism." After the statement that
the essence lay in the conception of the magnet, " which
is connected with the identical pole," it is further said :
" Only in this way do we get a true idea of contagion,
and come to a true explanation of this long misunder-
stood process."''*
One of the most prominent natural philosophers was
Henrich Steffens, " a deep and scientific thinker."-f- \\\
Oken's periodical, his (1822, p. 123), he is put on a
level with Aristotle, Humboldt, Goethe, Treviranus, Oken,
and others. He wrote a book, Elements of Natural
Philosophy, Berlin, 1806. This work was "a spring-
out of which arose a series of philosophical works," and
gave the following information, pages 189- 191 : " Feeling is
the identity of external oscillation and internal being, con-
sequently, identity of the nervous and muscular systems.
Unity of the internal factor and difference of the external
gives sensation ; difference of the internal and unity of the
external sensation of warmth.
" Hearing is the identity of the relative anorganic of the
organization and its internal being ; consequently, identit}-
of the nervous and osseous systems.
" Hunger is internal tension of the assimilation under
Comp. Hecker, Lc. f Hecker's Annalen, II., p. y-^-^.
48 Influence of Natural PJiilosopJiy.
the influence of the mass opposed to external, hence the
feehng of hunger at the cardiac orifice of the stomach."
And further, page i86 : " Animahzation is identical with
the internal becoming objectiv'e. The manifestation of the
internal is sensation. There is no animahzation without
sensation. Sensation under the influence of the universal
is feeling ; sensation under the influence of individuality is
consciousness."
Steffens dedicated his work to the " Delphic Temple of
Higher Poetry," and in fact most of these persons moved
almost entirely in the higher regions of the clouds, and the
human being with whom their investigations had to do
remained on the earth, but they up there enjoyed a
heavenly existence. They were far above all controversy.
"True natural philosophy," says Steffens, "puts an end to all
contradiction and all controversy of opinions and hypothe-
ses with other opinions and hypotheses, and can, therefore,
have no opponent." " A true saying," remarks a critic*
True natural philosophy knew everything and explained
everything. "Natural philosophy has the priority of know-
ledge, for it is the knowledge of knowledge, and must be
regarded as potentized knowledge."!
It is astonishing the assurance with which every pheno-
menon was explained without hesitation, " Magnetism is
the conversion of oxygen and hydrogen into carbon and
nitrogen," says Steffens, page 91, and Schelling knew| that
oxygen is the principle of electricity.
The whirligig of Natural Philosophy took possession of
the heads of the majority of German savants and the most
prominent physicians. Very few escaped it, as Hufeland,
A. V. Humboldt, Blumenbach, Treviranus, Sommering, We-
dekind. There was, however, no system which could be
generally followed. There were, indeed, men who knew the
direction the medical accessory sciences should take, but
they could not obtain a hearing because they were suffering
from the spirit of the age.
* Heckers Amialen^ II., p. 444. f Steffens, /.r., p. 16.
% L.c, p. 24S.
spontaneous Covibustion. 49
Rei], in his doctrine of fevers and in his Archiv fiir
Physiologie, brought prominently forward the doctrine that
disease was not to be conceived as a foreign thing, but
depended upon the altered form and composition of the
animal substance ; health also depended upon certain rules
of form and composition. Disease was departure from
normal form and composition, that is, anatomical and
chemical change.
In what condition was physiological chemistry in those
days ? To what conclusions did its appreciation lead ?
Let us take an instance from the advanced year 1810 :
About this time a book which had newly appeared entitled
The Complete Description and Exaininaiiofi of Sponta-
neous Combustion was reviewed in Hecker's Annalen.^
"This disease manifests itself," so it says, "by the sudden
ignition of the human organism and its combustion with
the appearance of flames, so that only ashes or coal, in one
case only a spot of grease remained of the whole body.""f
We are chiefly interested in the chemical explanation of
this phenomenon as given in the work quoted :
1. "The whole body of the consumed persons was pene-
trated through all its cells by hydrogen gas, at least in
sufficient quantities to suffice for its first ignition and the
maintenance of the fire."
2. " An excess of other inflammable matters, as sulphur
and phosphorus, was simultaneously present."
3. " The body, thus in a high degree inflammable, was
not ignited by external fire, but by an electric explosion
in its interior ; the electric spark quickly permeated the
body filled with inflammable matter."
On this Hecker remarks : " This theory of spontaneous
combustion is certainly as satisfactory a one as can be
given in the present state of our knowledge and with the
imperfectly observed facts."
* n., p. 547.
t Comp. Justus Liebig 07t the Spo7ttaneous Combustion of the Humaji
Body, Heidelberg, 1850, p. 31. By this work the ghosts of forty-eight
spontaneous combustions were laid.
50 Views about the Blood.
A. von Humboldt with others opposed the " disease-
matter " theory. " Disease-matter is really the whole living
matter itself, so far as its form and composition are changed
and the balance of its elements is disturbed."* Medical
men were too impatient to utilise this theory, they w^anted
to reap when they had barely finished sowing. The im-
mense progress made by chemistry through the discoveries
of Lavoisier, especially the newly discovered knowledge of
the significance of oxygen, caused researchers to utilise this
advance also for medicine. So, according to Humboldt
(/.c), want or excess of oxygen is the proximate cause
of disease, " because oxygen combines with phosphorus,
sulphur, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen, and produces
acids which diminish the energy of the nerves, thereby
deranging the functions of the secreting organs." In Hum-
boldt's famous work, which was abreast of the knowledge
of the day, we read that hydrogen is contained in plumbago
and similar views. Although Humboldt opposed the
" disease-matter " and " acid-acridities " theories, he never-
theless held that " an acid is at work in the production of
scrofula," and with Haller discussed the question " whether
in convulsions alkaline or acid acridities w^ere irritating the
spinal marrow."-f-
It was indeed very tempting to utilise the great chemical
discoveries in the treatment of disease. About the middle
of the eighteenth century Haller thus described the blood :
" The blood consists of equal parts, is coagulable and all
the redder the better the animal is nourished ; in a weak
hungry animal it is yellowish. The white sometimes mixed
with it generally comes from the chyle."
In 1789, about thirty years later, J. F. Blumenbach, the
famous Gottingen professor, teaches : ^ " Blood is a peculiar
fluid of a well-known colour, sometimes lighter, sometimes
darker, viscid to the touch and warm, and as it cannot be
* Versuche uber die gereizte Miiskel und NcrZ'C7ifaser 7icbst Vermu-
thungen ilber dc7t chcin. Process dcs Lebens. Posen and Berlin, 1797,
n., p. 359-
t lb., II., pp. 360 and 379.
X Anfangsgiimde der Physiologic Vienna, 1789, § 6.
CJieniical treatment of Disease. 5 1
imitated by art, it must be considered as one of the secrets
of nature." In all this time no progress seemed to have
been made. In 1803 this was taught:* "Blood consists of
nine ingredients : odoriferous matter,fibrinous parts, albumen,
sulphur, gelatine, iron, potash, soda, and lastly water
the elements of the blood are : hydrogen, carbon, potas-
sium, chlorine, phosphorus, sulphur, oxygen, calcium and
iron."
Thus physiological chemistry had made great progress,
and this excited so much admiration that an attempt was
made to utilise these discoveries. Garnett recommended
sulphuret of potash, sulphate of lime and wood charcoal, in
consumption. The sulphuret of potash produced sul-
phuretted hydrogen, the hydrogen of this combined with
the oxygen of the blood and the inflammatory action of
the latter was paralysed. J. J. Busch recommends sul-
phur and hepar sulphuris in pulmonary consumption ; this
produced " a mephitic vapour " in the ulcerated lung, and
thereby impeded the destructive action of the oxygen.
Girtanner, of Gottingen, followed in the wake of the Eng-
lishman Beddoes, in whose method of treatment various
gases, nitrogen, hydrogen, &c., were inhaled by means of
a special apparatus (an improvement of Menzies's) as a
remedy for phthisis, the process being minutely described
and illustrated in Hufeland's Journal, 1795, I., p. 199.
Others prescribed chlorate of potash in scurvy, syphilis and
nervous fever, in order that the oxygen of this salt might
be liberated in the body. Alkalies were recommended in
dysentery to extinguish the " septic acids ;" carbonate of
potash was indicated in puerperal fever to neutralise the
" excessive acidity " which was the cause of this complaint.
In diabetes, oxygen preponderated ; " all the fluids of the
body were saturated with oxygen." Hence the good effects
of an animal diet, of milk, of meat, of sulphuretted hy-
drogen and of limewater.
* F. Kapp, System. Darstellung dcr dierch die neuere Cheinie in der
Heilkunde beiuirkten Vcrdnderungeti und Verbesserungen. Hof, 1805,
P- 31-
52 Nature of Electricity.
Reich considered oxygen the only sure remedy for the
febrile state, which he considered dependent upon the un-
due development and accumulation of nitrogen, carbon,
hydrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus. He was professor of
medicine in Erlangen and Berlin ; in various journals, and
in a special work,* he recommended a secret remedy for
fever which he would only reveal for a large sum of money.
This remedy would in a short time, or even at once, cut
short a fever. A committee of four doctors instituted ex-
periments in the Berlin Charite Hospital, and considered
its action proved in a number of cases. After the report of
this commission the professor was decreed " an annual
pension of 500 thalers, free of tax and stamp duty" by the
King of Prussia for the publication of his secret ; in case of
his death half of it went to his widow.! This became
known before the great remedy against fever was revealed
and it was eagerly awaited. Curiosity was at length
gratified in the autumn of 1800, It consisted of sulphuric
and muriatic acid ; nitric acid was also good in certain
conditions.!
Baumes, Girtanner and other others founded a system.
Most diseases were explained and cured in a chemical
way. They arose from excess or want of oxygen, hy-
drogen, nitrogen and phosphorus. Accordingly there were
" oxygenous " remedies : — antimony, mercury, iron, lead,
gold, silver, cinchona, acids, camphor, ether, alcohol, nar-
cotics — " hydrogenous " remedies : oleagineous bodies, se-
dentary habits, fat meat, fish — " nitrogenous " remedies :
meat, and " deoxidizing " agents ; lastly, " phosphoric " re-
medies : fish, phosphates of lime and soda, phosphoric acid.
Electricity was treated in a similar manner. According
to Schelling, as has been said, oxygen was " the principle of
electricity." Juch was quite certain that oxygen played the
chief role in electricity, while Erxleben considered it to con-
* G. C. Reich, Beschreibitng der Diit set7ien 7ieuen Mittd behandelten
Krcmkheitsfdlle. Niirnberg, 1800.
t Med. Chir. Ztg. Salzburg, 1800, III., 315.
X lb., 1799, IV., 189 ; 1800, I., 25, and IV. 292.J
Instability of Medical TJieoTies. 53
sist of oxygen, hydrogen and heat. Lciner beHcved it to
be composed of hydrogen and oxygen.*
These various views and systems, and other ones besides,
reigned almost simultaneously in Germany at the end
of the last and the beginning of this century. And even
if one theory was superseded by another, still something of
each stuck in people's heads. Each tried to discover what
best suited his views. Many went over from one theory to
another. Wedekind,t ex-professor of clinical medicine at
Mainz, thus pictures a doctor of that period : " I know a
physician who at one time adopted the heating and
sweating method. How much essentia alexipharmica, mis-
tura simplex and composita Stahlii did he not daily pre-
scribe ! He was also a great partisan of bleeding, and I do
not doubt that he often by it counteracted the baneful
effects of his heating remedies and vice versa. But the
triumvirate of Boerhaave, Stahl and Fr. Hoffmann was
drawing to an end. Tissot had become the leading autho-
rity. Our practitioner now advocated the cooling method.
Tamarinds, cream of tartar, saltpetre, oxymel, and barley-
water were his favourite remedies. He forbade healthy
people to smoke, because Tissot had asserted that all to-
bacco-smokers must die in tJieir prime of apoplexy.
" When Stoll became the leading authority among physi-
cians, we find tartar emetic and ipecac, in most of their pre-
scriptions. They were, of course, devoted to the administra-
tion of clysters when Kampf wasin vogue. C. L. Hoffmann
was called to occupy the place that had been held by this
physician. Accustomed to follow the spirit of the age, they
now exaggerated what this great thinker taught concerning
antiseptic remedies. How can fashionable practitioners
understand the meaning of an author ? Enough, our phy-
sicians did not observe how the functions of their patients
were carried on, in order to ascertain how far these were in-
jurious or advantageous to the maintenance of the body,
but they proceeded forthwith to cure every disease by means
of antiseptics. A few years later Brown became dictator
* Comp. Kapp. I.e.
t Ueber den Werth dcr Heilkimde. Darmstadt, 18 12, p. 212.
54 Remedies made to fit Theories.
in medicine, and ' Methodism ' ruled the fashion. Our
practitioners now called those physicians who devoted them-
selves to remedy vices in the fluids of the body, or to
procure evacuation of depraved humors, murderers ; for
to believe in such vices showed the greatest ignorance.
Their practice was summed up in four words — sthenia, as-
thenia, sthenic influence, asthenic vices. Very few of their
prescriptions were without naptha, laudanum, ether, musk,
or sal-ammoniac. They were now as much in favour of wine,
brandy, and meat diet, as they had been against them at
the time when Tissot was the ruling deity. Now they re-
turned to purging in order to cure local affections, and tried
to unite all these different modes of treatment. Therefore,
they now refused to be called Brownians, and insisted upon
being called eclectics."
The therapeutic text-books for students and physicians
were as variously coloured as maps. " Ontology," the idea
that a disease is a foreign thing carrying on its evil ends
in the system, has met with wide acceptance from the days
of Galen. Hence the evacuant method was supreme.
Further, there was a stimulating, a strengthening, a weaken-
ing, a softening, an antagonistic, a restorative (not to be
confounded with the strengthening), an astringent which
increased the cohesion, a relaxing which diminished the
cohesion, a derivative and a resolving method, and also a
specific, antimiasmatic, antiseptic and antigastric method.*
The various remedies were fitted on to these methods ;
thus there were demulcent, diluent, dissolving, inspissat-
ing, blood-cleansing, cooling, evacuating and expectorant,
&c., drugs. To order a simple remedy was not the custom.
We still find the idea that it is necessary that a prescription
should contain a basis, a constituens, an adjuvans, a
corrigens and a dirigens. Complex prescriptions contain-
ing 8, lo, or more drugs were in daily use. There were so-
called " magistral-formulas," complex mixtures composed
by " authorities " as remedies for certain diseases, and
* See Hufeland, System der prakt. Heilkunde. Jena, iSiS, and
others.
Antiphlogistic Treatment. 55
sanctioned by " experience." They were kept ready made
by the apothecaries, and no one dared to alter them.
These prescriptions were changed every day in acute
diseases, in chronic every two or three days, as the cases
reported in the medical journals show ; and what incredible
quantities of drugs were poured into the sick man's body !
All the various systems out-did one another in this
practice.
The Brownians, e.g., gave in typhus fever, together with
other remedies, 10 — 12 drops of opium every quarter of
an hour till sleep was induced, when the dose was to be
doubled, and was then to be gradually increased " till the
health of the patient could be maintained by less powerful
stimulants." In "indirect debility," 150 drops of laudanum,
which means 0.70 grammes of pure opium, were to be given
at once, and in the sequel the necessary doses gradually
diminished till the desired result was attained. In difficult
labours, the ordinary cause of which was recognised to be
"weakness," the parturient woman, according to Brown,
was to be supported with wine, and if the labour was
tedious and difficult, with opium. Opium (later also
cinchona) was with this school the best remedy in all
diseases depending on weakness. There were physicians
who, according to their own statement, prescribed several
pounds of pure opium in the year, " Thousands of
sick persons, and among them the most hopeful young
subjects, were sacrificed to the rage for opium," as Hufeland
said later.*
Similar results were produced by the " antiphlogistic
method," which was employed by many physicians in
inflammations and inflammatory fevers. Bleeding, salt-
petre, calomel in large doses till the teeth were loosened,
and energetic salivation were the " matadors " of the anti-
phlogistic school, supplemented often by evacuating agents,
such as emetics and purgatives. Many physicians troubled
themselves little about the local affection in " general de-
bility;" for this they prescribed simply iron, cinchona, and
* Hufeland's/tf?,tr«., XXXII., St. 2, p. 16.
56 Thcrapaitic Confusion.
a number of other bitter drugs. There are few diseases in the
treatment of which one can say that the physicians of that
day did no harm.
Pathological anatomy was little cultivated in Germany.
The Brownians did not require it for their therapeutics.
Those among the remainder who relied upon the results of
post mortem examinations allowed themselves to be misled
by crude conceptions. If they found congestion of blood
in the organs, or even mortification, this confirmed the in-
dication for bleeding and the other antiphlogistic means of
treatment. Accumulations of bile, depraved humours and
mucus, indicated the employment of evacuating agents.
Exudations required derivatives, &c.
Did physicians feel satisfied wath such a condition of
the healing art? Most seemed satisfied with themselves.
There were, however, severe critics who were not much
better hands at treatment than the others. Marcus Herz,
for instance, 1795 (in Hufeland's Jotinml); Girtanner,
1798;* Wedekind, 1812 (I.e.); Kieser, 1819,! and others.
Girtanner, who helped to complete the confusion by spread-
ing the Brownian and chemical theories, exclaims : "As the
healing art has no fixed principles, as nothing is demon-
strated clearly in it, as there is little certain and reliable
experience in it, every physician has the right to follow
his own opinion. When there is no question of real know-
ledge, where everyone is only guessing, one opinion is as
good as another. In the dense Egyptian darkness of
ignorance in which physicians are groping their way,
not even the faintest ray of light has penetrated by
means of which they can steer their course, I don't care
if anyone feels offended by what I say. My object is
not to give offence, but to maintain the truth. If any
practitioner is not satisfied with my opinions, let him
examine his own conscience and ascertain of how many
medical truths he is certain. He who can point out to me
certainty in medicine may throw the first stone at me."
* Ausfiihrliche Darstelliing des Browiischen Systems. Gottingen,
1798, II., pp. 608 — 610.
t System der Mediciii. 1819.
Professional Courtesies. 57
These critics, however, did not themselves see the deeper
lying causes of this confusion. Physicians did not know
how to observe. Instead of collecting only facts and draw-
ing no further inferences from them than they warranted,
they fastened upon single observations, made comparisons,
created theories, and cooked the facts so as to suit these
theories. The science of natural philosophy lent these
speculations wings, and they were raised completely out of
the regions of actuality into the blue ether.
At the same time with the majority of physicians, the
desire for knowledge was very limited. Many complaints
were made of this. Professor Baldinger lamented that
not only many physicians, but even many professors
showed little zeal for study. " I know one professor of
medicine, who will not admit more then nineteen books
into his library. If a twentieth volume were dedicated to
him, and sent to him carriage paid, bound in morocco,
he at once sells it to the library of his university."*
Of universities, indeed, there was no dearth ; at the end of
the last and in the first decade of the present century
there were not less than 40 universities where German was
the language spoken, among which, however, only a part
were able to provide their medical courses with clinical
instruction.
The state of professional amenity corresponded to the con-
dition of medical knowledge. "A savage partisan spirit,"
writes Professor Roose, in i8o3,t "has taken possession
of many minds and seems to be spreading universally.
Physicians split into sects, every one of which embitters the
others by violent and often unfounded contradiction, and so
prevents all possibility of doing good. Dogmatism and a
persecuting spirit are becoming commoner and commoner
among physicians, and they are only distinguished from the
dogmatism and persecution of enraged religious sects of
former times by being fortunately powerless to arm the
secular authorities with fire and sword arainst their adver-
* Medic. Journ. v. Baldinger, 1790, St. 23, p. 16.
t Horn's Arckiv f. med. Erf., III., p. i.
58 QiLar ill's influence on Hahnemann.
sarics. If the spirit of the age permitted the establishment
of a revealed medical art with us as with the Asiatics,
there would undoubtedly be a Catholic and a Protestant
confession, and there would not be wanting either a pope for
the one or a chief pastor for the other."
The more uncertain a physician feels of his own skill the
more loudly he calls to the State for assistance against the
quack and charlatan. It was so in those days. Wedekind
{I.e., p. 38) describes a debate among physicians who es-
poused the reigning opinions ; one of them shouted out :
" The scientific physician will be ruined unless he is
favoured in every way by the Government."
A sad condition for the said " science " to be in, but
which accounts for the embittered disputes related in the
course of this work.
HaJineinanrCs Services to Medicine.
What instruction had Hahnemann in the art of medicine?
It cannot be proved that any physician exercised a special
influence over him and gave him a particular bent. He
himself indeed speaks with great reverence of Quarin. He
writes, in 1791, "I owe to him whatever there is of physi-
cian in me." It nevertheless seems as if the feeling of a
debt of gratitude to Quarin for favours received (see below)
was not without influence in inducing him to make this
statement. Freiherr von Quarin, born in 1733, was body
physician to Maria Theresa and the Emperor Joseph ; he
filled six times the post of rector of the university of
Vienna, He died in 1812 of "debility." His medical works
did not meet with general acceptance among the pro-
fession.* Several of his worksf exist, which will well repay
* " Under other auspices the General Hospital of Vienna would
gain more," was said of Quarin in the Medic. Litteratiir fiir prakt.
Aerzte, von Schlegel. Leipzig, 1787, XII., p. 99.
f Heibnetliodc der Entzilndiingen. Aus d. Lat. von J. Zadig de
Metza, Copenhagen, 1776. Hcilmethodc der Fiebe?: Aus d. Lat. vom
Vorigen, Copenhagen, 1777. Aiiiniadversioncs practices in diversos
vio7'bos^ II. vols., Vienna, 17S6. Praktische Bemerkimgenueberversch.
Krankheiten. Aus d. Lat., Vienna. Dc curandis febribus et injlam-
Hahnemann's first Medical Work. 59
careful study if we wish to decide how far Ouarin's influence
over Hahnemann extended. That Ouarin was an advocate
of bleeding till the day of his death (1812) appears certain.
The first considerable medical work of Hahnemann ap-
peared in 1784, Guide to the Radical Ctire of Old Sores
and Fold UlcersT* Old ulcers of the leg and fistula; were
specially meant. In the preface he says : —
The majority of physicians would have nothing to do with them,
but left them to the bath man, the shepherd and the hangman, more
from ignorance than disgust. The fame of practising such heroic
treatment smells much worse than the foetid discharge.
The mode of treatment of ordinary physicians and
surgeons consisted in " purification of the blood," bleeding,
cupping, sweating and purging. The chief external
remedies used were the lead preparations, especially lead
ointments and plasters. Hahnemann even when a young
physician seems to have been unaffected by the prevalent
belief in authority.
The finishing stroke to the treatment of such cases is generally
given by old wives, the hangman, the farrier, the shepherd and death.
For all that I am not too proud to confess that horse and cow doctors
are frequently more successful, that is to say, more skilful in curing
old sores than the most learned professor and member of all the
academies. Let this not be denounced as mere empiricism ; I would
like to possess their workmanlike expedients which are founded on
experience, often, it is true, gained in the treatment of animals, but
which I would willingly exchange for many medical folios, if they
were to be had at that price. But, on the other hand, far be it from
me to draw from them general rules for my treatment or to prefer
irrational quackery to the well-considered medical theories deduced
from the observations and experience of illustrious and honest men.
I know the limits of both.
The want of any principle for the discovery of the
curative powers of drugs was even then a cause of com-
plaint with him.
Thus much, however, is true, and it may make us more modest,
that almost all our knowledge of the curative powers of simple and
inationibus^ Vienna, 1786. Ueber den Nutzen und Schadcn der In-
secten. Ueber die VerscJiiedenheit der Salzeit.iJirenGebraucJi. Versuche
tceber die Ciciita virosa.
* Translated in Brit. Jour, of Hom.^ XLII., p. loi, et seq.
6o His love of Air and Exercise.
natural as well as artificial substances is mainly derived from the rude
and automatic procedures of the common people, and that the wise
physician often draws conclusions from the effects of the so-called
domestic remedies which are of inestimable importance to him, and
their value leads him to adopt simple natural means to the great ad-
vantage of his patients. I will spare my readers proofs of this.
In pages 43 and 180, he alludes to several shepherds
and quacks who were thoroughly rational and obtained
good results. If we read this work we shall in many
cases see Hahnemann's independent mode of excogitat-
ing medical subjects. Naturally he still adhered to the
old treatment. In women about the climacteric he still
recommended bleeding, as he did in fever under certain
circumstances and with caution (p. 79); he, however, blames
the usual excessive blood-letting, and commends the action
of cinchona in fever "even in severe cases" (p. 69). He was
a great enemy to coffee (p. ']%^, but a great advocate of
exercise and open air, and also of the beneficial action of
change of climate and residence at the seaside, all things
which were then little spoken of in medical works.
Next to nourishment, exercise is what is most important for the
animal machine, by it the clockwork is wound up. These delicate
creatures should not be confined to needlework, nor allowed to loiter
over the toilet table, to play cards, to pay tedious visits or to read
enervating books, whereby they would be reduced to the condition of
colourless plants grown in a cellar. Exercise and wholesome air alone
suffice to determine all the juices of our body to their proper place,
compel the excretory organs to throw off their accumulated moisture,
give strength to the muscles, communicate to the blood its highest
degree of redness, attenuate the humours so that they can readily
penetrate the remotest capillary vessels, strengthen the heart's beats,
establish healthy digestion, and are the best means for obtaining
repose and sleep, whereby refreshment and renewal of the vital spirits
are secured (p. 76).
Strengthening diet, wholesome air and exercise, together with
amusement to the mind, are indispensable, and everyone knows their
power and can employ them. Nourishment suited to the body in
appropriate quantity is the only thing required to ensure healthy
digestion and to eliminate the bad juices from the primie viae ; exercise
promotes the appetite, strengthens the digestion, and better than all
purgatives expels the excess of evil humours by the natural outlets of
the body every movement of the limbs conduces to the strengthening
of the circulation of the blood and to the completeness of the assimi-
lation of the nutritive fluids — there can be no health without exercise.
The first teacher of Hygiene. 6l
Where is the remedy that can more agreeably and more certainly
remove the decomposing ferment in our blood-vessels that always
tends to destroy our machine than pure air ? With every breath we
draw a quantity of it into our lungs, its purest etherial part, the source
of our corporeal heat, penetrates by means of the exhalent vessels of
the innumerable arteries of these organs into the mass of the blood
and expels the unwholesome spoilt air, the air we expire. It is only
in the pure open air that we feel refreshed by breathing ; in cellars
and close rooms full of living creatures we become weak, faint and
die, often in a few hours if the air is much spoilt by the breath of
many persons. These different effects of the air we breathe convince
us that life and health are not to be expected without pure air (p. 94).
Further on he discusses the habits of life, the occupation,
the division of the day and the conditions of the dwellings
in a short, concise and convincing manner. How seldom
was hygiene considered in a therapeutic work in those
days ? How many books on therapeutics were written
which contained no mention of hygiene ! We do not even
meet with the zvord hygiene in its present sense. There
were as yet no precautions taken for preserving health. If
we consult Hufeland's Journal, which was founded 1 1 years
later, and in which the most eminent practitioners wrote, we
shall have to search through all its numbers till the year
1830 to be able to extract as much concerning hygiene in
several decennia of this much later period as Hahnemann has
scattered through his work of 192 small octavo pages on a
surgical complaint. Even in the year 1828, the allopaths
were reproached by an opponent of Hahnemann's for the
small amount of trouble they gave themselves about these
important matters compared with him. There were very
few exceptions, as, for instance, Hufeland, as his Macro-
hiotik, which appeared 12 years later (1796), shows, though
we see from his neglect of diet and hygienic measures in
his Journal that he had not grasped their importance.
Hahnemann prescribes exactly what should be the diet and
occupation, the position of the sitting and bedrooms, and
frequency of the renewal of their air (p. 98, et seq.).
Amusement is necessary; I do not approve of solitary forced
labour and exercise. Consequently, I always endeavour, whenever
possible, to bring my patients into a state of disposition free from care
and worry, whereby alone, as I believe, the wearing friction which the
62 Advocacy of cold-water Treatment.
mind and body exercise on one another in our organism may be
lessened.
Varied, agreeable society, with occasional music, is the best thing
for cheering the human soul that is not depressed to the condition of
an insensible lump, and even should we meet with persons sunk so
low among our patients, they must at first be forced to go into society,
just as we force the child to swallow the healing draught. They
should even accustom themselves to social converse at the sacrifice of
more remunerative occupations, until they acquire a taste for it, espe-
cially when morality, temperance, and exercise can be combined with
it. How else can we get rid of care or acquire a hopeful view of life
except amid a happy throng of our like-minded fellow creatures,
amongst whom we can cast off the burdens of life, and mutually
bestrew our paths with flowers ?
The strictest cleanliness in dress and in the whole mode of life
must be maintained, along with exercise, open air, and recreation.
Cleanliness is the spice of all the operations of life, and without it the
most costly dainties and the finest clothes excite only disgust.
Upon the employment of cold water, which, in spite of
the efforts of Hahn (died 1773), was greatly neglected, and
for the systematic employment of which there was no
enthusiasm, Hahnemann writes at length (pages 108 to
126), and gives exact instructions.
If there is such a thing as a universal remedy, it is undoubtedly
water. [The temperature, duration, and time of day of its employment
are given in detail.] I can never cease to marvel how our most
eminent physicians, when prescribing a strengthening treatment, have
been so remiss in laying down precise directions for the use of the cold
bath. They content themselves with telling the patient to take a half
or a whole bath in the morning and sometimes also in the afternoon.
No word respecting the degree of temperature of the water, the exact
duration of the bath, and the other particulars concerning it so neces-
sary for the patient to know. We cease to wonder that injury to the
health is often caused by cold baths, when we consider how very im-
properly the cold water may often be used when the physician gives
such meagre, maimed and laconic directions respecting its use.
If a weak, delicate patient remain for hours in snow-water, in order
to comply heroically with the loose directions of his eminent physi-
cian, it is probable that he will be taken out of it in a fainting state,
doubled up with convulsions, struck down by apoplexy, or chilled into
a low fever, or perhaps stiff and stark dead. Can we find fault with
the useful knife with which the infant wounded itself ; should we not
rather blame the negligence of its nurse ? In our directions for the
use of powerful remedies we cannot be too precise and explicit :
His treatment of Caries. 63
patients are only too apt to err on the side of doing less rather than
more than we prescribe.
This want of precision on the part of physicians is the cause of the
great prejudice against cold water ; we meet great numbers of people
who regard the cold bath as the most pernicious weapon in the
medical armamentarium, who dread it more than death. But the rank
and file of medical practitioners who slavishly imitate their betters
have brought the cold bath into disrepute by their senseless ways of
carrying out the careless prescriptions of our Hippocrateses.
He then proceeds to tell us what unintelligible instruc-
tions were usually given by physicians. Hahnemann
writes exact directions concerning the conditions of the
bath and the frictions, ^c, in and after it.
When Hahnemann was once convinced of a thing, he
enunciated it with the greatest precision, and did not easily
allow himself to be turned from it. " I am," he says at the
end of this chapter, " borne out by the most extensive ex-
perience, and I claim unlimited confidence on this point."
His medical treatment of ulcers was as follows : — In-
ternally he gave in suitable cases decoctions of woods,
therefore compound medicines (p. 86), but he also gave the
medicines singly, though in large doses. He completely
banished the customary lead plaster and ointment. As
the local application he used alcohol (p. 44), solution of
corrosive sublimate (p. 40, 44, 153, r/i), lunar caustic
(p. 148), solution of arsenic — the latter in the proportion of
I to 30,000* (p. 149, 181), and balsam of Peruf (p. 149),
each remedy singly and in accurately indicated cases.
Where necessary, he recommends energetic treatment.
At page 44 he relates a case of caries of the metatarsal
bone of the great toe, with burrowing fistuke and unhealthy
pus. " I was called in. I enlarged the wound, dressed it
a few days with digestive (a mixture of Peruvian balsam,
or balsam of copaiba, with two to three parts of the yolk
of eggs), I scraped the carious bone clean out, and removed
all the dead part, dressed it with alcohol, and watched the
result." Later he applied alternately dressings of corrosive
* Comp. Kennzeichen der Gufe, &c., p 223.
t This he repeatedly recommends, 1791. Trans, of Monro, II., p.
123.
64 Reception of Jus novel methods.
sublimate and digestive. Internally he gave tonics, and
the patient gradually began to mend. The scraping out of
the carious bone is looked upon now-a-days as an achieve-
ment of modern surgery. Thus Hahnemann, in his treat-
ment of wounds and ulcers, proved himself an excellent
surgeon, and was far in advance of his contemporaries.
He was not wrong in saying of himself at the conclusion
of his book : —
I cannot be blamed for insisting on such a generally applicable
treatment of old malignant ulcers, and in preferring it with certain
limitations to all others ; the most careful and extensive experience is
on my side. Anyone who has had the opportunity to make so many
observations in such cases as I have made, who is actuated by such a
desire to do good to his fellow creatures as I feel that I am, who so
thoroughly hates the prejudices and prepossessions in favour of the
old over the new, who has as little respect for the authority of a great
name as I have, and who as zealously endeavours to think and act for
himself as I do, will, I imagine, not easily hit on another and better
treatment of old ulcers, he will consequently be able to obtain the
same excellent results of his efforts as I have obtained, which is the
highest reward that a conscientious physician can expect, results
which have hardly ever disappointed me, whereas the different treat-
ment of others has almost always belied their expectations.
Baldinger, professor in Jena, Gottingen and Marburg,
the instructor of Blumenbach, the }"Ounger Meckel, Reil,
&c., thus criticises Hahnemann's book : * " The author has
treated his subject very thoroughly and well. He shows
how mistaken the previous and most usual treatment has
been — and teaches a better. The book is written in such
a thoroughly practical manner that we cannot sufficiently
hope that it will be widely read."
The ^^•ork Instructiofis to Surgeons conceTuing the Treat-
ment of Venereal Diseases ^''\ which appeared in 1789, re-
ceived an equally favourable reception.
Baldinger writes : ± " This work is profound and clear."
Immediately after a work on the same subject by Professor
Fritze, of Berlin, is criticised: "This book, like the other
one, also contains much that is good. Both authors have
* Medic. Joiirn. von Baldinger. Gottingen, 1785, p. 23.
t Translated in Hahnemann's Lesser Writings., pp. i to 187.
X Med. u. Phys. Joiirn., 1790, St. 14, p. 76.
Appreciation of HaJincinaniis labojirs. 65
thought for themselves, and written not only profoundl}%
but also comprehensively and clearly."
Kurt Sprengel writes the following criticism : * —
Hunter's ideas are the foundation of the theoretical part of a very
good book by Samuel Hahnemann. He here recommends his mer-
curius solubilis, a mild and excellent preparation whose admirable
effects have since been verified. The first important writer, who
highly commended this remedy, was Joh. Fr. Fritze, Prof in Berlin, in
a workf which is good, though it contains little that is new, neverthe-
less it has been approved of in foreign countries in its translations.
Another critic writes : + —
Our readers will see from the extracts given that this is no ordinary
work, but is written with an unusual degree of knowledge, reflection
and original thought. The special methods of treatment recom-
mended and the maxims laid down deserve trial and attention.
In the Aledic. cJiir. Zcitimg,\ we read : —
The book is, however, not merelj' the work of a man of intelligence
and learning, but is written with an aphoristic brevity to which the
learned medical reader will only find a parallel in Hunter, Swediaur,
Andre, &c. It is a book that will be of great use for academical
lectures, though the author did not design it for that purpose, &c.
Soon after A. R. Vetter's book on syphilis appeared : A
Nezu Method of Treatment of all Venereal Diseases after
Hunter, Girtanner and Hahnemann^
The Medic, cliir. Zeitung^i writes concerning his trans-
lation of Cullen's Materia Medica : —
HeiT Hahnemann has made this translation most carefully, in
spite of the obscurity of the original The comments of the
translator are generally very learned, and he has also enhanced the
value of this important work by his numerous corrections of the
author's errors.
The way in which mental diseases were formerly treated
* Geschichte der Arziieikimdc. Halle, 1828, V., Part 2, p. 591.
t Handb. iiber die vener. Krankh. Berlin, 1790.
X Neue Litterar. Nach7'ic1iten f. Aerste, &c. Halle, 1789, p. 785.
§ Edited by Prof Hartenkeil. Salzburg, 1790, III., p. 345.
II Vienna, 1793.
1 1 791, I., pp. 117 and 231.
65 OrtJiodox treat nieni of the Insane.
(one need not go so far back as Hahnemann's time) is
known to every physician. Physicians treated excitable
and refractory maniacal patients like wild animals ; it was
thought necessary to cow and terrify them. Corporal
chastisement and nauseating medicines were ordinary means
used. Furious maniacs were strapped down on a hori-
zontal board which could be quickly turned on an axis to
a vertical position, or put in the so-called rotating chair.
" A well fitted up madhouse was, in certain respects, not
unlike a torture-chamber," says Westphal* This method
of treatment was adopted by Ernest Horn in 1806 in the
insane department of the Berlin Charite, then the largest
madhouse in Prussia. He also invented the " closed sack,"
in which maniacs were tied up, and which compelled them,
according to Westphal,to remain lying wherever they were
placed. " It is shameful to have to confess," says Westphal
in 1 8S0, " what a short time has elapsed since the insane
were shown to the Sunday visitors of hospitals and work-
houses as a kind of sport, and teased in order to amuse the
visitors."
As the treatment of the insane depends upon the state
of culture, we shall here quote as an illustration of the
degree of refinement of the physicians of that day, some
remarks from the Medicinische Bibliothek of the celebrated
Gottingen professor, J. Fr. Blumenbach. He is speaking of
a work on medical jurisprudence of repute in which it is
stated that in Baden a parricide could not be brought to
confess because torture had been abolished.
The critic thereupon remarks! (in the year 17S9) : —
The most innocuous and at the same time the most efficacious
mode of torture which can be retained without hesitation is, in our
opinion, to apply only such a degree of torture to the accused as will
set up a slight traumatic fever, and, after this has been set up, to
threaten him with it again. The depression of mind, the loss of self-
control, produced by the traumatic fever, will bring even the most
hardened ruffian to confess. We have more than once found in
dealings with criminals, that men who are able to support a severe
first application of torture, if they are again tortured after a few days
* Psychiatrie ujid psychiatrischcr Unicrricht. Berlin, 1880,
t Vol. III., St. 2, p. 282.
HaJineniann's treaiment of the Insane. 6"/
when suffering from traumatic fever, become quite faint-hearted and
spiritless and they confess everything.
Hahnemann's principle in his treatment of insanity was
this : "I never allow an insane person to be punished either
by blows or any other kind of corporal chastisement, be-
cause there is no punishment where there is no responsi-
bility, and because these sufferers deserve only pity and are
always rendered worse by such rough treatment and never
improved."* Retreated and cured in this way in 1792, the
Chancellery Secretary Klockenbring of Hanover, a man well
known to literature, who had become deranged. After his
complete cure from madness this sufferer showed his de-
liverer, " often with tears in his eyes, the marks of the blows
and stripes his former keepers had employed to keep him
in order."
Hahnemann, therefore, was a long way ahead of his con-
temporaries in the treatment of the insane. That he at first
employed bleeding is natural enough, but we alwaj^s see him
apply it cautiously, and even as early as 1784 he contended,
as has been shown, against excessive bleeding. In 1832,
Hahnemann writes, in a letter to M. Muller,-f- that he had
given up bleeding, emetics and purging more than thirty
years ago. He still bled in 1797, as appears from a paper
in Hufeland's JournalX and in 1800 he was not an absolute
opponent of it. " In acute sthenic maladies, bleeding and
the removal of all kinds of irritants do more good than
watery drinks." §
Some indications of the treatment resorted to in typhus
or nervous fever in those days have already been given. Let
us hear one of the greatest physicians of the time, J. P. Frank,
on the subject, in his work De Ciirandis Homimuii Morbis,
which was completed in 1821 :|| "We should be cautious
about blood-letting, but ' an inflammatory nervous fever '
* Deutsche Monatschrift^YQhr\\axy,i7()6. Lesser fF;7Vz>7^i',p.293,note.
t M. Miiller, Zur Geschichte der Homdopathie. Leipzig, 1837, p. 31-
X Lesser Writings^ p. y]^,.
§ Arzneiscliatz^ aus dem Engl, tibers. von Hahnemann. Leipzig,
1800, p. 171.
II Translated in 1832 by Sobernheim, with commendatory preface
by Hufeland.
68 Halinemann's early tjxatment of TypJioid Fever.
is a very different matter." " When by venesection we have
once succeeded in reducing the complaint to a simple
nervous fever." " In gastric nervous fever we must give
emetics, because otherwise obstinate diarrhoea is apt to set
in towards the end of the illness." "Indeed, sometimes
an emetic given even at a later stage is of service." Then
comes a chapter on " the treatment of symptoms." For
each single symptom there is a different remedy. For
diarrhoea : " China, canella, red wine, calumba, contrayerva,
catechu, alum, fresh milk, theriac (a brew containing 40 to
60 drugs and 0.25 parts of opium to every 30 parts of fluid),
and diascordium, introduced by the mouth or the anus."
" For violent abdominal pains following true inflammation,
general or local bleeding," besides blisters, baths, " fomenta-
tions, anodynes and repeated enemata." In " putrefying
crudities" in the bowels: tamarinds, rhubarb and cinchona.
In "spastic" affections of the brain : wine and opium; but for
congestive cerebral affections : " leeches and cupping in the
region of the temples and occiput or behind the ears." " In
profuse, purely symptomatic hcemorrhages : cinchona and
alum, externally and internall}-, mineral acids with cold
water, fomentations of snow or ice, and also sometimes wine
and opium." Imagine a medical man sitting with the book
of this great authority before him, a book which was trans-
lated in 1832 with a commendatory preface by Hufeland,
as though it were something ver}- excellent. What pre-
scriptions would result from such instruction ?
Concerning Hahnemann's treatment of typhoid fever we
learn the following in the year 1790 — that is thirty or forty
years earlier :* " In nervous fever (the symptoms of which
Hahnemann describes minutely), antiphlogistic remedies —
refrigerating and laxative salts, water}- drinks, and bleeding
act as poisons. Emetics and blisters do harm. Bark and
strong wine in large quantities, I have seldom found to
fail if I have been called in early enough."
Besides repose of body and mind, he orders more espe-
ciall}- fresh air. At page 126, he repeats that in nervous
* Translation of Cullen, II., pp. 125, 267.
Hahnemann's early viezvs on Itch. 6g
fever cinchona and wine are " the only good remedies," and
on page 267 he again speaks of the benefit of bark in large
doses with wine, and against the highly commended and
usually employed opium.
Brown and his treatment, which reminds one of Hahne-
mann's, were at that time not known in Germany. Hufe-
land* is of opinion that in 1792 " neither he nor anyone else
in Germany had seen any of Brown's writings."
With regard to the itch, Hahnemann took a very
" advanced " view, which he, however, completely changed
thirty years later. With the exception of some hints by
older authors, Bonomo, of Leghorn, was the first who cor-
rectly described the itch-insect in 1683, on which account
Wichmannf justly styles him the founder of the itch theory.
Bonomo admits that he received his knowledge from poor
women and slaves in Leghorn, who were in the habit of
mutually removing each other's itch-insects with needles.
The parasitic doctrine was, nevertheless, little ' regarded till
Linnseus, in 1757 {ExantJieniata viva), and the above-men-
tioned Wichmann, in 1786, drew attention to it. Wich-
mann, in his work, held the views of to-day. In England
itch was already generally treated as a " living eruption ;"
in France the medical faculty still warned people against the
external remedies there used by the common people for
this malady.t It was much the same in Germany. Wich-
mann was disregarded, and the view prevailed that the
itch-insect was the result and not the cause of the affection.
Thus Joh. Jak. Bernhard§ did not consider the itch-insect
and " the microscopic animalcules in other contagious dis-
eases " the contagium itself He, however, considered them
as important constituents of the infecting material, " like the
* Hufeland's/^//r«. V., Intclligenzblaif, No. i, p. i.
t Actiologic der Kriitze^ von J. E. Wichmann, Kgl. Grossbritt.
Hofmedicus zu Hannover. Hannover, 17S6, with four plates of the
itch acarus copied from Bonomo, 2nd edition, 1791.
X Wichmann, I.e., p. 118.
§ Handbiich der allgem. tend bcsond. Contagienlehre. Erfurt bei
Henning, 181 5, also under the title Ueber die Natiir Sr'c. des Spital-
iyphiis lend der ansteckenden Krankheiten iiberhaiipt.
70 Supposed Seqiielcn of Itch
animalcules in semen and vaccine-lymph." Also, similar
animalcules might be produced without being capable of
conveying contagion, as, for example, the louse disease
[phthiriasis].
Friedrich Jahn, 1817, vehemently disputed the truth of
the parasitic theory of the itch."* He asserts on the con-
trary the " undeniable truth of itch-metastases," and he
finally pronounces: "We may, therefore, consider the whole
of this theory as unfounded."
J. P. Frank entered the lists as a most determined advo-
cate of the causa viva in his book, De Ciirandis Honiimtm
itfbri^w, completed in 1821. He recommended killing the
itch-insect at the commencement of the infection, but after
the itch had existed some time he thought " reckless sup-
pression " very dangerous. He distinguishes 13 kinds of
" symptomatic itch," as, for instance, a scorbutic, a hypo-
chondriacal, a critical, a plethoric, &c. ;" also a "psora neoga-
morum," a variety which affected newly married persons.
Ferdinand Jahn, a talented disciple of Heusinger and
Schdnlein, a partisan of the natural historical school, held
the following views in 1828:! "Chronic eruptions are
usually the outward manifestations of dyscrasias which are
deeply rooted in the interior of the organism Itch
deprived of its cutaneous blossoms develops its roots that
are present in the interior of the organism more strongly,
so that those manifestations which are known under the
name of itch-metastases ensue." In judging such views, we
must remember that in those days itch eruptions with
numerous pustules all over the body and extensive cuta-
neous ulcerations were no rarity.
Autenrieth, known to be a pupil of J, P. Frank, writes
under the title. Sequela; which folloio the suppression of
Itch, in 1808 :j
* Klinik der chron. Krankheiten. Erfurt, 181 7, II., p. 614.
\ Ahmmge7i eincr allgem. NaturgescJiichte der Krankheiten. Eise-
nach, 1828, p. 201.
% Versuche fur die prakf. Heilkitndc aiis dc7i kiln. Annalcn V07t
Tiilnn<^en, 1808. Griesselich, Klelnc Fresca^emLildc. Carlsruhe,
1836, i., p. 88.
consequent on its Suppression. 71
The most terrible and the most frequent sources of chronic diseases of
adults in our neighbourhood are the psoric or itch eruptions which have
been wrongly treated with sulphur ointment and fatty outward applica-
tions. I have so frecjuently seen the evil results among the lower
classes and those who lead a sedentary life that arise from the sup-
pression of the itch, and see them still every day in such a variety of
sad forms, that I do not hesitate a moment to assert that it is a subject
that deserves the attention of every physician, and of even every em-
ployer of labour who has the welfare of those under him at heart.
According to Autenrlcth, the sequeLns of " suppressed
itch " are : ulcers of the leg, pulmonary consumption, a kind
of hysterical chlorosis, white swelling of the knee, effusion
into the joints, amaurosis with obscuration of the cornea,
glaucoma with amaurosis, mental alienation, paralysis,
apoplexy, wry neck, &c.
In spite of all this, Autenrieth held the parasitic theory
to an extent which was uncommon for his time. He
even maintained that the itch-insect was the vehicle of a
poison which must not be driven by ointments from the
surface of the body into the interior, and that, on the other
hand, the itch might be the product of an internal disease
driven outwards on to the skin.
Hufeland shows that he held this view :*
But the itch may also appear as a product and symptom of internal
diseases — scabies spuria. Here, indeed, it is only a form of another
disease, but here also a contagium may develop, and so it may become
infectious. To this variety belongs the syphilitic, scrofulous, arthritic,
and scorbutic itch, and also the critical, an itch-like eruption by which
the critical resolution of both acute and chronic maladies is effected
The mites found in pustules are not the cause but the effect — parasites of
the itch But in connexion with this (that is to say the treatment)
many difficulties and important considerations come into play. Thus
we can suppress the diseased action of the skin by a mere local appli-
cation of the specific, but the contagium itself, which has already pene-
trated deeper, is not thereby destroyed, and the result is either that the
itch always re-appears or, what is worse, is thrown on internal parts,
and often produces very dangerous and obstinate metastases. Consump-
tion, lung-itch, dropsy, cramps of the stomach, stomach-itch, epilepsy,
and all kinds of nervous diseases may ensue. The result is still more
serious if the itch is complicated with another disease or is a product
or crisis of another disease.
* Enchiridion Mcdicinn, Vcrnidchtniss eincr 50 jd.Jir. Praxis. St.
Gallen, 1839, 2nd edit, p. 293, et seq.
72 HaJuieiiianiis early acquaintance
In 1835 the learned Rau* wrote as follows: —
The assertion a well-known writer (Kriiger Hansen ?) has recently
made, that no evil results are to be feared from quickly suppressing
the itch, is confuted by such numerous observations that it is unneces-
sary to argue against it.
We must at the same time bear in mind that in those days
the diagnosis of skin diseases was very faulty, that scabies,
eczema, impetigo, prurigo, &c., were not yet distinguished
from one another, and were thought various degrees of in-
tensity of the same disease.
Did Hahnemann know the existence of the itch-insect?
and at what period did he become acquainted with it? In
his translation of Monro's Materia Medica, 1791, Hahne-
mann says in a foot-note (11. 49): —
If, in a recent case of itch, we make the patient wash himself several
times daily with a saturated solution of sulphuretted hydrogen, and
get his linen dipped in the same solution, the affection disappears in a
few days, and does not return except with re-infection. But would
not it return if it was caused by acridity of the humours ? I have
often observed this, and agree with those who attribute the dis-
ease to a living cause. All insects [among which the itch-mite was at
that time included] and worms are killed by sulphuretted hydrogen.
Further on in the same work, in another note (II. 441),
he maintains that itch is a " living eruption."
In 1795 a treatise by Hahnemann, On Crusta Lactea,
appeared in J. N. Blumenbach's MediciniscJie Bibliothek.-\
This periodical did not appear in any regular order.
Articles which had been written as early as 1793 are
found in this volume. Hahnemann has put no date to his
essay, so that we cannot exactly determine the date at
which it was written. He, however, remarks in it that he
was in the country when it was written. From 1794 to
1796 he lived at Pyrmont and Brunswick; from 1792 to 1794
in Gotha. To the last-named period, therefore, belong the
following remarks. In the village (probably Molschlebcn),
* Ueber deii Wcrth dcs Itoin. Hcilvc7-fa]ircns^ 2nd edit. Heidelberg
and Leipzig, p. ■^1.
fill. St. 4, Gcittingen, 1795. Translated in B. Jour, of Horn.,
XLII., p. 2og.
zuith the A can is scabiei, 73
" where my children enjoyed perfect health," there were a
great many children affected with so-called milk-crust, and
to an unusual degree. As Hahnemann thought he had
seen instances of this complaint being communicated, he
attempted to prevent intercourse between his own and the
infected children belonging to the village. One of the boys
thus affected, however, succeeded in gaining access to them.
" I saw him playing in close contact with them, I sent him
away, but the infection had already taken place." The boy
had kissed Hahnemann's children. The complaint began
hrst in the child kissed, and then spread to the other three
children.
"I poured warm water over dry hepar sulphuris (powdered
oyster shells mixed with equal parts of sulphur and kept
for ten m.inutes at a white heat), and thus made a weak
solution. I painted the faces of the two who had the erup-
tion worst with this every hour for two consecutive days.
After the first application the complaint was arrested
and gradually got well." He pursued the same course
with the other children with the same success.
The remedy when appHed to the skin becomes gradually decom-
posed by the action of the air, and sulphuretted hydrogen is
developed with a fetid smell, which, as we know, is rapidly fatal to
most insects.
Is not crusta lactea a cutaneous disease caused solely by infection ?
does not the infecting matter contain very small animalcules as a
miasm ? I hardly expect to meet in practice with such another oppor-
tunity of answering these questions positively in the affirmative as
this, which was so completely within my cognisance. My children
got no purgatives nor any other medicine, as they were otherwise
quite well and well they remained.
In a note he says : —
I relate here the following case because of its similarity. A servant
girl (infected by a servant newly arrived), had had the itch for six
days ; one arm and hand were covered with it, and the eruption made
its appearance on the other hand between the fingers. I made her
wash both arms thrice daily for two days with the above-mentioned
solution ; she got well without sequelte ; the girl who communicated
it was treated in the same manner, and was cured in eight days. If
this complaint is produced by insects in the skin, what harm can it do
to kill them provided we do so with medicines that possess no power
74 Appj'eciation of ElectJ'icity.
in themselves to do harm to the body ? Physicians have been all too
ready to ascribe to the suppression of certain skin diseases effects
which were the result of some cachexia, &c., which was coexistent,
and which remained uncured !
From what follows it appears that he v/as not free from
the opinion that a virus penetrates the whole organism
from the itch-insect. " An old case of bone-disease began
to heal quickly as soon as I had ascertained that it was
complicated with itch. I dressed the sore as usual, but
washed the whole body with the above-mentioned lotion."
In 1 79 1, he narrates (Monro I. 'j6) that he had cured
itch by internal remedies only, which shows that in those
days the term '' itch " had a much wider signification than
now.
He treats the subject of the therapeutic employment of
electricity, clearly and intelligently, and he could not
conceive how the Academy of Rouen could adjudge a
prize to a work of Marat which denied to electricity alm.ost
all remedial power (^Arzenikvergiftnng, p. 163).
He taught the proper use of many drugs whose actions
were little or imperfectly known, and described accurately
their sphere of action, which he was better able to ascertain
than others, because he always gave only one remedy at
a time, and carefully watched its effects. We shall here
only mention aconite, belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium,
conium maculatum, ipecacuanha, Peruvian balsam and
arsenic. His numerous articles in Hufeland's Journal, his
terse and frequent annotations in his translations of
Cullen, Monro, the PZdinburgh Dispensatory and the
TJiesaiiriis viedicaniimun, as well as casual 'observations
in the Apothekerlexicon, prove what we have said.
With regard to Hahnemann's reputation as a practical
physician of his day, let us hear his contemporaries.
Brunnow relates :* " In fact, even in the beginning of his
career as a physician, he succeeded in achieving many
splendid cures by his simple method of treatment, and
wherever he went he carried with him the reputation of a
* Em Blick aiif Halmcmann^ Leipzig, 1844, p. 6. Translated by
Norton.
Laudatory notices of Hahnanami. 75
careful and successful practitioner." The Medic. cJiir.
Zeituiig {lygg, II. 411) writes: "Hahnemann has made
himself a name in Germany as a capable physician."
In the same periodical* he is described as a physician
" to whom we are indebted for many good contributions to
the perfection of our science." In the Allg. vied. Annalen
des ig Jahrh.xw the number for November, 18 10, Hahne-
mann is called a man, " who has been known as a thinking
physician and good observer for more than twenty years,
and at the same time has continually increased his repu-
tation as a clever and successful practitioner."
Hufeland, in 1798,! calls him a man "whose services to
our art are sufficiently important," and further^: " one of the
most distinguished physicians of Germany" "a physi-
cian of matured experience and reflection."
In 1800 Daniels§ speaks of " Hahnemann, a man ren-
dered famous by his writings."
In the same year Bernstein writes in the Pract. Hand-
hiichfiir Wimddrzte : "Samuel Hahnemann, a very merito-
rious physician, is known for his excellent preparation of
mercury, namely, mercurius solubilis, and also for his wine
test and his chemical and pharmaceutical writings. He
has also deserved the gratitude of surgeons. He published
for them Guide to the cure of old sores and ulcers, 1784,
and Instruction to Surgeons for the treatment of venereal
diseases. Leipzig, 1786."
In the year 1791, the Leipzic Economic Society elected
him a member, hewas next elected a member of the Elec-
toral Academy of Sciences of Mainz, and later of the
Physical and Medical Society of Erlangen.
In 1798 we read this notice in the Medic, chir. Zeitung
(IV. 192). "Mietau : it is intended to erect a temporary
university here. It is said that it is intended that the
medical faculty shall consist of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann of
* Ergiinziingsheft^ VII., p. 307.
t Huf.>z/r., VI., St. 2. Note.
t lb. v., St. 2, p. 52.
§ /^. IX., St. 4, p. 153-
76 Hahnemann as a Medical Reformer.
Konigsluttcr, Dr. Samuel Naumbcrg of Erfurt, and Dr.
Frank of Muhlhausen."
Let us now pass from Hahnemann's capacity and ac-
quirements in medicine to his achievements in the way of
medical reform.
He was not fashioned out of soft wood, hence his words
often seem hard and harsh, and even bitter. We shall
see how, with penetrating glance and great store of know-
ledge, he saw more and more clearly the utter worthless-
ness of the therapeutics of the day, and the disastrous
methods of procedure of physicians. Amidst the confusion
of hypotheses and speculations, a weak voice would not
have been listened to. He had a strong, sturdy and healthy
body and a lively temperament. Such natures do not
creep about in felt slippers when they have to combat the
widely spread follies of their time ; the question whether
Hahnemann would have been more prudent if he had written
in a more conciliatory tone, does not concern us here.
As early as 1784, as we have seen, he speaks con-
temptuously of "fashionable physicians." In 1786 he
inveighs in his book on Arsenic against the wretched state
of medicine at that time, against " that most fruitful
cause of death, the bungling of physicians," who, among
other things, powdered ulcers over with arsenic, thus often
causing the death of the patients, and who gave this drug
in poisonous doses in intermittent fever. In 1791, in his
translation of Monro, he came across the statement that
cantharides eliminated morbid humours ; Hahnemann there-
upon remarks (II. 248), "this is the common delusion that
the sores produced by vesicating agents only remove the
morbid fluids. When we consider that the mass of the
blood during its circulation is of uniform composition
throughout, that the exhalents of the blood-vessels give off
no great variety of matter under otherwise identical con-
ditions ; no rational physiologist will be able to conceive
how a vesicating agent can select, collect and remove only
the injurious part of the humours. In fact the blister under
His estiviate of the Practice of his days. "jj
the plaster is only filled with a part of the common blood
serum, just like that which separates from the blood when
it is drawn from a vein. But, according to the insane idea
of these short-sighted doctors, venesection, too, draws off
the bad blood only, and continued purging evacuates only
the depraved humours! It is terrible to contemplate the
mischief which such universally-held foolish ideas have
caused."
In another place (Monro, I. 265) Monro speaks of corrosive
sublimate as an " alterative." Hahnemann thereupon re-
marks : — " I do not know what our author means thereb}-,
though he uses the language of his and my contemporaries.
If an alterative is something which does good here, why
does he not say so ? But no, an alterative seems to be only
a half-and-half sort of remedy. Such a remedy is not re-
quired in the whole range of medicine." Further (I. 246).
"Alterative is a scholastic term ; it is unpardonable in a
medical author to use such a vague expression." In the
same way, Hahnemann in many places takes occasion to
direct the attention of his fellow-practitioners to the many
absurdities of the day, from which he used the most earnest
efforts gradually to emancipate himself. In 1790, he
attacked the teachers of materia medica of the day
(Cullen, I. 58). " The old teachers of materia medica with
their puerilities, vagaries, old wives' tales and falsities,
arc venerated as authorities, even in the most recent times
— with a few exceptions — and neither the originators nor
their weak disciples deserve to be spared. We must
forcibly sever ourselves from these deified oracles if we
wish to shake off the yoke of ignorance and credulit}' in
the most important department of practical medicine.
It is high time to do so."
To ascertain the truth in the wilderness of " observa-
tions " and " experiences," he soon hit upon the plan
which all great physicians have followed ; he ceased from
the fussy interference practised at the sick-bed by his
contemporaries, and urged his mixture-loving fellow practi-
tioners to adopt instead : —
78 His deminciations of Polypharmacy.
Simple Prescriptions,
Worthily to appreciate this, we must remember that in
those days it was taught that a properly constructed
prescription should consist of several parts. Hahnemann
was of course taught this, and later he admits that the
method of treatment by mixtures " clung to him more
obstinately than the miasma of any disease.'' If then we
see him in the first few years of his practice, sometimes
giving mixtures, generally containing only two drugs, we
see on the other hand, that he was gradually emancipat-
ing himself from this bad system. As early as 1784,* he
advocates a simple method of treatment " instead of the
farrago of contradictory prescriptions." In 1791, he
asks, when Munro has been recommending a complicated
mode of treatment for sclerosis of the liver (]\Iunro, II. 288):
"What was it that really did good ? As long as we do
not accustom ourselves to use simple remedies throughout
and carefully to consider in each case the accompanying
circumstances, habits of life, &:c., our therapeutics will
remain a combination of guess-work, truth and poetry."
In the year 1796, Hahnemann writes in Hufeland's
Jciirnal :^,
The strangest circumstance connected with this specification
of the virtues of single drugs is, that in the days of these men the
habit that still prevails in medicine, of mixing together several
different medicines in one prescription, was carried to such an extent
that I defy Qidipus himself to tell what was the exact action of a
single ingredient of the hotch-potch. The prescription of a single
remedy at a time was in those days almost rarer than it is now-a-days.
How was it possible in such a complicated practice to differentiate the
powers of individual medicines .''
Hahnemann, in his treatise Are the obstacles to certainty
and simplicity in practical medicine insiirmonntable ? which
appeared in the year i797,t pronounces "simplicity the
first law of the physician," and further on :
* Anleitiing alte Schddctt, &c.. p. 165. B. J. of H. XLII., p. 165.
f Versuch iiber cin 7ieues Principe &c., II., St. 3. Hahnemann's
Lesser Wriiztigs, p. 310, note.
X HnitXimd^s foiirnal IV., St. 4. Lesser U'riiuigs, p. 358.
His scorn of complex prescriptions. yg
How near was this great man (Hippocrates) to the philosopher's
stone of physicians — simpHcity ! and to think that after more than 2,000
years we should not have advanced one single step nearer the mark,
on the contrary, have rather receded from it !
Did he only write books ? or did he write much less than he actually
cured ? Did he do this as circuitously as we ?
It was owing to the simplicity of his treatment of diseases alone, that
he saw all that he did see, and whereat we marvel Here the ques-
tion arises : Is it well to mix various drugs in a single prescription,
to administer baths, clysters, bleeding, blistering, fomentations and
inunctions all at once or in rapid succession, if we wish to raise
therapeutics to perfection, effect cures, and know with certainty in
every case what the remedy has done in order to be able to employ it
in similar cases with still greater, or at least with equal success ?
The mind can only grasp one thing at a time and can rarely
assign to each of two powers acting at the same time on one object
its due proportion of influence in bringing about the result ; how can
we attain to greater certainty in therapeutics if we deliberately set a
large number of different forces to act against a morbid condition of the
system, while we are often ill-acquainted with the nature of the latter,
and are but indifferently conversant with the separate action of the
component parts of the former, much less with their combined
action ?
Who knows whether the adjuvans or the corrigens may not act as basis
in the complex prescription, or whether the excipiens does not give
an entirely different action to the whole ? Does the chief ingredient
if it be the right one require an adjuvans ? Does not the idea that it
requires assistance reflect severely on its suitability ? or should a
dirigens also be necessary? I thought I would complete the motley
list, and thereby satisfy the requirements of the schools.
I think I may venture to assert that a mixture of two drugs almost
never produces the effects of each in the human body, but an effect
almost always different from the action of both separately — an inter-
mediate action, a neutralisation, if I may borrow an expression from
chemistry.
The more complex our prescriptions are, the darker is the condition
of therapeutics.
That our prescriptions contain fewer ingredients than those of the
Portuguese Amatus will help us just as little as the fact that Andro-
machus wrote still bulkier prescriptions will help him. Are our pre-
scriptions simple because both these wrote more complicated ones ?
How can we complain of the obscurity and intricacy of our art,
when we ourselves render it obscure and intricate ? I, too, at one
time suffered from this infirmity ; the schools had infected me. This
miasma, clung to me before it came to a crisis, more obstinately than
the miasma of any other mental malady.
8o His pica foi' siviplc prescriptions.
Are we in earnest in our art ? Very well then ! What would be
more like Coliunbics's egg than to make a brotherly compact to give
only one simple remedy at a time in every single malady, without
making any important change in the surrounding's of the patient, and
then let us see with our own eyes what the drug does, how far it
helps and how far it does not help ?
Would it really be more learned to prescribe from the apothecary's
shop numerous and variously mixed medicines for one disease (often in
one day), than, like Hippocrates, to treat the whole course of a disease
with one or two enemata, and perhaps a little oxymel and nothing
else ? I thought it was the masterpiece of art to give the right
medicine, not the most complex.
Hippocrates chose the simplest out of a class of diseases ; these he
watched closely and described minutely. In these simplest maladies
he gave single simple remedies out of the store of existing drugs
which was then small. Thus it was possible for him to see what he
saw and to do what he did.
It will I hope not be contrary to good taste, to proceed as simply
in the treatment of diseases as this great man did.
If any one sees me give one remedy one day, another the next and
so on, he may conclude that I am wavering in my treatment (for I too
am a weak mortal) ; but if he sees me mix two or three drugs in the
same prescription (and ere now this has sometimes been done), he
would at once say : " The man is at a loss, he does not rightly know
what he would be at, he is bungling ; if he were certain that one was
the right remedy he would not give a second, and still less a third I "
What could I answer? I could only hold my tongue. If I were
asked what is the mode of action of bark in all known diseases .'' I
would confess that I know little about it, though I have so often given
it alone and uncombined. But if I were asked what cinchona would do
if administered along with saltpetre, or still more with a third
substance, I should have to confess my benighted ignorance and
would worship any one who could tell me. Uare I confess that for
many years I have never given anything but a single remedy at a time,
and have never repeated it till the first dose had exhausted its action,
bleeding alone, an emetic or purgative alone — and always a simple
never a complex medicine — and never a second till I was quite clear
as to the effect of the first? Dare I confess that in this manner I
have been very successful and satisfactorily cured my patients, and
seen things which otherwise I never would have seen ?
If I did not know that there are around me several of the best men
who in simple earnestness are striving after the noblest of aims, who
by a similar method of treatment have corroborated my maxims, I
should indeed not have dared to avow this heresy. Who knows that
I should not in (wililco's circumstances have denied that the earth
Avent round the sun. But the day is beginning to dawn I
His ridicule of complex pvescidptions. 8 1
In the year 1798, in his translation of the Edinburgh
Dispensatory, he inveighs against " the physicians who love
prescriptions containing many ingredients" (II. 340).
" What god could decide what good effects would result
from the admixture of three strong things very unlike in
their actions (castor oil and preparations of lead and mer-
cury externally applied in cancer) The height of empiri-
cism is the employment of mixtures of strong medicines "
(II. 605). Further on (p. 606), where compounds are again
recommended, he observes : " We cannot a priori say what
are the powers of a compound remedy. Every drug has
its peculiar action. Which way would several balls of
different sizes, thrown in different directions and with
different degrees of force and striking together, go ?
Who could tell beforehand ? "
The less successful he was in converting his contem-
poraries to the employment of simple medical treatment,
the more loudly he raised his voice. In 1800, he translated
TJiesmiriis Medicaviinum, a neiv collection of medical pre-
scriptions, from the English. The translation was published
anonymously, the notes being signed " Y." He wished to
prove by his criticisms how the complicated formulas
acted in a manner directly opposed to the attainment of
the cure desired and of instruction. In the preface* we
find the following emphatic words: —
Even the best formulas (I should like to convince my countrymen
of it) are unsatisfactory and unnatural and act conflictingly and contrary
to the object intended ; a truth, which in our time when formulas are so
much in vogue, we should preach from the housetops. When shall I
see this folly extirpated ? When will it be recognised that the cure of
diseases is better effected by simpler but properly selected remedies 1
Must we always have to endure the ridicule of Arcesilases ? Shall we
never cease to mix a number of drugs in the same prescriptions, the
effect of each of which is only half known or not known at all by even
the greatest physicians ? Though Jones, of London, used 300 pounds
of bark every year, what do we know of the actual, individual action
of this drug ? Little ! What dp we know of the pure and specific
action of that powerful drug Mercury, the immense use of which by
physicians would seem to imply an accurate knowledge of its effects on
* Translated in Lesser Writings, p. 398.
82 He shozus the absurdity of the complex
our body? If so great an obscurity reigns with regard to these single
drugs, how useless must be the phenomena which appear after the indis-
criminate administration of several such unknown drugs together. It
seems to me like throwing together a number of various shaped
balls with one's eyes shut on to a billiard table of unknown form and
many cushions, and attempting to prophesy what effect they will have
together, what position each ball will take, and where it will eventually
come to a standstill after repeated rebounds and unforseen collisions !
Further, he describes sarcastically the statements which
the prescription writers of the day made as to the effects
of their basis, their adjuvans, their constituens, dirigens
and corrigens. Unfortunately it is not possible to quote
all the characteristic passages of Hahnemann's writings.
Further on he says : " Nature works according to eternal
laws, without asking anyone's permission ; she loves sim-
plicity, and effects a great deal with one remedy ; you
effect little with many remedies. Imitate nature! To
prescribe many drugs mixed, and sometimes even several
prescriptions daily, is the height of empiricism ; to give
single remedies and not to change them till the time of their
action has expired, this is to take the straight road towards
the inner holy place of art."
In the 412 pages of this work he proves by numerous
examples how irrational it is to mix drugs. Here are a
few examples: —
Page 33: — If the remedy already consists of five ingredients, each of
considerable strength, \\'hy should not the whole materia medica be
included ? That would be better still. O, how little is the true action
of each one of these ingredients known ! What action do we expect
from them when they act simultaneously on the body? How shall we
attain the knowledge of simple drugs when we only give them mixed ?
It seems to me that we are ashamed to know accurately the action
of each drug, and that we mix several up together in order, in the
resulting confusion, to keep before our eyes the fog we love so dearly.
Page 39 : — A qualified doctor is, of course, at liberty to give any-
thing he likes, Nature must submit out of respect for his diploma.
Page 66 : — Is it not wise to mix a substance like aloes which only
acts after twelve or sixteen hours, and then only produces a small,
soft stool (given in large doses as a purgative, it produces few stools
but causes a great deal of griping) with another substance, such for
instance as colocynth which acts in a couple of hours ! It is quite un-
known what time scammony takes to purge, and what are the pecu-
fornmlcB of high medical authorities. 83
liarities of its action. But all the better ! the more unknown the drugs
are, the more scientific is the mixture !
Page 74 : — A formula suffering from an unwholesome mixture of in-
gredients! Heating, cooling, purging and other remedies all mixed
together. Now we shall know the effects of oxymel of colchicum
which we have not been able to ascertain from its use by itself since
the days of Dioscorides ! Alas !
Page 81 : — In true dysentery we should avoid such things (senna
boiled with rhubarb and tamarinds), and in other cases we can easily
find less disgusting compounds, if the evil spirit of mixing will no
leave us in peace.
Page 86 : — I have observed in all these secundem artem formula
that the authors jealously omit to explain why they mix rhubarb with
saffron, gentian, serpentary and aloes, why senna leaves with jalap
root.'' Did they know that each of all these things had a different ef-
fect? Did they think that their combination would produce an inter-
mediate action when we only imperfectly know the effects of each
singly, and still less in combination 1 Or did all their wisdom event-
uate in the itch for compounding, which is an epidemic disease among
our physicians ? But sometimes I almost think that higher consider-
ations have influenced them in making these mixtures, for they mix
rhubarb and aloes with liquorice. A splendid idea ! they will thus be
sweetened, and the bitter taste taken away. Difficile est satyram non
scribere.
Page 91 : — We cannot believe the formula writers when they say, for
instance, that the more numerous the diuretics in a mixture the more
efficacious is it for the elimination of urine ! The fools ! Usually it
is just the opposite, one often hinders the other. Why do they, then,
mix so many ingredients ? Because they look upon treatment like in-
vesting in a lottery. If I place my money on enough numbers, thinks
the weak-minded gambler, I must win ! Too dear a way, my friend,
of attaining your object. If you were right, Zacutus Lusitanus, with
his fifty ingredients in one prescription, must have been a matador
among physicians.
Page 97 :— Obstructions of the liver are more easily guessed at than
diagnosed, and there are kinds of jaundice which disappear of them-
selves in a few days. This explains how such an indigestible brew
could have obtained its reputation in such diseases. Of what use was
sulphate of potash if dandelion alone would have effected the object
desired ? or would the first have been sufficient alone ? or must we give
both.'' and why both.-' If it is the result of experience that both must
be used in order to do good, then give us the details of your experience
where there was no doubt as to the nature of the disease or the good
effects of the mixture. An intelligent man must have a reason for each
step of his procedure.
Page 100. — To the ordinary practitioner, a simple prescription is
like a thorn in the eye ! Hippocrates, with his simple drugs, must
84 No useful experience of medicinal action
have been a bungler who should ha\-e bought a modern book on the
art of prescribing.
Page io6 : — In these seven consecutive formute, we shall see squills
united with eight different drugs. Was squills alone not sufficient ?
What assistance did it receive from its fellow-ingredients? If the
added ingredients were all useful in an equal degree, why so many
changes ? If they were not, why are we not told which were the
useful ones and which the useless and in what cases ? This should be
done if we are not to think that changing about is recommended
merely for the sake of changing, or even coeco instinctu. But no ! we
find many famous physicians recommending prescriptions containing
an immense number of ingredients in dropsy, with the excuse : that
many substances only excite their full power if mixed together in
certain proportions. Then what is the full power ? Occasionally the
water is removed, but in what cases 1 They cannot tell us this any
more than they can tell us when cream of tartar, when potash, prepar-
ations of squills, colchicum, juniper, parsley and foxglove are especi-
ally indicated. If they cannot even determine the right cases in which
to give simple remedies, all of which in certain cases pro^•e useful singly
and remove the water, why do they recommend mixtures and com-
plicated mixtures which, if each simple drug is good for its special
kind of disease, must have a still narrrower sphere of action and must
be suitable in a still more individual case of disease on account of the
complicated character of the mixture, in which each ingredient has a
new direction and limit
The physician who is intimately acquainted with drugs, knows how
difficult it is to get only fifty simple drugs in equally good condition ;
the condition of the leaves, roots and barks is so much influenced
by the habitat of the plant, the time of gathering, the maturity of
growth, removal of the damaged parts, the period of drj'ing which
varies from a few hours to several weeks, the restricted or unre-
stricted access of air, and the warmth or dampness of the places
where they are kept. What differences are produced by even the modes
of preparation, the infusion in hot or cold water, strong or weak
alcohol, for a few minutes or for several weeks !
He further points out the mistakes made in preparing
extracts (by boiling) and the negh'gent mode in which
they are kept in apothecaries' shops.
If we have always such difficulty in getting from, them simple drugs
and preparations in equally good condition — if, in one word, it is so
unusual to get for our patients simple drugs of uniform quality, what
madness is it to expect to have the most improbable of imaginable
things, viz. : — medicines consisting of many ingredients alwaj-s iden-
tical in character, many of which have undergone complicated pro-
cesses (subject to defects and accidents) in their preparation !
can be obtained from medicinal mixtures. 85
Who will consider an uncertain, never uniform mixture of 7, 8, 10
or 1 5 ingredients a reliable remedy ? Only one who knows nothing
about the subject. If you send the prescription to ten different res-
pectable apothecaries you will get ten preparations differing in taste,
appearance and smell (to say nothing of medicinal properties !). But
if you have a single remedy you can judge of its ciuality and increase
the dose if it is weak. What will you do, if in a complicated mixture
one ingredient is 100 times stronger, another 10 times weaker than you
have been accustomed to, without your being able to detect it ?
Page 112: So one contradicts another, and neither knows how
far he is right and the other wrong. They do not sufficiently distinguish
their cases and they seek their remedy in mixtures, thus converting
even the little light they had into utter darkness. Is this the royal
road to the temple of truth ?
Page 118 : This mixture can hardly be compounded without the
precipitation of part of the saltpetre, but what does our hero care for
chemistry in compounding his mixtures.-^ If only grotesque enough
things are heaped together so as to seem learned, only the stomach
of the patient will suffer.
Page 142 : In what kinds of intermittent fevers? and how are they
distinguished from those which are cured by bark ? What part was
taken by the antimony, what by the potash, and what by the chamo-
mile flowers ? Behold ! " The earth was without form and void, and
darkness was upon the face of the deep."
Page 352 : I call that a satcce au deriiier gout made out of thirteen
piquant ingredients which partly neutralise each other's action. This
is now (since the banishment of common sense) the highest fashion !
Poor Hippocrates ! with his simple remedies, how ignorant he appears
in comparison. We are now in possession of the true savoir fairc^ of
the highest culture. God have mercy on the poor souls driven out
of their methodically treated bodies !
With similar remarks Hahnemann accompanies the author
on every page through the whole book, proving thereby
how earnest was his striving after truth and how great his
anxiety for the improvement of therapeutics, and how far
he surpassed his mixture-loving contemporaries in the gifts
of observation and investigation.
A year after, in 1 801, he writes in Treatment of Scarlet
Fever, page 12 : * " Here we often see the ne plus idtra of
the grossest empiricism ; for each separate symptom a par-
ticular drug in the complicated formula ; a sight that cannot
* Lesser Writings, p. 431.
S6 HaJineniann the first advocate of
fail to inspire the unprejudiced observer with feelings at
once of pity and indignation !"
At the same time he attacked Brown on this question in
Hufeland's Journal* Brown recommended the employ-
ment of several drugs at once, never of one at a time.
On this Hahnemann remarks : " This is the true sign of
charlatanism. Quackery always goes hand in hand with
complicated mixtures, and any one who can recommend
(not merely tolerate) them is far removed from the simple
ways and laws of nature."
In the following years he was never weary of urging on
his mixture-loving colleagues that the " chief law for the
physician " was simplicity of treatment.
In 1805 in Medicine of Experience^ he again writes:
" A single simple remedy is always calculated to produce
the most beneficial effects, without any additional means,
provided it be the best selected, the most appropriate and
in the proper dose. It is never necessary to give two at
once." " If we wish to perceive clearly what the remedy
effects in a disease and what still remains to be done, we
must only give one single simple substance at a time.
Every addition of a second or a third only deranges the
object we have in view."
In the same year he writes in j^sculapins in the balance: %
This is the general, but most unjustifiable procedure of our phy-
sicians : to prescribe nothing by itself- — no ! always in coinbinatio7i
•with seva-al other things in one artistic prescription. "No prescription
can properly be termed such," says Hofrath Gruner in his Art of
Prescribing, "which does not contain several ingredients at once."
You might as well put out your eyes in order to see more clearly.
In 1808 we read in The Value of the Specidative Systems
of Medicine : §
But the case is worse still and the proceeding more reprehensible (the
prescription of mixtures) when we consider that the action of each or
at any rate of most of the ingredients thus huddled together is indi-
vidually great and yet unascertained.
* Vol. II., St. 4, p. 3 and 4. Lesser Writings, p. 618.
f Lesser Writings, p. 534.
X Lesser Writings, p. 488, note.
§ Lesser Writings, p. 567.
Simplicity in TJier'apeiitics. 87
Now, to mix in a prescription a number of such strong disordering
substances, whose separate action is often unknown and only guessed
and arbitrarily assumed, and then, forthwith, at a venture, to admin-
ister this mixture, and many more besides without letting a single
one do its work out on the patient, whose complaint and abnormal
state of body has only been viewed through illusive theories and
through the spectacles of manufactured systems — if this is medical
art, if this is not hurtful irrationality, I do not know what we are to
understand by an art, nor what is hurtful or irrational This
motley mixing system is nothing but a convenient shift for one, who
having but a slender acquaintance with the properties of a single sub-
stance, flatters himself, though he cannot find any one simple suitable
remedy to remove the complaint, that by heaping a great many
together there may be one amongst them that by a happy chance
shall hit the mark.
Towards the end of the above-named essay he again
breaks out : " Further, let us reflect how extremely pre-
carious and, I might say, blind, such a system of ad-
ministering drugs must be which fights against diseases,
themselves misunderstood from being viewed through
glasses tinged ■ with ideal systems, with almost unknown
drugs assembled in one or several such formulae ! "
No physician has preached this important truth with
such energy and such conviction as Hahnemann. No
physician has so consistently employed simple prescrip-
tions, and he could with truth assert in 1805 that : " No
physician on the face of the earth, neither the founders of
systems nor their disciples, is accustomed to give in diseases
only one single simple drug at a time and to wait till its
action is exhausted before giving another."
The Organon appeared in 18 10, and it is scarcely necessary
to mention that in it he advocates simplicity of treatment,
as did also later his followers in numerous periodicals and
other works.
Hahnemami s attacks on the Therapeutics of his time.
We have already shown how Hahnemann attacked
deference to authority in therapeutics, as early as 1786
and 1790. He had already pronounced against bleed-
88 HaJincuiann's criticism of tJie medical
ing in nervous fever. In the same work (Cullen, II.
1 8) in 1790 he complains, "Bleeding, antiphlogistics, tepid
baths, diluent drinks, low diet, blood purifiers and ever-
lasting purgatives and enemata are the vicious circle
in which the ordinary run of German physicians are
always revolving." According to Hahnemann there are
few exceptions. He even took occasion to attack his
blood-thirsty colleagues in a case which attracted great at-
tention.
Two years later the Emperor Leopold II., of Austria, died
unexpectedly (early in the year 1792J.* The post-mortemf
revealed among other things a " semi-purulent " exudation
about a pound in weight in the left pleura. In No. 78
(J.c. 31 March, 1792), Hahnemann thus criticises the treat-
ment of the physicians : " The report states ' his physician,
Lagusius, observed high fever and swelling of the abdomen
early on February 28 ' ; he combated the malady by
venesection, and as this produced no amelioration, three
more venesections were performed without relief Science
must ask why a second venesection was ordered when the
first had produced no amelioration ? How could he order
a third, and good Heavens ! how a fourth when there had
been no amelioration after the preceding ones ? How
could he tap the vital fluid four times in twenty-four
* It was a time of political fermentation. Much anxiety was felt
respecting France, which threatened Germany with invasion to punish
the emigres. Leopold, in the short period of his reign from 1790 as
German Emperor, warded off apparently inevitable war by his pru-
dence and love of peace. All hopes were centred in him ; consequently
the news of his sudden unexpected death came like a thunder-clap,
and filled all hearts with apprehension. Hahnemann at that time
resided in Gotha, where Dcr Anzeiger, a newspaper often used for
discussions among physicians and for communications from physicians
to one another, was published. It appeared afterwards under the title
Allgcmcincr Anzciger dcr Deutschen. Hahnemann was acquainted
with the editor. Dr. Becker, to whom he had most likely communi-
cated his views, and was probably invited by him to take this step in
order to clear up matters. The sudden death had already given rise
to all sorts of curious rumours.
t Dcr Anzciga\ 1792, No. 137 and 138.
treatment of the Emperor Leopold. 89
hours, always without reHef, from a debilitated man who
had been worn out by anxiety of mind and long continued
diarrhoea ? Science is aghast ! " Lagusius (alias Hasenohrl)
had called Professors Storck and Schreiber in consultation.
"The clinical record of the physician in ordinary
Lagusius says : —
' The monarch was on the 28th February attacked with rheumatic
fever [what symptoms of a rheumatic character had he ?] and a chest
affection [which of the numerous chest affections, very few of which
are able to stand bleeding ? let us note that he does not say it was
pleurisy, which he would have done to excuse the copious venesections
if he had been convinced that it was this affection] and we imme-
diately tried to mitigate the violence of the malady by bleeding and
other needful remedies [Germany — Europe — has aright to ask: which?]
On the 29th the fever increased [after the bleeding ! and yet] tliree
more venesections were effected, whereupon some [other reports say
distinctly — no] improvement followed, but the ensuing night was very
restless and weakened the monarch [just think ! it was the night and
not the four bleedings which so weakened the monarch, and Herr
Lagusius was able to assert this positively], who on the ist of March
began to vomit with violent retching and threw up all he took [never-
theless his doctors left him, so that no one was present at his death,
and indeed after this one of them pronounced him out of danger]. At
3.30 in the afternoon he expired, while vomiting, in presence of the
empress.' "
Hahnemann challenged the physicians to justify them-
selves. This attack of Hahnemann's was certainly a
violent one. On the other hand, if a case with such
important issues depending upon it, were to occur now-a-
days, how the physicians would be blamed ! Hahnemann
plainly saw the perniciousness of the medical treatment.
Why should he not do what now-a-days many would do ?
Fear was unknown to him, and he was not wanting in
knowledge of all branches of science. Moreover, he in this
case expressed the general opinion.
Before the emperor's physicians answered Hahnemann's
challenge, a discussion arose among other physicians in
the same journal. The physician to the Court of Saxony,
Dr. Stoller,* pronounced Hahnemann's attack improper,
unfair and useless, perhaps written for the purpose
of making himself known, and stated that he had been
* L.c, No. 103, 30th April
go Opinions of contemporary physicians
convinced by optical evidence of the weakness and ailing
condition of the emperor during his sojourn at Pillnitz and
had said so. He exclaims : " Good Herr Hahnemann, it
was just because the first and second bleeding did not do
what was intended that it was repeated ! " He maintains
that the doctors left the patient at the command of the
empress, which explains their absence at the time of his
death. In conclusion, he asserts his impartiality, for he
knows Herr Lagusius " by his writings under the name of
Hasenohrl," and Herr Hahnemann " also only by his ex-
cellent works, especially that on arsenical poisoning, and
from what he heard of him in Dresden."
A physician who in thirty years' practice " had never had
a quarrel with a colleague either at the bed-side or else-
where," gives his opinion.* He deprecates this dispute
between two physicians, " who are both to be highly
honoured for their literary reputation " " It is difficult to
believe that Herr Hahnemann had the intention of making
himself more famous than he already is. Herr Hahnemann
is already so much respected and renowned for his valuable
services that he certainly does not require to make himself
more popular with the German public by getting up a
quarrel with Herr Lagusius, who is himself not better
known." He blames the personal character of Hahne-
mann's attack, but not its publicity, which only serves
to further the cause of truth. " That court physicians
are fallible, is sufficiently proved by those of Louis XIV.,
who slaughtered half his family by bleeding in influenza."
He defends the venesections, but would rather have seen
them limited to two. Further it was to be remarked that
physicians of the older Vienna school " think fevers in
the highest degree inflammatory which were perhaps only
gastric, as was evidently the case with the emperor,"
although many patients recovered without bleeding. The
author mentions a pertinent article by Dr. Lenhardt,
which had been noticed shortly before in the Anzeiger^ to
whose therapeutic views he inclined. These were that the
L.c, No. 119, i8th May. f No. 112, loth May.
on Hahnemann's criticism. 91
emperor was suffering from "inflammatory matters," "im-
pure fermenting substances," "acridities" and "degenerated
bile " in the primes via;, which substances should have
been energetically evacuated, and thereby his life would
have been saved. This having been neglected, the in-
flammation so quickly got the upper hand that it turned
to gangrene. From this article we also learn that two
and-a-half hours before his death the doctors gave such
a reassuring prognosis that his son Francis II., left the bed-
side. Lagusius, according to Lenhardt, was quietly sitting
at a gentleman's dinner table, when he received the news
of the emperor's death, which must have shocked him not a
little.
The author then returns to Hahnemann's article and
says : —
Nevertheless I do not maintain with Herr Stoller that Herr
Hahnemann's article is unfair, improper and useless.
Not unfair, because in the domain of science every thinking man
has a right to judge openly and fearlessly all subjects relating to his
science. Herr Hahnemann is ' doctor' and what is more a learned
man and may, in this character, just as well take the imperial
physicians to task as of yore Dr. Luther, relying on his diploma of
doctor, did the Roman curia.
Not improper, for every intelligent man may speak his mind on every
subject of human knowledge unless he thinks it more politic to hold
his tongue. Posterity, however will not do so, and if all contem-
porary physicians are silent, it will certainly ask the question, why
the emperor Leopold died so quickly ? What was the cause of
his death.'' How was his malady treated? Why should a learned
man who found himself in a position to speak freely not do so ?
Is not every intelligent, unprejudiced, cool and impartial observer
a representative or, if you prefer it, a precursor of posterity as the
morning star is of the sun?
Not useless, if the opinion —
1. That a too energetic mode of treatment is a common cause of
serious metastases, and also
2. That the highest criterion of practical skill and prudence — the
ability to foresee and avert metastases — can be thereby made
to penetrate the minds of physicians more than hitherto.
Not useless,
3. If from this incident the difference between true and inflam-
matory-like fevers can be more plainly distinguished, and the
"92 Post-mortem examination of the
latter treated more by attending to the prima: vice than by
bleeding- and resolvents, and thereby many valuable lives may
be saved.
"Attention to the primes vies" was a euphuism for
emetics and purgatives.
Meanwhile on the nth of June* the emperor's physicians
explain : " That the morbid condition was quite different
from that which Hahnemann had represented on the re-
port of ignorant journalists." (Hahnemann had founded
his attack on the report of Dr. Lagusius himself.) Further,
we must have a poor idea of Hahnemann's medical know-
ledge " if he maintains that a second bleeding should never
be undertaken if the first has not given relief" " His
majesty when he was taken ill, was not the least in an
exhausted condition," (Stoller and also Lenhardt m.aintained
the contrary), " but was very strong, and thus was in a con-
dition to be attacked by violent inflammation in both the
pleural and peritoneal cavities, and this was best combated
by venesection. It was not thought to be pleurisy, because
no cough was present, but a rheumatic inflammatory fever
which was then very prevalent in Vienna. Vomiting came
on only at the last because neither flatus nor anything
else could be removed by clysters from the distended
abdomen." They subjoined the following report of the
autopsy
Nee thoracis cavitates vitio immunes erant, quippe pulmo dexter
nimis flaccidus erat, et cavum pectoris sinistrum continuit serum ex-
travasatum, semipurulentum ad lb. i. Superior pulmonis lobus in-
flammatus. Pleura eo in loco, ubi dolor acutissimus sentiebatur, spondee
membrana obtecta erat. Cor transversim sectum sanum erat attamen
nimis flaccidum Ex quibus descriptis pronum est concludere,
acutissimam inflammationem optimum Monarchum inter paucos dies
e medio sustulisse.
So the emperor died from an attack of inflammation of
the chest with sero-purulent exudation, and the foremost
physicians of Vienna diagnosed "rheumatic inflammatory
fever." Even the autopsy did not put them on the right
track, the diagnosis remained " a very violent inflamma-
* L.c, No. 137.
Emperor Leopold. 95
tion " of the peritoneal and pleural cavities. The " signs
of inflammation " which they found in the abdominal
viscera are omitted for the sake of brevity. The bowel
seems not have been opened, of .the condition of its mucous
membrane we are told nothing in spite of the chronic
diarrhoea which was present. The article concludes : " The
medicines which the inquisitive doctor wishes to know
consisted of antiphlogistic nitrous remedies and enemata.
They were given to arrest the violent inflammation which
was clearly shown to have existed by the autopsy, as is
shown in the report."
Lastly, a minute report was promised by the physi-
cian in ordinary Lagusius. Hahnemann on June 14th
(No. 140) declared : —
1. That the reply of the emperor's physicians was made
with less calmness than the occasion required and that it
answered nothing.
2. That Herr von Lagusius should produce the full
report of " this remarkable disease " which had been ex-
pected for ten weeks. " He will not refuse our request and
will tell his ignorant contemporaries the weighty authorities
according to whom a patient should be bled a second, third
and fourth time, if the previous bleedings produce no
amelioration. He will present us with a history of the case
which in pragmatic exactitude, lucid description and
veracious fidelity will breathe the spirit of the Asclepiades
of Cos."
Kurt Sprengel* calls this attack of Hahnemann's" fanat-
ical," without finding any further fault with it. The
defence of the emperor's physicians he calls " very unsatis-
factory" and informs us that the promised full history
of the case did not appear.
That it was not Hahnemann's intention to be-little his
adversaries is shown by his defending Storck in 1791
against other physicians,-f- and pronouncing him one of the
greatest physicians; though his true should be carefully
* Kritische Uebersiclit dcs Ztistandcs der Arziieykitnde ini lctztc7t
Jahrzchc?id, Halle, 1801, p. 139.
t Translation of Monro II., p. 324.
94 His reductio ad absurdum of the
separated from his false opinions; also in Hufeland's
Journal {\2>o6, 3, p. 49) he declares him worthy of a statue.
In the year 180$ Hahnemann gave utterance to the
following sally : *
With the exception of what a few distinguished men, to wit,
Conrad Gesner, Storck, Cullen, Alexander, Coste and Willemet have
done, by administering simple medicines alone and uncombined
in certain diseases, or to persons in health, the rest is nothing but
opinion, illusion, deception.
In 1808 he sharply and truly criticises the actual condi-
tion of therapeutics,! and at the same time enumerates the
modes of treatment employed by the older and younger
practitioners of the time :
The method of treating most diseases by scouring out the stomach
and bowels : — the method of treatment which aims its medicinal darts
at imaginary acridities and impurities in the blood and other humours,
at cancerous, rachitic, scrofulous, gouty, herpetic and scorbutic acridi-
ties — the method of treatment that presupposes in most diseases a
species of fundamental morbid action, such as dentition or derange-
ments of the biliary system, or haemorrhoids, or infarctus, or obs-
tructions in the mesenteric glands, or worms, and directs the
treatment against these — the method which imagines it has always
to do with debility, and conceives it is bound to stimulate, and re-
stimulate (which they call strengthen) — the method which regards
the diseased body as a mere chemically decomposed mass which
must be restored to the proper chemical condition by chemical
(nitrogenous, oxygenous, hydrogenous) antidotes : — another method
that supposes diseases to have no other originating cause but mucosities
— another that sees only inspissation of the juices— another that sees
nought but acids — and yet another that thinks it has only to combat
putridity, iS:c.
Imagine the embarrassment in which a physician must be placed,
when he comes to the sick-bed, as to whether he should follow this
method or the other, in what perplexity he must be when neither
the one nor the other mode of treatment avails him : how he, misled
now by this, now by that view, feels himself constrained to prescribe
now one, now another medicinal formula, again to abandon them
and administer something totally different and, finding that none will
suit the case, he thinks to effect, by the strength of the doses of
most powerful and costly medicines, that cure which he knows not
* Aesculapius in the Balance. Lesser Writings, p. 488.
t On the present want of foreign medicines, Allg. Anz. d. Dcutscheii
No. 207. Lesser Writings, 553.
TJierapeiLtics of his time. 95
(nor any of his colleagues either) how to bring about mildly by means
of small, rare doses of the simple but appropriate medicine.
In the same year 1808 he says in his treatise, On the
value of the speculative systems of medicine : *
I pass on to patJiology, a science in which that same love of system,
which has crazed the brains of the metaphysical physiologists, has
caused a like misapplication of intellect in the attempt to seaixh into
the internal essence of diseases, in order to discover what it is that
causes diseases of the organism to become diseases. This they called
the proximate internal caicse
After humoral pathology (that conceit, which took especially with
the vulgar, of considering the diseased body as a vessel full of im-
purities of all sorts, and of acridities with Greek names which were
supposed to cause the obstruction and vitiation of the fluids and solids,
putrefaction, fever, everything, in short, whereof the patient complained,
and which they fancied they could overcome by sweetening, diluting,
purifying, loosening, thickening, cooling and evacuating measures)
had, now under a gross, now under a more refined form, lasted through
many ages, with occasional interludes of many lesser and greater systems
— (to wit, the mechanical origin of diseases, the doctrine which derives
diseases from the original form of the parts, that which ascribes them to
spasms and paralysis, the solid and the nerve patholog}',t the chemical
pathology, &c.) the seer Brown appeared, who, as though he had
explored the pent secrets of Nature, stepped forward with amazing
assurance, assumed one primaiy principle of life (irritability), would
have it to be quantatively increased and diminished, accumulated
and exhausted in diseases, and made no account of any other source
of disease, but ascribed all diseases to want or excess of strength.
He gained the adherence of the whole German medical world,
a sure proof that their previous medical notions had never con-
vinced and satisfied their minds, and had only floated before them
in dim and flickering forms. They caught eagerly at this one-
sidedness, which they persuaded themselves into believing was
genuine simplicity And what was, after all, his one-sided irrita-
bility .'' Could he attach any definite and intelligible idea to it .''"Did
he not mystify us with a flood of words destitute of meaning ?
Did he not draw us into a treatment of disease, which, while it
answers in but few instances, and then imperfectly, could not but in the
preponderating remainder give rise to an aggravation or speedy death.
Nevertheless Hahnemann was not bhnd to the services
of others. He shows this with regard to Brown in his
* Allg. Anz. d. D. Lesser Writings^ p. 561.
t Nerve pathology was the doctrine that attributed disease to a
reaction of the nerves against unusual irritations.
g6 His appreciation of Brown's system.
excellent essay : Observations on the three current modes of
treatment*
But let us do him justice ! whilst we see that the glory which was
to constitute the apotheosis of his original head vanishes, whilst the
Titan who sought aimlessly to heap Pelion on Ossa, quietly descends
from the rank of heroes — whilst we see that his colossal plan to turn
everj'thing topsy-turx'y in the domain of /Esculapius is dashed to
pieces, and that the myriads of special diseases cannot be referred by
him to one or two causes, or what is the same thing, be decreed by
him to consist of two or three identical diseases differing from one
another only in degree, nor their infinite varieties be cured by two or
three stimulants or non-stimulants — whilst we consign all these
arabesque eccentricities to the domain of fable, let us not forget
to do him the justice to acknowledge that with a powerful arm he
routed the whole gang of humoral, acridity and saburral physicians
who, with lancet, tepid drinks, miserable diet, emetics, purgatives
and all the nameless varieties of resolvents, threatened to destroy
our generation, or at least to deteriorate it radically and reduce
it to the lowest possible condition ; that he reduced the number
of diseases requiring antiphlogistic treatment to three per cent, of
their former amount ; that he determined more accurately the influ-
ence of the six so-called non-natural things on our health ; that he
refuted the imaginary advantage of vegetable over animal diet to
the advantage of mankind ; that he restored to the rank of a
remedial agent a judicious regimen, and that he reintroduced the old
distinction between diseases from defect of stimulus and those from
excess of stimulus, and taught with some degree of truth the differ-
ence of their treatment in a general way. This may reconcile us with
his manes!
Very few physicians — perhaps none — saw as clearly as
Hahnemann in those days ; it was his strong hand which
first succeeded in putting down the mob of bleeding and
purging doctors.
Our author continues his criticism :t
The transcendental school repudiated the idea of having but one
fundamental vital force. The reign of dualism commenced. Now
we were fooled by the natural philosophers. For of such seers
there was no lack, each devised a new view of things, each wove a
different system, having nothing in common but the morbid propensity
not only to evolve from their inner consciousness an exact a priori
account of the nature and universal constitution of things, but
actually to look on themselves as the creators of the whole, and
to construct it out of their heads each according to his own fashion.
* Hufeland's/(92/r;7a/XI., St. 4, 1S09. Lesser Writings, p. 623.
t Lesser Writings, p. 562.
Criticism of Contemporary Materia Medica. 97
All the utterances they maundered forth respecting life in the ab-
stract and the essential nature of man were — like their whole con-
ception — so unintelligible, so hollow and unmeaning, that no clear
sense could be drawn from them. Human speech, which is only fitted
to convey the impressions of sense and the ideas immediately flowing
from them refused to express their conceits, their extravagant
fantastic visions ; and, therefore, they had to babble them forth in
new-fangled, high-sounding words, superlunary locutions, eccentric
rhapsodies and unheard of phrases without any sense, and get
involved in such gossamer subtleties, that one felt at a loss to know
which was the most appropriate — a satire on such a misdirection of
mental energy or an elegy on its ill success. We have to thank
natural philosophy for the disorder and dislocation of many a young
doctor's understanding. Moreover, their self-conceit was yet too
much inflated for them to trouble themselves with the study of diseases
or their cure ; they were content to prate about their dualism, their
polarization, their representation, their reflex, their differentiation and
indifferentiation, their potentiation and depotentiation. This natural
philosophy still lives and flourishes in a far-fetched doctrine of the
spiritualization of matter, and in ecstatic hallucinations concerning the
creation and order of the universe and its microcosm — man.
After describing the natural philosophical doctrine of
sensibility, irritability and reproduction, and characterising
it as a playing with empty words, he continues : *
How impossible is it by all these barren a prioris to obtain such
a just view of the different maladies as shall enable us to find the remedy
suited to each — which ought to be the sole aim of the healing art !
How can one justify to a sound judgment the seeking to make these
speculative subtleties, which can never be made concrete and applic-
able, the chief study of the practical physician ?
In the above-mentioned treatise he also criticises the
materia medicas of his time : t
And whence do these authorities on materia medica draw their data r
Surely not from an immediate revelation ? In truth, one would almost
be induced to believe they must have flowed to them from direct in-
spiration, for they cannot be derived from the practice of physicians,
who, it is well known, hold it beneath their dignity to prescribe one
single, simple medicament and nothing more in a disease, and
would let the patient die and the medical art ever remain as a no
art, sooner than part with their learned prerogative of \\ riting artis-
tically compounded prescriptions.
* Lesser Waitings, p. 564. f Lesser Writings^ p. 569.
98 Need of a Reform of Medicine.
Most of the imputed virtues of the simple drugs have, in the
first place, obtained a footing in domestic practice and been brought
into vogue by the vulgar and non-professional.
Barren information of this sort was collected by the old herbalists,
Mattholi, Tabernaemontanus, Gesner, Fuchs, Lonicer, Ray, Tourne-
fort, Bock, Lobel, Thurneisser, Clusius, Bauhin, &c., very briefly, super-
ficially and confusedly, and interwoven with baseless and superstitious
conjectures, intermingled with that which the unciting Dioscorides
had in a similar manner collected, and from this unsifted catalogue
was our learned-looking mataia viedica supplied. One authority
copied another down to our own times. Such is its not very trust-
worthy origin.
The few books that form an exception to this (Bergius and Cullen),
are all the more meagre in data respecting the properties of the
medicine ; consequently, as they for the most part, the latter
especially, reject the vague and doubtful, we can gain little positive
knowledge from them.
Similar opinions respecting the allopathic materia medica
we frequently find in more recent literature; we might fill a
volume with them. But in Hahnemann's time such attacks
were unheard of, " audacious " as the allopaths maintained.
No physician since Paracelsus had dared to expose with
such frankness and boldness the miserable condition of
the medical treatment of the period.
In an anonymous article,* in the year i8oS, after he had for
twenty years past been calling the attention of his contem-
porary physicians to the evils wrought by the healing art
he writes : —
It must some time or other be loudly and publicly said, so let it now
be boldly and frankly said before the whole world, that our art requires
a thorough reform from top to bottom. What should not be done is
done, and what is essential is utterly neglected. The evil has come to
such a pitch that the well-meant mildness of a John Huss is no longer
of any use, but the fiery zeal of a stalwart Martin Luther is required
to clear away this monstrous leaven.
No other science or art, or even handicraft, has advanced so little
with the progress of time, no art is so behindhand in its radical imper-
fection as the medical art.
Sometimes one fashion is followed, sometimes another, first one
theory then another, and when the new does not seem to answer, the
old is again tried (which was found to be inadequate before). Treatment
Allg. Anz. d. D., No. 207. Lesser ]l'riti/igs^ p. 573.
Provings of Drug in foruier times. 99
is always guided, not by conviction, but by opinion, each new mode
of treatment was the more artistic and learned the less it succeeded,
so that we are reduced to the wretched and hopeless choice of one of
the numerous methods, almost all equally impotent, and have no fixed
therapeutic principles of acknowledged value. Each follows the
teaching of his own school and what his imagination suggests to him,
and everyone finds in the immense magazine of opinions, authorities
to which he can refer for confirmation.
At the conclusion of his treatise On the value of the
speculative systems of medicine, he exclaims :*
Such is the fearful but too true condition of the medical art hitherto,
which, under the treacherous promise of recovery and health, has been
gnawing at the life of so many of the inhabitants of earth.
Oh ! that it were mine to direct the better portion of the medical
world, who can feel for the sufferings of their fellow creatures, and
lon^ to know how they may relie\-e them, to those purer principles
which lead directly to the desired goal.
TJie proving of dnigs on the healthy organism.
It is true that in all ages drugs were proved, and that on
the healthy body. On this point Hahnemann says : -f-
But in all the works on Materia Rlcdica^ from Dioscorides
down to the latest books on this subject, there is almost nothmg
said about the special peculiar action of individual medicines ; but,
besides an account of their supposed utility in various nosological
names of diseases, it is merely stated whether they promote the secre-
tion of urine, perspiration, expectoration or menstruation, and more
particularly whether they produce evacuation of the stomach and
bowels upwards or downwards ; because all the aspirations and efforts
of the practitioner have ever been chiefly directed to cause the expul-
sion of a material morbific matter, and of sundry (fictitious) acridities,
on which it was imagined diseases depended.
There were a few exceptions to this, as Hahnemann
admits, for instance, Conrad Gesner, Storck, Cullen, Alex-
ander, Coste and Willemet. Haller also is honourably
mentioned by Hahnemann on account of his proposal to
ascertain the effects of medicines by provings on the human
organism. But even these men only proved medicines in
isolated cases, none of them proceeded systematically.
* Lesser Writings, p. 573.
t Organon, 5 Edit. Dudgeon's trans, p. 16.
100 H alineviann' s e.vly
Hahnemann zuas the first zvho made the proving of
medicines a system.
As early as 1790 wc sec Hahnemann experimenting with
drugs upon himself. In 1796 he writes in Hufeland's
Journal* that the search for specific remediesf was the
most desirable and praiseworthy undertaking, but he
laments the utter want of any principle for discovering
them; hitherto experience only has been the doubtful
o-uidc. " Nothing then remains for ns hit to test the medicines
on our ozvn bodies. The necessity of this has been perceived
in all ages, but a false way was generally followed, inas-
much as they were only employed empirically and capri-
ciously in diseases." In this way, he continues, no certain
results could be gathered, more especially as medicines
were given mixed together.
" The true physician whose sole aim is to perfect his art
can make use of no other information concerning medicines
than —
" First, what is the pure action of each by itself on the
healthy human body.
" Secondly, what do observations of their action in
various simple or complicated maladies teach
us ? "
In order to ascertain the actions of drugs on the health}-
body, he recommends proving on ourselves and the study
of records of poisoning. " A complete collection of this
kind of information with estimation of the degree of reliance
to be placed on their reporters would be, if I am not very
much mistaken, the foundation stone of a materia medica,
the sacred book of its revelation "
* II., St. 3, p. 465. Lesser lVrifi72g-s^ 309 ef. scq.
t In this place we may observe that the word specific has a difterent
meaning in liomceopathy to what it has among allopathic therapeutists.
The latter understand by specific remedies such as are employed for a
certain disease ; thus for them quinine is a specific for ague, mercury
for syphilis, &c. The physician who seeks for one medicine for a form
of disease, falls into routine practice. Homceopathists understand by
specific remedies such as are capable of influencing under certain con-
ditions, certain organs and tissues, these and none other.
P roving s of Medicines. lOl
He zealously occupied himself and others who devoted
themselves to it with the proving of medicines, the collec-
tion of cases of poisoning and the formation from the
results thus arrived at of a materia medica which should be
free from all assumptions and founded only on experiment.
His great endeavour was to found a physiological materia
medica.
His first essay of this kind was called, Fragnienta de
vit'ibits iiiedicamentonini positivis,\Ji^?A?^, 1805, wherein he
arranged systematically the results of his provings and of
his studies. He himself says of it in the preface : " Nemo me
melius novit, qiiam manca sint ct temiar Nevertheless a
merely superficial glance at this collection will show with
what devoted diligence and earnestness of conviction he
worked at it. The book consists of two parts, of which the
first contains 269, the second with the repertory of the first,
470 pages.
The drugs in this work whose effects he partly proved on
himself and partly gleaned from the toxicological observa-
tions of others, are the following in their order : Aconitum
napellus, tinctura acris (Hahnemann's causticum), arnica,
belladonna, camphor, lytta vesicatoria (cantharides), cap-
sicum annuum, chamomilla, china, cocculus, cuprum
vitriolatum, digitalis, hyoscyamus, ignatia, ipecacuanha,
ledum palastre, helleborus niger, mezereum, nux vomica,
opium, Pulsatilla, rheum, stramonium, Valeriana, veratrum
album.
In the same year, 1805, he says in his Medicine of
Expej'ience : * " those substances which we term medicines
are unnatural irritants, only calculated to disturb the health
of our body, our life and the functions of our organs, and
to excite disagreeable sensations, in one word to render the
healthy — sick. There is no medicine whatever which does
not possess this tendency, and no substance is medicinal
which does not possess it."
Therefore he required the most exact proving of drugs
on the human body in order to ascertain their powers. In
* Lesser Writings^ p. 514.
102 Siibsiitiites for foreign drugs.
the following year, 1806, Hahnemann contributed another
essay on drug provings and minute individualization to
Hufcland's/^?/nz(^/.* Two years later he discoursesf in his
article On substitutes for foreign drtigs and on the recent
announcement of their superflHOUsness^ in the following
manner : —
Let us only teach physicians principles of universal applicability
according to which the powers of drugs may be ascertained and
tested with certainty, as to what each is incontrovertibly useful and
suitable for, to what cases of disease each is unexceptionably adapted,
and what is the proper dose But we are by along way not
so far advanced as this. No principles are yet universally recog-
nised, according to which the curative powers of medicines (even of
such as have never yet been employed at the sick bed) can with
certainty be ascertained a priori^ without first subjecting them to the
infinitely tedious process of testing them in haphasard fashion at the
sick bed, which is almost never convincing and is usually attended
with injurious effects. This obscure mode ab cffectii in niorbis
whereby little or nothing is determined, has, moreover, the cruel
and unpardonable disadvantage that the individual, naturally so
irritable when diseased, is apt to be made worse by so many blindly
instituted experiments, and may even fall a \'ictim to them, especi-
ally since the recent fashion of prescribing large doses of powerful
medicines has been adopted.
But as long as the former better method is not established in the State,
and the latter mode only is so, which has been from the beginning
acknowledged to be unserviceable and insufficient — so long will
contradictory opinions of physicians relative to the curative powers of
medicines continue.
A glaring instance of these " contradictory opinions of
physicians " had just been given : the Vienna medical
faculty had pronounced cascarilla quite superfluous,^ while
* On Substitutes for China^ xxiii. St. 4, p. 27. British fourtial of
Homaopathy, xlii. 212.
t AUg. Anz. d. Z*., No. 237. Lesser IVi'i tings, p. 574.
X In consequence of the continental blockade there occurred a
sensible deficiency of foreign drugs, particularly for the immoderate
doses of medicine then in vogue. That most keenly felt by physicians
was the want of cinchona bark, for which a vast number of substitutes,
mostly complicated mixtures of bitter drugs, was proposed. (Hahne-
mann repeatedly declared that there could be no surrogates in the
sense attached to the word by his colleagues, and in 180S advised as
the best help out of the difficulty that it should be noted that when the
Mode of Action of Bark in Ague. 103
the well-known Professor Hecker, of Berlin, in No. 221
of the Allgemeiner Anzeiger der DeiitseJien maintained —
" Cascarilla is not only equally efficacious with cinchona
bark in intermittent fever, but is even preferable." Hahne-
mann showed that this was an unwarrantable assumption,
because Hecker never employed cascarilla alone, nor
does he mention in what kind of intermittent fever he
rave it.
Similia Siinilibus.
m order to learn what that " better method " referred to
is we must go back some years. In the Instruction to sti.r-
geons concerning venereal diseases* 1789, Hahnemann speaks
of the mode of action of mercury, which he alleged to be a
counter-irritant action on the body, gave a description of
in its most developed form, and called " mercurial fever."
He had thus already left the beaten track, for it was the
fashion to believe that it acted by removing the " miasma "
by means of salivation, sweat, diarrhoea or urinary secre-
tion. Hahnemann considered the production of his " mer-
curial fever" necessary for the cure of syphilis.
In the following year, 1790, Hahnemann translated
Cullen's materia Medica. Cullen (II. 108) explains the
efficacy of cinchona in intermittent fever by the " strength-
ening power it exerts on the stomach," and adds, " that
he has never met with anything in any book which made
him doubt the truth of his view." Hahnemann rejects
this explanation in a note, and adds : —
Let us consider the following : — Substances such as strong coffee,
pepper, arnica, ignatia and arsenic, which cause a kind of fever, extin-
guish the periodicity of intermittent fevers. For the sake of experiment,
I took for several days four drachms of good cinchona bark twice a day ;
medicine was suitable such large doses were not required). Difficul-
ties were also experienced from the failure of the supply of other drugs
which the Vienna Faculty sought to overcome by publishing in the
Allg. Ans. d. Deufschcn, 1808, No. 305, a list of foreign medicines which
they alleged to be " quite superfluous," as for instance Peruvian balsam,
copaiba, cina, colocynth, sarsaparilla, senega, tamarinds, &c.
* Lesser lVriii?j(^s^ p. yy.
104 HaJiiieniann's first proving of Bark.
my feet, finger tips, &c., first grew cold, I became exhausted and sleepy ;
then my heart began to palpitate, my pulse became hard and rapid ;
I had intolerable anxiety, trembling (but not rigor), prostration in all
my limbs ; then throbbing in the head, flushing of the cheeks, thirst,
and in short all the ordinary symptoms of interm.ittent fever [Hahne-
mann had suffered from ague in Erlangen, Monro^ II, 396] appeared
one after another, but without actual febrile rigor. In a word, even
the special characteristic symptoms of intermittent fever, dulness of
the senses, a kind of stiffness of all the joints, and in particular the
disagreeable numb sensation which seemed to be located in the
periosteal covering of all the bones of the body, made their appear-
ance. This paroxysm lasted two to three hours each time and returned
when I repeated the dose, otherwise not. On leaving off the drug
I was soon quite well.
On page 115 he mentions that a kind of artificial fever
must be produced by ipecacuanha in order to cure certain
forms of intermittent fever.
In 1 79 1 his translation of Monro appeared (1794, a
second unaltered edition). Here, also, he holds the view
(II. 333) that "in insidious fevers from unknown causes in
which the vital force is sluggish, a new, strengthening and
efficacious fever " must be excited. In the chapter on
cinchona, he again declares against "its tonic action" as
the cause of its febrifuge property. (II. 378) " If, how-
ever, we accept the view given at length in my note in
Cullen's Mat. Mcdica, that bark in addition to its tonic
action, overpowers and suppresses the intermittent fever
chiefly by exciting a fever of short duration of its own, it
will not be difficult to explain this paradox. All other
substances capable of exciting counter-irritation and artifi-
cial fever, given shortly before the paroxysm, check inter-
mittent fever quite as specifically, but they cannot be relied
upon with such certainty."
" Sinnlia simililms " had not been pronounced, though he
remarks (II. 181) that the mercurial disease resembled that
of syphilis, without making any application of the resem-
blance. He started with the idea of aiding the inherent
recuperative power by a medicinal excitant acting directly
on the part affected, while his contemporaries were talking
of resolving obstructions, expelling aci-idities and evil hu-
mours, removing the " morbidly over-produced, accumu-
Contraria contrariis curentur. 105
lated inflammatory blood " from organs, remedying poverty
of blood, counter-irritating, altering, strengthening, astring-
ing, giving tone, &c.
As a therapeutic axiom, he first alludes to the simile in
the year 1796, in the well-known article in Hufeland's
Journal: Essay on a nezu principle for discovering the
curative pozuer of drugs* In the first place he speaks of
the several ways adopted in practical medicine for treating
the pathological changes of the body.
TJie first way^ to reinoiie or destroy the fitndaniental cause of the
disease, was the most elevated it could follow. All the imaginings and
aspirations of the best physicians in all ages were directed to this
object, the most worthy of the dignity of our art.
Further on he speaks of this method as above all criti-
cism, but says that the drugs chosen were not always those
best adapted for the purpose.
I shall now take leave of this roj'al road, and examine the other
two ways of applj'ing medicines.
The author then mentions the drugs which act according
to the principle contraria contrariis, for instance, purgatives
in constipation, venesection, cold and saltpetre in inflam-
mations, alkalies in acidity of the stomach, opium in
neuralgia.
In acute diseases, which, if we remove the obstacles to recovery for
but a few days, Nature will herself generally conquer, or if we cannot
do so, succumb ; in acute diseases, I repeat, this application of
remedies is proper, to the purpose and sufficient, as long as we do
not possess the above-mentioned philosopher's stone (the knowledge
of the fundamental cause of each disease, and the means of its
removal), or as long as we have no rapidly acting specific.
In chronic diseases, he contends, the mode of treatment
according to contraria contrariis must be rejected ; it is
improper to treat constipation by purgatives, the excited
circulation of hysterical, cachectic and hypochondriacal pa-
tients by venesection, acid eructations by alkalies, chronic
pains by opium, &c.
And although the great majority of my medical brethren still adhere
to this method, I do not fear to call it palliative, injurious and destruc-
tive.
* Lesser Writings, p. 295.
loG The Search for Specifics.
I beseech my colleagues to abandon this method (contraria con-
trariis) in chronic diseases, and in such acute diseases as tend to
assume a chronic character ; it is the deceitful bye-path in the dark
forest that leads to the fatal swamp. The \ain empiric imagines it to
be the beaten highway, and plumes himself on the wretched power of
giving a few hours' ease, unconcerned if, during this specious calm, the
disease plant its roots still deeper.
But I am not singular in warning against this fatal practice. The
better, more discerning and conscientious physicians have from time
to time sought for remedies (the tJiird way) for chronic diseases and
acute diseases tending to chronic, which should not cloak the
symptoms, but which should remo\e the disease radically, in one word
for specific remedies
But what guided them, what principle induced them to try such
remedies ? Alas ! only a precedent from the empirical game of hazard,
from domestic practice, chance cases in which these substances were
accidentally found useful in this or that disease, often only in peculiar
unmentioned combinations, which might perhaps never again occur ;
sometimes in pure simple diseases. It were deplorable indeed if
only chance and empirical hap-hazard could be considered as our guides
in the discovery and application of the proper, the true remedies for
chronic diseases, which certainly constitute the major portion of human
ills. In order to ascertain the actions of remedial agents, for the
purpose of applying them to the relief of human suffering, we should
trust as little as possible to chance, but go to work as rationally
and as methodically as possible.
He then demands provings of drugs on the healthy
organism, as he had ahxady mentioned.
By them alone can the true nature, the real action of medicinal sub-
stances be nietJiodically discovered ; from them alone can we learn in
what cases of disease they may be employed with success and
certainty.
But as the key for this is still wanting, perhaps I am so fortunate as
to be able to point out the principle under the guidance of which the
lacunae in medicine may be filled up, and the science perfected by
the gradual disco\'ery and application on rational principles of a suit-
able specific remedy for each, more especially for each chronic disease,
among the hitherto known (and among still unknown) medicines. It
is contained I may say in the following axioms.
Every powerful medicinal substance p7'oduces in the huniaii body a
peculiar kind of disease, the more powetful the medicine, the jnore
peculiar, marked and violciit the disease.
IVe should imitate natu7-e, which sometimes cures a chronic disease
by superadding another, and employ in the (especially chronic) disease
7VC wish to cure, that medicine which is able to produce another very
Different modes of Drug- Action. 10/
similar artificial disease, and the former will be cured ; siinilia
siiiiilibiis.
We only require to know, on the one hand, the diseases of the
human frame accurately in their essential characteristics and their
accidental complications, and on the other hand, the pure effects of
drugs, that is, the essential characteristics of the specific artificial
disease and attendant symptoms caused by difference of dose, form,
(S:c., and by choosing a remedy for a given natural disease that is
capable of producing a very similar artificial disease, we shall be able
to cure the most severe diseases.
This axiom has, I confess, so much the appearance of a barren,
analytical formula that I must hasten to illustrate it synthetically.
Before he enters upon this he makes a few more remarks
on the mode of action of medicines.
Most medicines have more than one action ; the first a direct
action, which gradually changes into the second (which I call the indirect
secondary action). The latter is generally a state exactly the opposite
of the former. In this way most vegetable substances act.
But few medicines are exceptions to this rule, continuing their
primary action uninterruptedly, but of the same kind, though always
diminishing in degree, until after some time no trace of their action
can be detected, and the natural condition of the organism is restored.
Of this kind are the metallic (and other mineral ?) medicines, e.g.,
arsenic, mercur)', lead.
If, in a case of chronic disease, a medicine be given whose direct
primary action corresponds to the disease, the indirect secondary
action is sometimes exactly the state of the body sought to be brought
about.
Palliative remedies do so much harm in chronic diseases, and
render them more obstinate, probably because after their first antago-
nistic action they are followed by a secondary action, which is similar
to the disease itself.
In the " elucidation by examples " of his therapeutic
principle, he cites a number of drugs. Hahnemann here
commits a great error, the greatest possible under the cir-
cumstances. He leaves the method by induction too soon,
and assumes the truth of many effects of drugs which he
should first have tested. Various hypotheses are quoted
instead of evidence, while other examples are very unsatis-
factory. If he had only made use of unassailable demon-
strations as he did with belladonna, mercury, arsenic, aconite,
veratrum album, ipecacuanha, rhus, and discarded all doubt-
ful matter, he would have much better served his cause.
io8 Examples of howucopathic medication.
We shall here quote some of Hahnemann's evidence, we
must, however, not forget that he was a child of his times
and could not have the knowledge of our day.
Belladonna excites mania and convulsions, therefore it
is effectual in certain cases of insanity and epilepsy. " Its
great tendency to paralyse the optic nerve, renders it, as
a similarly acting substance, an important remedy in
amaurosis, in which I have myself seen very good results."
It produces a kind of sleeplessness and cures it. Bella-
donna has been found useful in serous apoplexy, and it
produces similar states.
Hyoscyamus produces and cures a certain kind of mania.
It excites convulsions and is, therefore, beneficial in
epilepsy. For similar reasons it sometimes cures chronic
sleeplessness. Mercury produces rodent ulcers and caries
of the bones ; " experience has confirmed the usefulness of
this specific." Arsenic, according to Hahnemann's own
experience, is very apt to excite febrile rigors and a
paroxysm recurring daily, each time weaker. It is there-
fore a curative drug in intermittent fever. Hufeland
remarks thereupon in a note : " I must here remark with
all due deference to the author, that I cannot yet accept
the internal use of arsenic in intermittent fever."
Arsenic causes many chronic skin eruptions and also
cures them under certain conditions.
Rhus causes erysipelatous skin eruptions and can heal
them. Rheum causes diarrhoea and cures certain kinds.
Every physician who studies Hahnemann's writings in
an impartial spirit, must come to the conclusion that with
many faults he was honestly anxious to find in the mighty
chaos of assumptions, guesses, theoretical speculations and
bewildering variety of experience, a firm footing on the
ground of natural science for the foundation of medicine.
From some remarks of Hahnemann in the following years,
we see that he was quietly and incessantly occupied with the
construction of a therapeutics according to his principles.
In 1799 he remarks in his ApotJickcrlexicon (in which he gives
observations on the action of single drugs) with regard to
sabina, that the leaves and oil of this plant have the power
Siniilia shnilibus an-enUir, 109
of exciting haemorrhages especially from the uterus, and
may be successfully employed in such affections under
certain circumstances. Also apropos of hyoscyamus he
alleges that its toxic effects greatly resemble diseases which
can be cured by it. In the following year he recommends
belladonna in scarlet fever on the same therapeutic
principle.
In 1805 the Medicine of Experience appeared, in which
Hahnemann pursues the following train of thought*
Eveiy disease is owing' to some abnormal irritation of a peculiar
character, which deranges the functions and healthy state of our
organs.
To this main maxim he adds two " maxims of experi-
ence " :
First viaxini of experience.
When two abnormal irritations act simultaneously on the body,
if the two be dissimilar, then the action of the one (the A\"eaker)
irritation will be suppressed and suspended for some time by the
other (the stronger).
Secojid maxim of cxperic7tce.
IV/icn t/te two irritations greatly resemble each other, then the one
(the weaker) irritation, together with its effects, will be completely
extinguished and annihilated by the analogous power of the other
(the stronger).
He supports these axioms by examples from daily prac-
tice and concludes :
In order therefore to be able to ewe, v.e shall only require to oppose to
the existing' abnormal irritation of the disease an appropriate medi-
cine, that is to say, another morbific power whose effect is very similar
to that the disease displays.
Further on he says :
It is only by this property of producing; in the healthy body a se?'ies
of specific morbid symptoms, tJiat medicine can cure diseases, that is to
say, remove and extinguish the morbid in-itation by a suitable counto-
irritation. Every simple medicinal substance, like the specific mor-
bific miasmata (small -pox, measles, the venom of vipers, the sali\a
of rabid animals, &c.) causes a peculiar specific disease — a series of
determinate symptoms, which is not produced precisely in the same
way by any other medicine in the world
* Lesser JJ'ritings, p. 510.
1 1 o One single remedy at a time.
In order to follow still further this natural 5,^uide, and to penetrate
more profoundly into this source of knowledge, we administer these
medicines experimentally, the weaker as well as the stronger, each
singly and uncombined, to healthy individuals with caution and care-
fully remov'ing all accessory circumstances capable of exercising an
influence ; we note down the symptoms they occasion precisely
in the order in which they occur, and thus we obtain the pure result
of the form of disease that each of these medicinal substances is
capable of producing, absolutely and by itself, in the human body.
In this way we must obtain a knowledge of a sufficient supply of
artificial morbific agents (medicines) for curative implements, so that
we may be able to make a selection from among them. My Fmg-
menta de viribus medicanicntorum are something of this sort.
From this method of employing drugs he distinguishes
the palHative method, according to which purgatives are
given in constipation, opium in pain, cold in inflammation,
&c.
We cannot refrain from quoting the following paragraphs,
though we may be accused of repetition.
If we observe attentively we shall percei\e that wise nature pro-
duces the greatest effects with simple, often with small means. To
imitate her in this should be the highest aim of the reflecting mind.
But the greater the number of means and appliances we heap together
in order to attain a single object, the farther do we stray from the
precepts of our great instructress, and the more miserable will be our
work.
With a few simple remedies, used singly one after the other, more
frequently however with one alone, we may restore to normal harmony
the greatest derangements of the diseased body, we may change the
most chronic, apparently incurable diseases (not unfrequently in the
shortest space of time) into health — whereas w^e may, by the em-
ployment of a heap of ill-selected and composite remedies, see the
most insignificant ailments degenerate into the greatest, most for-
midable and most incurable diseases.
Which of these two methods will the professor of the healing art,
who strives after perfection, choose ? A single simple remedy is always
calculated to produce the most beneficial effects, without any addi-
tional means : provided it be the best selected, the most appropriate,
and in the proper dose. It is iicvcr requisite to mix two of them
together.
We administer a medicine in order if possible to remove the
whole disease by this single substance, or if this be not completely
practicable, to obserxe from the effect of the medicine what still
remains to be cured. One, two, or at the most three simple
medicines are sufficient for the removal of the greatest disease
HaJincniann's Precursors. ill
and if this result does not follow, the fault lies with us ; it is not
nature, nor the disease, that is to blame.*
Now, as in e\eiy case, only a single simple medicinal substance is
necessar)', no true physician would ever think of degrading himself
and his art and defeating his own object, by giving a mixture of
medicines. It will rather be a sign that he is certain of his subject if
we find him prescribing only a single medicinal substance.f
In this work he attempts to support his therapeutic
principle by quotations from the writings of the older phy-
sicians.
Occasionally, however, physicians suspected that it was that property
of medicines (now confirmed by innumerable observations) of ex-
citing (positive) symptoms analogous to the disease, by virtue of a
tendency inherent in them, which enabled them to effect real cures.
But this ray of truth, I confess, seldom penetrated the spirit of our
schools, enshrouded as they were in a cloud of systems.
Thus Hippocrates or the author of the book riept t6-kwv twv kot'
avepwirov (Basil. 1538, frob. page 72, lin. 35) give utterance to the re-
markable words : Sia ra Ojjioia vovcros yiverai, Kai Sia. to, Ofxoia irposrpepo/j.fva
€/c vosevvTcijv vyiaivovTai, &C.
He adds the names of Detharding, Major, Brendelius,
Dankwerts, and in the Oj-ganon he also mentions Bertholon,
Thoury, Storck and the Dane Stahl. In Hufeland's
Jonrnal\ he says in 1807 :
Though here and there a wise man was found who had the courage
to oppose the general ideas and to advocate " similia similibus,'' this
proposition did not find general acceptation.
Hahnemann adds later on in the Organon : §
I do not bring forward the following passages from authors who
had a presentiment of homoeopathy as proofs in support of this
doctrine, which is firmly established on its own merits, but in order
to avoid the imputation of having suppressed these foreshadowings
with the view of securing for myself the credit of the priority of the
idea.
He might well say, however :|| " None has as yet taiigJit
this homoeopathic therapeutic doctrine ; " emphasis being
placed on the word " taught."
* Lesser Wntzjtgs, p. 533.
t Lesser Writings., p. 536.
X Vol. XXVI., St. 2, pp. 5 and 6.
§ Dudgeon's translation, p. 106.
II Organon, ist edit., p. 5.
112 Contempt for syniptomatic treatment.
In the year 1807, in Hufcland's Jourjial, he attempts to
support his therapeutic principle by very numerous quota-
tions of the observations of earher physicians,* in addition
to his former instances. But here again he allowed himself
to be carried away by his zeal ; the selection of his evidence
was not sufficiently careful, so that his opponents in many
cases easily discovered inaccuracies
Hahnemann's viezvs respecting' disease and his examination
of the patient.
As early as in 1786 Hahnemann blames the treatment of
single symptoms of a disease instead of the disease itself,
the " white-washing " of symptoms as he calls it (Preface
to Arsenical Poisoning). He speaks to the same effect in
various other places, as e.g., in 1800, in the preface to the
ArzneiscJiatz!\
And thus as though they were independent beings endowed with free
vohtion, each ingredient in a complete prescription has its task allotted
to it, velinvitissima Minerva Hygciaque, and many other things are ex-
pected of it; for there are many learned considerations in a regular classi-
cal prescription. This indication and that one must be fulfilled, three,
four and more symptoms must be met by as many different remedies.
Consider Arcesilas ! how many remedies must be artistically com-
bined in order to make the attack at once from all points. Something
for the tendency to vomit, something else for the diarrhoea, something
else for the evening fever and night sweats. And as the patient is so
weak, tonic medicines must be added, and not one alone, but several,
in order that what the one cannot do (which we don't know) the other
may
But what if all the symptoms p7-oceeded from one cause, as is a/ most
always the case, and there wet'e one single drug that would meet all
these symptoms.
In order, however, to obtain an accurate picture of the
disease, he insisted on a minute examination of the patient
and all his symptoms. He thus writes in 1805 in Medicine
of Experience :\ —
* Fingerzeige aif den hom'oopathischen Gebrauch der Ar::neien in
der bisherigen Praxis, vol. XXVI., St. 2, p. 5 — 43. This is given in
Dudgeon's translation of the Organo7i.
t Lesser Writings, p. J 02.
+ Lesser Writings, p. 505.
Examination of the Patient. 113
The internal essential nature of every malady, of every individual
case of disease, as far as it is necessary for us to know it for the
purpose of curing it, expresses itself by the syniiptonis as they present
themselves to the investigations of the true observer in their whole
extent, connexion and succession.
When the physician has discovered all the obscr\able symptoms of
disease that exist, he has discovered the disease itself, he has attained
the complete conception of it requisite for the cure.
To enable us to perform a cure, we require to have a faithful
picture of the disease with all its manifestations, and in addition,
when this can be obtained, a knowledge of its predisposing and
exciting causes, in order, after effecting the cure by means of medi-
cines, to enable us to remove these also, by means of an improved
regimen, and so prevent a relapse
The patient relates the history of his ailments, those about him
describe what they have observed in him, the physician sees, hears,
feels, &c., all that there is of an altered or unusual character about
him, and notes down each particular in its order, so that he may form
an accurate picture of the disease.
In the following pages he gives ample instructions as to
what questions should be asked the patient and how he should
be examined. He himself kept a very minute record of the
cases of his patients. In each case he noted exactly the
history and course of the disease down to the very minutest
symptoms and deviations from health. For this purpose
he often spent hours examining his patient. He also
informed himself of the hygienic conditions of the abode,
mode of life, preparation of food, occupation of his time,
&;c. ; * all this at a time when physicians, with few excep-
tions, limited their energies to writing prescriptions.
These investigations of the disease were more and more
minutely conducted by him as he became more and more
convinced in the course of time that every disease had a
special individual character. We very soon find him an
enemy to all classifications and generalisations as the
reader is already aware from his own words.f Here we may
* Comp. Hahnemaiiifs Leben von Albrecht, Leipzig, 1875, P- 9°?
also Elias, Horn. Giirkeiimonate^ Halle, 1827, p. 29.
t Comp. Apothekerlexicoii, II., p. 88 ; then II., part 2, pp. 62, 99,
loi, 123, 151, 152. "The physician who for every pain, every cough,
every diarrhoea, has recourse to opium, is an out and out quack," pp.
206, 244, 282, 327, 330, 350, 356, 358, 364, 393, 399, 432, 450, 469-
8
114 Criticism of the ordinary practice
quote a few of Hahnemann's characteristic remarks in the
ArzneiscJiatz, of 1800, in which he insists upon the exact
diagnosis and investigation of individual varieties of
disease : " I think it a pity that no distinction has been
made between the many varieties of dropsy, and that only
one dropsy is spoken of The division into leucophlegmatic
and inflammatory is not nearly adequate, any more than
that of insanity into mania and melancholia. What should
we think of a botanist who recognised no division of plants
except into trees and herbs?" (page 71) When pareira
root is recommended, Hahnemann exclaims : " Must it then
be given in all cases of renal and vesical disease without
exception ? What a noble remedy it must be if it can cure
them all ! " (page 227.)
Cinchona bark is recommended in a particular minutely
described case. Hahnemann says : — " A single accurate
description of a case, such as this, in which a drug should
be employed, is worth a whole bulky volume of empirically
jumbled prescriptions, though componded secunduin arte?n."
(p. 202).
The time of administration and the duration of the
action of cinchona are spoken of, and the contradictory
views of the best physicians, CuUen, Werlhof, Morton,
Talbor, &c., given. On this Hahnemann says : " How
exact must have been the observations of the physicians
who after their employment of one of the most extensively
used medicines, bark, for more than 160 years in a disease
marked by characteristic symptoms of the most well-defined
kind, neither knew the proper time for its administration
nor how long its action lasted. (I found that its action
■ended twenty hours after its administration.) How can
they presume to give reliable instruction with regard to the
action of more rarely employed drugs in less characteristi-
cally defined diseases?" (p. 245)
A mixture of chamomile, myrrh and potash is recom-
mended in ague. Hahnemann : " These one-sided modes
of procedure cannot lead us to the discovery of the truth.
In the empiric powder described above, chamomile flowers
were by far the most powerful ingredient, and they possess
of giving inixtiires of 7inknozvn drugs. 115
a far _<Treater febrifuge power than myrrh, especially in
those kinds of intermittent fever in which a febrile rigor is
coincident with internal and external heat. As long as
they do not recognise exact symptomatic distinctions, our
physicians will be no better than learned-looking quacks."
(p. 258)
Apropos of a " bolus," composed of ammonio-muriate of
iron and sal-ammoniac, of each eight grains, oxide of iron,
3 grains, and extract of gentian, 10 grains, to be taken
twice a day in ague, Hahnemann says : " We should be
told exactly in what kind of intermittent fever this wonder-
ful mixture was of use. Why precisely so many grains
of each ingredient ? Did the Delphic oracle ordain those
proportions, which are therefore to be regarded as a revela-
tion ? If an unfavourable condition is excited in a patient
by this mixture, to which ingredient is it to be attributed ?
And why must ammonio-muriate of iron be given specially
when the sal ammoniac and oxide of iron already form
ammonio-muriate of iron — that is muriate of iron and
ammonia in the stomach ? No explanation is offered on
these points. We must give it exactly as it is in every kind
of intermittent fever ! Sic bene placitum. Blessed are those
who believe without reasoning." (p. 265)
The receipt for a " mild, agreeable and cheap " sto-
machic is given. Hahnemann : " We cannot imagine
anything more empirical than the unqualified recommen-
dation of one remedy as a stomachic in all cases. More
general and empirical were not the recommendations of
Nicander, Dioscorides, Largus, Macer or the Salernitan
school. Will the day ever dawn ? I doubt it." (p. 278)
In the preface (IV. note) Hahnemann writes: "Indolent
. ignorance has always tried to find specifics, that is,
remedies which would cure a whole class of diseases, e.g.,
intermittent fevers in general, without regard to special
cases. There can, however, from the very nature of things
be no such remedies any more than there can be one
universally applicable process for extracting copper in the
most perfect manner from all different kinds of ore, 1 n
whatever variety of combinations the metal may exist in
Ii6 Objection to nosological classification.
nature. There can be no such general remedies. But for
each single case of disease, there is a particular remedy,
created so to speak by nature for the purpose, which better
deserves the name of a specific."*
In 1808, in Medicine of Experience^ Hahnemann asserts
the following: —
Hence it happens that with the exception of those few diseases that
are always the same, all others are dissimilar and inmimerable, and
so difterent that each of them occurs scarcely more than once in the
world, and each case of disease that presents itself must be regarded
(and treated) as an individual malady that never before occurred in
the same manner and under the same circumstances as in the case
before us, and will never again happen precisely in the same way.
This conception evidently is pushed too far, and even
Hahnemann himself does not rigorously follow it. He even
wished to see the names of diseases abolished, though he
makes the following observation : —
We observe a few diseases that always arise from one and the same
cause, e.^., the miasmatic maladies [no distinction was made in those
days between miasma and contagium], hydrophobia, the venereal dis-
ease, the plague of the Levant, yellow fever, small-pox, cow-pox, the
measles and some others which bear upon them the distinctive mark
of always remaining diseases of a pectiHar character; and because
they arise from a contagious principle that always remains the same,
they also always retain the same character and pursue the same course,
excepting as regards some accidental concomitant circumstances,
which, however, do not alter their essential character.
This observation does not accord with what was pre-
viously advanced, but the imperfect state of diagnosis in
those days must be remembered.
But putting aside this, Hahnemann deserves the credit
of having insisted upon the strictest individualization of
diseases, and he showed its necessity more conclusively
than any other physician. Classification is so convenient
and easy that most medical men incline to it. Hahnemann
always advocated individualization, and taught it .systemati-
cally in his numerous works.
* Comp. //'., TS4, 241, 253, 268, 275, 291, 29:
t Lesser Writings, p. 502.
Large doses originally prescribed. WJ
Hahneniania s method of preparing medicine.
Hahnemann's homoeopathic method of preparing medi-
cine distinguished him more than anything else from all
other physicians of all times. We will here trace its
evolution.
At the commencement of his practice he naturally gave
the usual doses. In 1784,* e.g., he recommends for puri-
fying the blood, five to fifty grains of crude powdered
antimony to be taken daily, but " only when the body
possesses sufficient, I might almost say a superfluity of,
strength," in such cases he gave, " if necessary, but not
frequently, a purgative of twenty to seventy grains of jalap
root once a week."
He taught, in 1787, that good results could only be ex-
pected from conium maculatum if it is given in sufficient
doses to cause giddiness, a feeling as if the eyes were pushed
out of the head, slight nausea, trembling of the body, and
one or several loose stools, " all signs of a full dose." " This
varies with the quality of the extract and other circum-
stances. Commonly we pass from four grains a day to
several drachms."
Twelve to fifteen grains of the powdered leaves and root
of belladonna were to be given every other day. " Some
giddiness should follow the administration of this powerful
drug if it is to do any good."
It is the same with aconite, " of which the root seems to
be the most powerful part of the whole plant." The ex-
tract prepared from the juice of the whole plant was to be
given in doses from " half a grain to several grains " several
times a day. The " ordinary dose " of digitalis is half to
one spoonful of the freshly expressed juice of the leaves
twice a day. Hyoscyamus was to be given in the form of
the extract, " at first one grain several times a day, to be
increased up to thirty grains a day," six to twenty grains
of the seeds were to be given.!
In 1790, he gives, in "nervous fever," one and a half to
* Guide to the Radical Cure., &.c. B.J. of H., xlii., p. 132.
t Kcnnzeichcn der Giite, &c., pp. 92, 96, 98, loi.
ii8 Hahnemann's gradual adoption
two and a half ounces of cinchona bark (cort. chin, fuse.) in
twenty-four hours, then pauses until its action has ceased.
Cullen does not notice aconitum napellus in his thera-
peutics, he does not even enumerate it among his " seda-
tives." Hahnemann makes the following- remarks: —
Aconite is not mentioned. I may remind my readers that it be-
longs to the class of acrid narcotic plants, and has a very powerful
action. My experience with the extract does not allow me to pass
it over in silence. In chronic erratic gout I have applied some of the
well-prepared extract with the result of speedily relieving pain. Its
efficacy is most palpable and striking in chronic rheumatism and erratic
gout, when given internally in sufficient dose to produce its character-
istic symptoms.
These characteristic symptoms were " giddiness, restless-
ness, and perspiration." The first dose which produced
this effect should be the last. He usually gave it for
three or four evenings ; the first dose was one grain, the
second two, the third four grains. " If the third had
no effect, I gave a fourth dose of eight grains." He
then states that he has come across badly prepared ex-
tract, of which one scruple could be taken "without marked
effects ;* the cause of its powerlessness was the way in
which it had been prepared. The fresh juice evaporated
over a water bath yields the only reliable extract of aconite,
conium, hyoscyamus, belladonna, &c." (Cullen, 320).
In 1 79 1 (Monro, I. 260), he holds the same views as in
1789 about the dose of mercury to be given in certain
forms of syphilis. " The ordinary dose for an adult is
a half to one grain (of his mere, solubilis) the first day,
the dose to be increased daily by half a grain, up to the 5th
to 7th day (not exceeding five grains)," till the so-called
mercurial fever is set up, when it must be discontinued.
That he was at this time greatly in favour of powerfully
acting medicines is shown by the following note (Monro
had been saying that fomentations were often sprinkled
over with spirit of camphor before being applied). " Such
feeble prescriptions, of which contemporary practice can
show many instances, we should abandon to the busy, do-
* Comp. Monro, II., p. 267.
of small doses of medicine. 1 19
nothing practice of the common herd of practitioners.
Spirit of camphor should be appHed where it is necessary,
and emoUient fomentations where they are required."
iib. II. 115).
Monro goes on to say that he has given cinchona " in
very small doses " for some time in obstinate fevers.
Hahnemann thereupon remarks, " This is, indeed, a per-
verse manner of administering bark, which if followed
would not give very good results." (I. 199)
Monro mentions that people who had taken eight to
ten ounces of cinchona bark in the course of a month
without result, were afterwards cured by taking two to
three ounces daily for two or three days. Hahnemann :
*' Even this quantity is not necessar}' ; we will not over-load
our patient and will attain our object in regular agues as
well if we give, shortly before the expected attack, one or
two good doses, say one and a half to two drachms or more of
good bark two hours and one hour before the commencement
of the paroxysm. All doses given long before the attack
are of little or no use. If the attack does occur, a similar
dose is given just before the second, half as much before the
third expected paroxysm, and so on." In certain cases he
was in the habit of employing a " nauseating treatment " by
means of small doses of ipecacuanha, in order to " over-
power" some other complaints, such as intermittent fever,
diarrhcea, &c.
We shall only mention one other out of the number
of examples of Hahnemannian posology in this work.
Monro writes : " Hyoscyamus is not used in England,
because the trials with it have been unsuccessful." Hahne-
mann : " Or because the drug was powerless, not having
been properly prepared or used in suitable cases. I may
here remark and insist that heroic drugs should be given
in very small but continually increasing doses, till some
severe symptoms manifest themselves, such as are produced
by the drug given in a rather too large dose. If this is not
done, neither hyoscyamus, aconite, belladonna nor conium
can yield valuable results."
In 1792, he gave Klockenbring, who was suffering from
1 20 His further advance
an attack of mania, twenty-five grains of tartrate of
antimony, a dose " which only caused him usually to vomit
moderately three times, sometimes even less frequently,"*
In the following year he still gave this remedy in doses
of five to twenty grains,t and indeed, considered that under
certain circumstances this dose was necessary to save life,
" where ordinary physicians with their trumpery remedies
are slumbering while their patient is dying — occidit qui
non servat." He considers ambra a good analeptic, but in
larger doses than are ordinarily given. " Thirty grains must
be given according to Boswell, before the nerves and blood-
vessels are agreeably excited ; smaller doses of the remedy
in solution probably suffice."
In 1795, in cases of fever in which cinchona aggravated,
he gave with good results powdered ignatia " in large
doses : to children three-quarters of a year to three years
old a half to two-thirds of a grain ; to four to six years old
children, one to one and a half grains ; to seven to ten years
old children, two to three grains every twelve hours."
About the same time in an " epidemic fever," which he
describes minutely, he gave adults fifteen to sixteen grains
of camphor in the twenty-four hours, •' but I soon found
that I must give thirty grains to weak, and forty grains to
strong subjects in twenty-four hours if I wished to produce
rapid amelioration." In more than 100 cases he says he onl}'
met with one in which this dose of camphor produced dis-
agreeable effects, and these were removed by the adminis-
tration of half a grain of opium. J In 1798 {Edinb. Disp.,
II. 362), he recommended sarsaparilla to be given in " large
doses of a good, strong decoction."
These few examples of the doses given by Hahnemann,
selected from a great number of observations and detailed
clinical records, will suffice to show that Hahnemann at
first gave quite as large doses as most, and in some
instances even lare^cr.
* Lesser Writings^ p. 290, note.
t Apothekerlexicoii, I., p. 158.
+ Hufeland's/w/r/W, V., St. i, 1797.
/// Microposology. 12 1
From this time forth his doses become gradually
.smaller, but not uniformly so with all drugs. In 1800
{Arsncischat::;,^. 25), he agrees with Bell's opinion that a
more powerful action on the system is obtained in syphilis,
if an equal quantity of mercury is given in a shorter time
than when employed for six months as an " alterative."
Mercury in syphilis is the only instance after 1799 in
which he recommends stronger doses.
If we examine his prescriptions more narrowly, we see
that, apart from his laudable endeavours to attain to sim-
plicity of treatment, he often, especially in the case of
powerful drugs, did not give successive large doses for a
considerable time, but began with small ones and gradually
increased them up to the point of slight toxic action, and
then discontinued and waited the results. In these cases
the dose was not repeated till the action of the previous
doses was exhausted. In this we see the practical thera-
peutist who knew what he was aiming at, the zealous,
careful observer, the conscientious physician. Even in
chronic diseases in which it was the common practice to
give powerful drugs not previously carefully proved upon
the sensitive organism, and to continue to give them for
weeks and months, he frequently only gave three or
four doses, and then observed the changes effected by
them in the diseased organism, and noted accurately the
duration of their action. This practice was peculiar to him,
and distinguished him from all his colleagues, before and
of his time.
While, on the one hand, he was in favour of vigorous
treatment, we see that he very soon, on the other hand,
began to employ some remedies in small doses, and
gradually increased the number of these remedies, though
at first he did not raise the smallness of the dose to a
general therapeutical principle. He first only accumulated
experiences and carefully conducted observations. These
labours remind us of his chemical researches, in which it
was his constant endeavour to ascertain the limits of the
action of substances.
He advises caution in the use of drugs in various places.
122 His doses of Arsenic, and
for example, in Cullen (II., 265): "Though I have above
remarked that I thought the smaUness of my doses was the
cause of the unfortunate result, this must not induce
beginners to give unusually large doses of opium in such
cases." Further on (II., 496) he warns us against Cullen's
practice, who " was firml}- convinced that mercury acts
against syphilis by increasing the amount of the evacuations,
whereby the poison is removed from the bod}*,'' and his
consequent recommendation of " the long-continued and
ample administration of mercury." He repeats this warn-
ing in Monro (I. 335), and in the EdinbnrgJi Dispensatory
(I., 440). His employment of what was considered in
those days an unusually small dose, is seen as early as
1787 {KennzeicJien der Giite, &c., p. 223), with regard to
arsenic, which he recommends as a good external appli-
cation in " indolent ulcers," in a solution containing one
part in 30,000 of water. Glauber salt " in small doses is a
diuretic, the merits of which have not yet been sufficientl}"
appreciated." (ib., p. 279)
In 1790 (Cullen, II., 289), in a woman seventy-six years
old, he rapidly cured " a violent vomiting uncomplicated
with indigestion, probably caused by a chill," by means of
a piece of linen rag soaked in laudanum laid on the pit of
the stomach.
In 1791 (Monro, II., 326), he recommended to commence
giving narcotic vegetable medicines " invariably in ver}-
small doses,"
In 1793 he speaks of the employment of arsenic, which
was then occasionally given in doses of half to one grain
with disastrous results, so that Hufeland. in 1796, con-
tended against its employment at all in medicine, and
almost all the physicians of the day agreed with him.
As early as 1787, Hahnemann had written:* " For several
centuries timid attempts have been made to employ its
powerful action in medicine." He then details his me-
thod of treating ulcers, and continues: "I will not speak
* Kennscic/ie/i der Giitc, &c., p. 223 : conip. also his work on Arsaii-
cal\Poisoning, 1786, p. 38.
of tJic Narcotic J\f edict ncs. 123
of the attempts to cure ague with it, for fear lest a disas-
trous abuse of it should ensue." So the therapeutic use of
arsenic lay under a ban from which Hahnemann released
it for ever. In 1/93 {Apothekerlexicon, Part I.) he recom-
mended a dose of one-tenth to one eighth gr. of arsenic
instead of the usual dose of three to five times that quantity.
" In future times, when we may expect physicians to be
more conscientious, clear-sighted and circumspect, this
extremel}- violent poison will be converted into an ex-
tremely useful remedy for the most desperate ailments of
suffering humanity."
In the treatise from which we have several times quoted,
Oil a nezu principle, &c., in Hufeland's Journal, 1796,
p. 434,* he advises the adminstration of the drug selected
according to his therapeutic principle only in a dose just
strong enough to produce a scarcely perceptible indication
of the expected artificial malady. He says of belladonnaf
that its action lasts 12, 24 to 48 hours. " The dose should
therefore not be repeated till the lapse of two days."
Opium in certain cases should only be given every twelve
to twenty-four hours, arsenic seldomer, every two days, in
doses of one-tenth to, at the outside, one-fifth of a grain,
in hectic fever only one-twelfth grain ; the duration of the
action of aconite is seven to eight hours in certain cases ;
camphor should only be given every thirty-six to forty- eight
hours, veratrum album every five to ten hours, agaricus
muse, twelve to sixteen hours. " Rhubarb is efficacious
even in the smallest doses in certain cases of diarrhoea."
In 1797 {Edinburgh Disp. I., 239) he recommends bella-
donna half a grain in two days for adults, and considers
" one to two grains of good squills a full dose in most
cases," in contrast to the EdinhurgJi Disp. (I. 519), which
prescribes four to ten grains, mixed with twice that quantity
of saltpetre. In the same place stramonium is recom-
mended in doses of ten grains in " insanity." Hahnemann
thereupon remarks : " The varieties of insanity are verj-
* Lesser Writings, p. 312, note.
t Lesser Writings, p. 322.
1 24 Ills doses of Nitrate of Silver,
numerous, so also arc its remedies. This remedy is only
useful in some cases, but ten grains is much too large a
quantity to give of a good extract." (I. 541)
In 1798 he insists upon nitrate of silver being given
internally only in solution and very dilute. The Edin.
Disp., on the contrary, quotes the authority of Boerhaave
for its administration in doses of two grains, in pills com-
posed of bread crumbs and sugar (II. 230). It further
speaks of the drugs which will destroy the poisonous quali-
ties of opium without interfering with its medicinal action,
Hahnemann : " If we wish to deprive strong drugs of their
noxiousness, we must only employ them in suitable cases
and in the proper dose. This is their great corrigens, and
there is no other besides this."
In 1799 in the Apothekerlexicon he expresses the opinion
that sabina does good service in certain conditions even " in
very small doses." Hyoscyamus was efficacious in certain
accurately described morbid conditions " in very small doses
of one-sixtieth to one-thirtieth of a grain of the extract
prepared according to my method and given in solution."
One-hundredth and even one-thousandth part of a grain
of the inspissated juice of stramonium, if it was of good
quality, usually sufficed. With regard to veratrum album,
he says that the ancients performed grand treatments
with it, but that the moderns avoided it on account of its
dangerous effects ; the truth lay between the two, for
this drug given in doses one thousand times smaller than
those in which it was administered by the ancients, is one
of the most valuable remedies.
In 1800, in the Arrjiicischat:; (p. 56), he gives rhubarb in
one-third to one-fourth of a grain in the form of tincture.
The English author speaks of an infusion of a drachm of
digitalis in half a pound of water, a tablespoonful to be
taken two or three times a day. Hahnemann : " This is
too venturesome. As the duration of the action of digi-
talis is at least two to three days, we should not repeat
the dose before the lapse of three days. If we give the
same dose every eight hours for three days the action of
the digitalis will liave became nine times as dangerous. If
Hyoscyajiins, Hellebore, Lead. 125
its action is of longer duration, as my experience leads me
to believe, the danger will increase in a greater degree with
each fresh administration." {ib., S. 125)
When a teaspoonful of tincture of helleborus nigcr twice
a day is recommended, Hahnemann remarks : " This
enormous dose should assuredly be diminished to a
twentieth part. Two drops of the strong properly pre-
pared tincture of black hellebore are enough to act power-
fully on an adult, and will do all that is possible to be done
in cases where the tincture is indicated, and if it is not
indicated so large a dose will cause irreparable damage."
(//;., p. 169)
The author recommends an electuary containing cinchona
bark. " An electuary is one of the most inefficacious and
disagreeable forms in which cinchona can be administered,"
says Hahnemann. "We should not seek to introduce the
greatest possible number of drugs into the stomach, but
.should rather bring them in the most soluble and efficacious
form possible in contact with the nerves of the stomach
and intestines ; then a very small quantity will be found
necessar}'." {ib., S. 197)
The English author recommends pills of sugar of lead
and opium ; we may go up as high as one and a half grain
of lead, and " some patients " may even be given one grain
or one and a half to begin with ; " it is, however, best to
begin with the smaller dose." Hahnemann : " How un-
decided is the author in a matter of so much importance !
Sometimes we can begin at once with one and a half grain ;
sometimes it is better to commence with the smallest
close. Indeed, it would be much safer never to give this
powerful metal either in povrder or in pill, but always in
solution ; neither should we ever administer it in the form
of sugar of lead, for it is at once precipitated in the
stomach. Chloride of lead dissohed in 100 parts of boiling-
water is better, as it is not precipitated b}- muriatic or
carbonic acid. We shall find that one or two drops of this
for a dose will do all that can be expected from lead pre-
parations. If they are not indicated, of \\'hat use is the
126 His doses of Copper, Mer^erejun,
empirical administration of such large doses as are here
recommended ? They must do harm ! " {ib., p. 217)
Ammoniaco-sulphate of copper is recommended in the
form of pills, at first one, to be increased to " as much as the
stomach will tolerate." Hahnemann : " The writer of this,
is convinced that we should never venture to introduce
.so powerful a metal into the stomach unless in the dry form,
for if given in solution as sulphate of copper it will almost
instantaneously affect the whole nervous system in a dose
100 times smaller than the pills here advised." {ib., p. 259)
Apropos of another prescription (three drachms of
simaruba bark " if the stomach will tolerate it "), he says :
"Must the doses administered by physicians be so large that
they are almost on the point of being rejected when taken ?
Such veterinary practice applied to human beings, such
crude and coarse methods of treating the delicate human
organism, prove the degraded state of medical practice.
The proper drug will be found efficacious in incredibly
small quantities without causing violent commotion."
{ib., p. 279)
In syphilitic periostitis, half a pound daily of the follow-
ing preparation is to be drunk: half an ounce of daphne
mezereum boiled with six pounds of water down to four
pounds. The author of this prescription even prefers a
stronger dose. Hahnemann : " And this dose is already
six times too large. Do not, please, let us each prescribe
according to our own pleasure, but let us first fairly consult
nature and experience. We must, of course, not use the
bark of the root which has been kept a number of years in
coarse powder ; but how can the medical man bother him-
self about everything ? how can he know everything ? It is
quite enough that he leaves this to the apothecary, who
leaves it to his dispenser, to his apprentice, or to his
pounder — it is quite enough that he leaves it to the tender
conscience of one of these hired menials." (p. 321)
Apropos of pills of conium extract, &c., Hahnemann:
" We must not blame the stomach ; the fault is with the
physician, who is ignorant that a solution of the inspissated
juice, in doses one hundred times smaller ought to be given,
Squills, Coiiium, Arsenic. 12/
and this does as much as these many hundred times less
powerful pills." (p. 371) Further on we read: "Our
author does not seem to know what an incredibly small
quantity of squills is able to produce remarkably good
effects."
Hahnemann has two notes, with regard to the dose
of arsenic: "Two drops of Fowler's solution contain about
one-sixtieth grain of arsenic, and therefore twenty drops
one-sixth grain, in every case much too large a dose for
old or young, especially as it is recommiCnded to be re-
peated two or three times in twent}--four hours, which mul-
tiplied experience will not allow me to advise." (p. 393)
And further, it having been remarked that arsenic, as a
remedy for intermittent fever, is worse than the disease,
Hahnemann : " Perhaps so, in the rough hands of the
ordinary physician. Baker is quite right there. Apart
from this, however, the unqualified recommendation of
arsenic in undefined intermittent fevers is just as wrong as
its unqualified condemnation. Even a priori, one may be
thoroughly convinced that a powerful substance which can
be diminished in solution to every variety of dose, might
be the most suitable, most innocuous remedy in certain
well-defined morbid conditions. Our physicians of to-day,
however, will not ascertain these conditions and give the
ten-millionth part of a drug, therefore arsenic should not be
used by our contemporaries." {ib., p. 396)
Thus, in the course of years, the number of drugs which
he had proved continually increased, and the results of the
zealous and careful researches of our genial investigator
forced upon him more and more the conviction that the
doses hitherto accepted as the normal ones, were much too
large. History records no instance, books give no example
of a physician ever having attempted to determine the
question of the suitable dose with such zealous endeavour
as the clear-sighted, indefatigable and thoughtful Hahne-
mann.
He remarked from his own experience that those drugs
which were selected according to his principle, consequently
in a specific relation to the affected parts, were therefore
128 Preparation of vicdicinal dilutions.
calculated to influence them in a special degree, and some-
times seemed even to act in very small doses more strongly
than was desirable. He, therefore, proceeded still further
in the diminution of the dose. Here, however, a question
of the greatest importance arises : How did he set about
it ? Did he take, say^ the ten-millionth part of a grain on
the point of a needle and deposit it on the tongue of his
patient ? Did he, with some kind of instrument, re-divide
this particle into a hundred parts and take a single one of
them as the dose to be administered ?
His method was as follows : He took one part of a drug
and mixed it intimately with a certain quantity of a
suitable vehicle, as sugar of milk, water or alcohol. Of this
preparation he took a fraction and mixed it, by careful
trituration or succussion, with a new quantity of sugar of
milk, alcohol, &c. Of this preparation, he again triturated
or succussed a part with the suitable vehicle, &c.
In the year 1801,* he recommends tincture of opium in
certain cerebral symptoms in scarlet fever, and directs that
this should be prepared in the following way : One part of
this tincture is shaken up with 500 parts of alcohol, and a
drop of this intimately mixed with 500 drops of alcohol.
The patient is to take drop doses of this preparation. We
may as well here state that Hahnemann later regulated
this method systematical l}- by triturating or succussing one
part of the drug with ninety-nine parts of sugar of milk
or alcohol ; of this preparation he again took one part and
mixed it with ninety-nine of the vehicle, and so on. These
were called the first, second and third trituration or dilution
respectively, or as he termed it afterwards " potency."
He did not use medicines prepared in this way for the
same purposes as other physicians. He did not advocate
their administration to produce emesis, purgation, or
narcosis ; neither did he employ them to " cleanse the blood
of acridities," or to " combine with the excess of ox}-gen
present in inflammator}- blood." He did not aim at "cutting
the phlegm," " resolving obstructions," " softening indura-
'^'- Cure and prevention 0/ seartef fevei-. Lesser U'litini^s, p. 43:
'^1)1 Poison thei-e is Physic." 129
tions," or destroying parasites. He had discovered that
with medicines, selected according to his rule and which
therefore were not meant to effect a revolution in the body,
such preparations influenced favourably the curative process.
At first he himself was astounded at his discovery which
he speaks of as '• unheard of," and " incredible." He was
therefore, all the more anxious to make sure of his ground
as he proceeded, and was not only able to confirm, but even
to extend his remarkable discovery. In the first years of
this discovery he dwelt emphatically on the zveight of the
drug contained in his preparations, and recounted to the as-
tonished world the results obtained by a millionth, billionth,
&c., part of a grain of medicine.
In 1801, Hahnemann recommended belladonna in scarlet
fever, in doses corresponding to the third or fourth dilution,
and chamomilla in the same way in certain conditions.*
In 1805, in his Medicine of Experience, he says :
None but the careful observer can have any idea of the height to
which the sensitiveness of the human body to medicines is increased
in disease. It transcends all belief when the disease has attained a
great intensity
On the other hand it is as true as it is wonderful, that even the most
robust individuals when affected by a chronic disease, notwithstanding-
their corporeal strength yet as soon as the medicinal substance
positively appropriate to their chronic disease is administered to them,
they experience from the smallest possible dose as great an impression
as if they were infants at the breast.f
In the year 1806, he wrote in Hufeland's Journal {S\.. 3,
p. 40), an article entitled : What are poisons ? What ai-e
medicines ?% (For the proper comprehension of this article
it must be explained that Hahnemann had been reproached
b}' Hecker in 1796 and others for using as medicines danger-
ous poisons such as the narcotics introduced by Storck, and
therefore the public should be warned against employing^
him, as we shall see more particularly when we come to the
chapter on the " opposition to homoeopathy." As we know,,
*■ Cure and prevention of scarlet fever. Lesser Writings^ p. 442.
t Lesser Writings, pp. 528, 529.
+ Trans, in Brit. four, of Horn., xlii., p. 222.
1 30 Plea for small Doses.
Storck introduced into mcdicalpracticc, aconite, belladonna,
hyoscyamus, colchicum, stramonium, conium and pulsatilla
in the sixtieth year of the last century, and afterwards
found in Hahnemann his most active supporter. In 18 10,
an author writes in Hufeland'sy(?;^;';^(^/ (St. 9, p. 80), "The
practices of Storck, Hahnemann and others have the ill-
repute of being mere hazardous experiments."
Hahnemann thereupon writes : —
Has the Creator ever laid it down as a law that a scruple or a
grain should be considered the smallest and most appropriate dose
for all medicines, even the most powerful ? Has He not bestowed on
us means and knowledge whereby we may diminish the more and
most powerful substances into small and the very smallest doses
and administer them in the tenth of a grain, the more powerful in
the hundredth, the thousandth of a grain, the most powerful in the
millionth, billionth, aye, even the trillionth, quadrillionth and quin-
tillionth of a grain ? Who prevents us doing this and regulating
our doses thus (wisely) according to the strength of the different
medicines ? The circumstance that medicines are only suitable reme-
dies for the human body in different doses, can furnish the sensible
man with no excuse for branding the more powerful drugs, that is
to say those that can only be used in the smaller doses, with the
popular name of poison, and therefore for spurning these great gifts
of God, the very remedies which are indispensable for the cure of
many of the most serious diseases. But as we can diminish the
doses of medicines when they are of the more powerful kind
to any desired fraction of a grain, indeed to the very smallest fraction,
just as easily as we can increase the doses of medicines of the weaker
sort to more than a grain, a scruple, a drachm, what hinders us from
according at least as much respect to those more powerful medicines
as we do to the less powerful ones ? Thus we shall get rid of the
disgrace of having so long echoed the common folk in their denuncia-
tions as poisons of the most powerful instruments for preserving health
and life, and of having so long deprived ourselves and others of their
beneficial use.
I confess I have often felt deeply grieved at reading the hard words
applied by many so-called physicians to the valuable labours of
Baron Anton von Storck : " we protest against this poisoning practice."
Was not this praiseworthy attempt to furnish us with remedies which
w^e did not possess, and which could never be replaced by other
substances, was not this philanthropic, highly successful, heroic
attempt worthy of a triple civic crown, of a splendid monument to his
honour ? He struck out the path and we must thank him — by making
use of his gifts, by imitating him, but (as nothing is perfect at a first
Sapere aiide ! 1 3 1
attempt) with more cautious doses and a more careful selection of the
cases of disease for which these powerful plants are suited
No sensible man who can lay claim to the character of a scientific
unprejudiced physician should ever again so far forget himself as to
brand with the name of poison substances whose power to alter the
human organism is notorious, and whose medicinal power consequently
is beyond doubt, and by so doing prevent many blessings and set his
own miserable ignorance above these medicinal powers.
Where the common folk think they see only objects of horror,
there the wise man sees objects of the deepest veneration and makes
use of them with thankfulness to the Eternal Source of love.
Sapere aude !
This is the first time he makes use of the proud motto
which he so appropriately chose.
Subsequently Hahnemann discovered that the action of
a drug was not proportional to its quantity, that, e.g., twice
or three times the quantity did not produce twice or three
times the effect ; the dimimition of the action of the drug
zvas not proportionate to the diviinntion of its quantity.
Further, he found that with the above mentioned mode of
preparation the efficacy of many drugs, instead of diminish-
ing, increased ; that medicines so prepared gave results which
could not be obtained with the crude substances. Also the
astounding fact became evident that medicines could be so
diluted that neither physics nor chemistry could discover
any medicinal matter in them, and yet they possessed
great healing power. Highly poisonous substances could
thus be converted into beneficent and innocuous remedies,
and substances which were easily decomposed, and therefore
tending to become inefficacious, could be converted into a
form in which they were not liable to decomposition, and
thereby became powerful remedial agents in the hands of
a skilful physician.
This is Hahnemann's greatest discovery, one of the most
momentous discoveries ever brought to light by human
research. By this discovery alone he became one of the
greatest benefactors of the human species ; it must inevit-
ably work a complete revolution in the science of thera-
peutics, and will make its way for the weal of suffering
humanity in spite of the keen opposition of university
faculties and their unreflecting followers.
132 Ilahneniamis discovery of the iiselessness
No doubt in time the possibility of the action of such
medicinal preparations will be explained by natural
science.
HaJinevianns attitude tozvards the sciences auxiliary to
medicine and his conception of disease.
That Hahnemann was not a contemner of natural
science and chemistry he has sufficiently proved ; he, in
fact, overtopped all his contemporaries in his knowledge of
these sciences, as is completely proved by his own writings,
without appealing to Hufeland's testimony, who considered
him the best chemist among the physicians of his day. He
was not slow to utilize these auxiliaries in the treatment of
disease, as is seen in several places in his writings ; he even
instituted experiments on this subject as his article On Bile
and. Biliary Caladi* which we have already quoted, shows.
He took out the liver and gall-bladder of a man, who had
just been shot, and ascertained the action of various reagents
on the bile in order to decide whether these reagents could
be usefully employed in affections of the liver. His attempts
to utilize the teachings of the allied sciences in disease very
soon convinced him of the uselessness of efforts in this
direction ; scientific investigation had found no firm foun-
dation to work upon, and assumptions and speculations
overshadowed real knowledge. It is important to enquire:
what was his opinion concerning the influence of natural
science and chemistry on the development of medicine ?
On this point he gives the following answer in Hufeland's
jfonrjial : f —
"We must go still higher," insists a celebrated teacher of dyna-
mology,J who has been reared on the ethcrial milk of critical philosophy,
" we must mount up to the original source of diseases, the altered com-
* Crell's CJiejii. Aimalcn^ 1788, Vol. II., St. 10.
t iSoi, xi. St. 4. Lesser Writings^ p. 615.
± Reil seems to be alluded to here. Comp. his Erkeiintniss unci
Kiir dcr Fieber, Halle und Berlin, 5 vols. 1 799-181 5 ; also his Archiv
fiir Physiologie, Halle, 1796-18 15.
of Cheviistry and Physics to Therapeutics. 133
position and form of matter." This ontological maxim, however near to
the truth it may appear a priori to the thinker conversant with natural
science in general, and with the probable arrangement of our
organism, is entirely useless to the practitioner ; it cannot be applied
to the treatment of individual diseases. In like manner what Bruce
says of the remotest source of the Nile is of no practical utility
at its Delta. Still this teacher of natural science has approximated
much more closely than we might have expected to what pure
experience teaches, in his special views relative to diseases and
particular fevers, and given much less scope to mere probabilities
than his dogmatical and credulous predecessors. Though a love
of system guides all his steps, he always honestly points out where
his deductions run counter to the maxims of experience, and has a
wise respect for the latter. The medical thinker may educate
himself under him, but when he is at the sick-bed, let him not forget
that these views are mere individual ideas, mere hints, and that
from them no remedial means can be deduced.
Leaving out of sight the unfortunate comparison with
the Nile, Hahnemann has most ably criticised Reil's
teachings in these few words. His practical sense, in strong
contrast with the speculative spirit of almost all his con-
temporaries, recognised the value of Reil's inductive
method, but at the same time saw how his steps were
hampered by natural philosophy. Very few of his
contemporaries arrived at so accurate an estimate of Reil
as Hahnemann. On the other hand he pronounced :
" That the practical physician can make no use of this
knowledge It will not lead to the discovery of a single
remedy." He was right with regard to those days ; but
was he so with regard to the future ? This is a question
which will determine the whole direction of investigation,
the basis of all medicine. We will allow Hahnemann to
answer in his own words, and describe the fundamental
lines of his efforts. This he does in the Organon (2nd
edition, preface). We must premise that " experience " is
equivalent to investigation, " sciences of experience " are
the same as what are now called the " inductive sciences."
What we call " experience " to-day used to be called
" empiricism." We must at the same time recall to mind
the various medical systems, all of which were founded
on the imaginings of physicians and the teachings of
natural philosophy then in its most flourishing state.
134 Preface to the Second
Physicians are my fellow-creatures ; I have no feeling against them
personally. The medical art is my subject. We must ascertain
whether therapeutics as hitherto taught, has been evolved out of
physicians' heads, out of illusion and caprice, or is derived from
nature. If it is only the achievement of speculative refinements,
arbitrary axioms, traditional observance and dogmatic assumptions
deduced from dubious appearances, it is, and must remain a nullity,
even though it may date from thousands of years back and show
title-deeds conferred on it by all the emperors and kings that ever
lived.
True medicine is from' its very nature a pure science of experience,
and should therefore rest only upon pure facts, and the sensible
phenomena belonging to its sphere of action, for all the subjects
with which it is concerned are distinctly and sufficiently indicated to its
sensible appreciation by experience ; knowledge of the disease to be
treated and of the action of drugs and also the mode in which the
ascertained actions of medicines are to be used in curing diseases,
can only be learnt by experience ; its subjects can only be derived
from pure experience and observation, and our science should
not venture a single step beyond the sphere of pure carefully observed
experience and experiment if it wishes to escape degenerating into
mere jugglery and nullity.
The following few irrefragable considerations will show that the
whole art of medicine up to this date, though millions of well-inten-
tioned physicians have adhered to it through two and a half thousand
years for want of a better, is nevertheless in all its parts an utterly
irrational and useless art. The intellect alone can {a priori) evolve
from itself alone no conception of the essential nature of things, of
cause and effect ; there must always be sensible perceptions for
every one of its dicta concerning the actual. Facts and experience
must be at the root of all revelations of truth. If we take a single
step outside the region of observation we shall find ourselves in the
infinite kingdom of fantasy and of arbitrary assumptions, the parent of
disastrous delusion and of absolute nothingness.
In the real sciences of experience, in physics, chemistry and therapeu-
tics, speculative reason therefore can have no voice ; for if it act alone,
thereby becoming the victim to empty assumption and imagination, it
can only produce fantastic hypotheses, which in millions of cases, are,
and from their very nature must be, only delusions and falsities.
Such were the magnificent conjuring games of so-called theoretical
medicine, in which a p7'iori conceptions and assumptions had erected
many imposing scholastic edifices which only showed what their
architects imagined about things they could know nothing of, and
which were not necessary for the art of healing.
Medical practice found nothing of any use to it in these sublime
systems which soared a long way above all experience. It went boldly
its own way at the sick-bed, according to the traditional instructions
Edition of the " Organonr 135
of its text-books, treating diseases as they had been hitherto treated
by practical authorities, heedless, like its predecessors, of the teachings
of experience, indifferent about having any real grounds for its prac-
tices, quite content with that key to routine treatment — the prescrip-
tion manual.
A sound, unbiassed judgment of this monstrosity easily discerns
that what has hitherto been called the art of medicine was only a
pseudo-scientific jumble, which, like Gellert's hat in the fable, under-
went periodical revolutions, in consonance with the fashion of the day,
but in its essential character of a system of treatment always re-
mained the same blind irrational procedure. There was no such
thing as a true healing art founded on experience ; everything in
traditional medicine was only artifice and imagination in the guise
of probability, but altogether opposed to nature and experience.
The disease to be treated was arbitrarily excogitated by patho-
logy. The number, form and kind of diseases there ought to be,
were dogmatically fixed : just consider ! all the diseases which are
produced by nature in infinite variety in human beings under thou-
sands of different conditions and in multifarious forms that can never
be foreseen are cut down by the pathologist into a mere handful of
nosological names.
Diseases were with superfine subtlety defined a priori^ and hypo-
thetical substrata attributed to them that had no foundation in
experience (how, indeed, could distinct, pure experience lend any
support to such fantastic dreams T) ; no ! on the contrary, reliance was
placed upon a supposed insight into the inner nature of things and
the invisible vital processes (which, however, is denied to mortals).
Also in order to establish something definite in respect to remedies,
they inferred the properties of the individual drugs of the materia
medica from their physical and chemical and other extraneous
qualities, also from their smell, taste and appearance, and especially
from their very impure experience at the sick-bed, where in the tu-
mult of morbid symptoms only composite prescriptions were used in
imperfectly described cases of disease ; the dynamic spiritual power
to alter the health of human beings, invisibly hidden in the inner
essence of medicines, and never revealed in a pure and true manner
save when tested on the healthy individual, were arbitrarily assumed
without the medicines having ever been interrogated in this way.
What had been excogitated, imagined and guessed about medicines,
therapeutics now taught how to apply to the assumed fundamental
cause of disease, or to single symptoms of it, on the principle of
contraries {contraria cojitrarits), according to the doctrine of the
hypothesis-framer, Galen, and contrary to nature, and this doctrine
was considered amply proved if only sufficiently illustrious authorities
could be quoted in favour of it.
All these unnatural dicta of man, interwoven with all manner of
illogical and false conclusions were forced into agreement with their
136 Hahnemann! s doctrine of the
artificial divisions, subdivisions and tabulations, and behold ! that
elaborate house of cards, the art of medicine, was the result ; a thing
altogether opposed to nature and experience, a tissue of guesses and
assumptions, a [mere nullity, a pitiful self-delusion calculated to en-
danger men's lives by its blind, unsuitable treatment, which has been
incessantly ridiculed by the wisest men of all ages and which labours
under the curse that it is not what it pretends to be and cannot
perform what it promises !
Sober, unprejudiced reflection will convince us that correct views
respecting every case of disease to be treated, the determination of
the true properties of drugs, their adaptation to every morbid con-
dition and their appropriate dose — in short, the whole true healing
art should never be the work of self-satisfied ratiocination and
fallacious suppositions, but that its requirements, the materials as
well as the rules for its practice, are to be diligently sought in visible
nature, in careful, honest observations and pure experimentation, and
in these alone, without the adulterating admixture of arbitrary dog-
mas. Only thus shall we be acting in a manner worthy of our object
— the preservation of the precious lives of our fellow-men.
I leave it to others to decide whether my conscientious endeavours
in this direction have been successful in discovering the true healing
art.
The great difference between Hahnemann and the later
natural-historical school is expressed by himself in one
small word of three letters: "and." Hahnemann speaks
of " chemistry, physics and medical science ; " they said :
medical science is applied chemistry and physics, and
founded medicine on these two sciences.
Hahnemann stood in still greater contrast to this school
by his " dynamism." In the first decades of his work and
research, starting from purely material conceptions, he
gradually arrived at dynamic views, and indeed, these
occurred to him as a consequence of his pharmaceutical
doctrine.
Chemical and physical morbid changes were in his
opinion dependent upon the morbid modification of the
vital force. " Diseases must be considered as dynamic
derangements of the vital 'character of our organism, they
must therefore be cured by agents capable of causing
dynamic change." Further : " Diseases depend upon no
Dynamic nature of disease. 137
substance, no acridity, that is upon no materies morbi, but
they are solely spiritual derangements of the spiritual vital
force which animates the human body."* Again : " There-
fore a disease (which does not come within the province of
operative surgery) considered as a thing separate from the
living whole, from the organism and its vivifying vital
force and hidden in the interior, be it of ever so subtle
a character, is an absurdity."!
Force apart from matter is inconceivable. The vital
force inhabiting the organism, must therefore be united
with a substance though no doubt the latter is in a state of
infinitely minute division.
In the second decade of this century a solution of the
problem was enunciated by the medical investigators of
France, which twenty years later was gradually re-echoed
in Germany. "We must localize diseases," look for their
seat ! Hahnemann considered that most diseases were
general affections. So the general current of opinion, to
which we owe much, ran contrary to his views.
But to complete this separation of his views from the
general bias of opinion, his Chronic Diseases, their Peculiar
Nature and HonicBopathic Treatment, appeared in 1S28.
Hahnemann had for years, as he says, been incessantly
occupied with the endeavour to ascertain the cause of the
heredity of diseases, why one person was subject to a
skin complaint, another to pulmonary, nervous, dyspeptic,
&;c., disease, and why chronic diseases so frequently obsti-
nately resisted the apparently best selected remedies. The
habits of life give no satisfactory explanation. The empty
expressions " it is inherited," " it is the predisposition to
disease," with which the majority of physicians were, and
still are satisfied, did not content his inquiring mind. He
wished to substitute something reliable in their place ; and
this was certainly a praiseworthy endeavour. We have
already seen what was the opinion then prevalent with
regard to the " itch " and its consequences. " Itch " was a
* Organon, Preface, p. x. (Dudgeon's translation).
t lb., § 13-
138 HaJinemajin's Psora Theory.
diagnosis which covered many other affections besides the
one now known as " scabies " or " itch." Hahnemann was
very fond of the history of medicine and Hked to study
medical authors. In the course of these studies he was
struck with the fact that the most frequent cause of chronic
diseases was " psora," the " itch dyscrasia," and he fills
thirteen pages with quotations supporting this view from
the following authors : Fr. Hoffmann, Morgagni, J.
Fr. Gmelin, Hundertmark, L. Ch. Juncker, Sauvages, E.
Hagendorn, Lentilius, Reil and many others, who had
observed that almost all chronic diseases were sequelae of
" psora." He was therefore gradually forced to the con-
clusion that in cutaneous diseases there was a " something "
which was capable of producing other diseases, and which,
transmitted from generation to generation, was the remote
cause of many diseases. Besides this " psora " there were
other fundamental causes, viz., " sycosis," the phenomena
connected with gonorrhoea, and " syphilis." Though there
may have been some substratum of truth in these views,
Hahnemann, nevertheless, far transcended the limits of
probability and fell into a great error.
Hahnemann soon found the most vehement opposition
from his own followers. Griesselich writes as follows, in
January, 1836 :* " I have questioned all the homoeopaths
I know, whether they consider psora such a fundamental
cause of disease, and I must confess that I cannot re-
member a single one who thought so." The Central Con-
gress of Homceopathists in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1837,
under the presidence of Dr. Rau, rejected this doctrine.f
But the efficacy of Hahnemann's so-called anti-psoric
remedies was not therefore denied.
Evidently Hahnemann — as we have repeatedly said —
together with his great achievements had also his weak-
nesses like every other human being and all geniuses,
* Frescogemdlde, I., p. 92.
t Schmidt's /rt/zrZ'w/^d:;- XVII., p. 3S3.
HaJmemann's services to PJiannacy. 139
Such reformers, endowed with unusual strength, have errati-
cally formed heads and rugged characters, and whoever
attacks their asperities with the intention of destroying
them, may expect the fate which befell the gnat in the
fable who thought it had killed a sleeping lion, but while it
was singing its song of victory, he rose up and went for
his tiny adversary.
HaJmemann and the Apothecaries.
Hahnemann's labours for the improvement of phar-
macy show his high estimation of this branch of know-
ledge, and how important it appeared to him that the
physician should have the best possible curative instru-
ments at command. Thus he writes in the ApotJieker-
lexicon (I. 52, 53): "Simple drugs collected at the proper
seasons in all their power, and simple preparations made
and preserved in the highest degree of perfection, are the
greatest ornaments of a good drug store ; it is necessary
and quite fair to ask the public to pay the full price for
such drugs ; but to sell stale, powerless or even spurious
drugs and preparations badly made, or mayhap converted
into poisons in the process of preparation, at even half-
price, is to act the usurer's part, in many cases to deprive
the suffering of relief, and in some cases even to rob
and murder him — a shameful, criminal action." In
Trommsdorff's Joiwnal der PJiarmacie^ this passage is
cited as " true, well-expressed and laudable."
What was the state of the drug stores in those days ? In
the preface to Keiinaeichcn dcr Giite iind VerfdlscJmng der
Arzneiviittel, Hahnemann quotes a work of Gilbert's which
draws a vivid picture of the wholesale adulterations of
drugs which was at that time practised in the great seats
of commerce, such as Marseilles, and Hahnemann adds
that the Dutch were not much better for they competed
with one another in supplying adulterated drugs in order
to bring down their price. " German importers," says
* 1795, I^I-> PP' 62 and 63.
140 TJie tuiiversal adulteration
Hahnemann, "must be armed with invincible conscien-
tiousness, principles scarcely compatible with the commer-
cial spirit, if they are to resist the flattering cheapness of
these wares which they buy on trust. They know that
their customers, the shop-keepers and small apothecaries,
have to deal with an indiscriminating public who must
take their wares over the counter without examination,
if they only bear the name of the true article ; and the
custom-house authorities are convinced of their genuineness
if only the full duty is paid." (According to Hahnemann
a few excellent establishments in Prussia and Russia were
praiseworthy exceptions to this mode of trading).
Thus the planters of the East and West Indies, in conjunction with
the Dutch manufacturers, through a ring of greedy tradesmen united
only by the craving for high profits, have the welfare of Europe at
their mercy ; and as to the articles they provide us with, after they
have passed through the last hand, we are at a loss which to admire
most, their enhanced prices or the skill displayed in their adultera-
tions
If we really wish to obtain genuine drugs, the poor apothecary
should not be compelled by elaborate pharmacopoeias to keep all
manner of crude and composite medicines, which not even Galen,
Tvlyrepsus and Zwolfer could preserve from fermentation, mould and
vermin. His ability should be tested by competent men, the wholesale
dealer in drugs should surpass his customers the apothecaries if
possible in uprightness, knowledge of his wares and chemical sci-
ence ; the adulterator of drugs should be punished even more severely
than the coiner ; the inspector of drug stores should bring to his task
a greater amount of knowledge, and the quack who dispenses his own
medicines should be compelled to swallow them himself ; but the man
who has the courage and skill to restore to the Fatherland this branch
of trade, which was taken from us first by the Venetians and then by
the Dutch, should be honoured and rewarded. Certainly there is
much to be done before the best medicines can be placed in the hands
of the physician, who sometimes wants nothing more to enable him to
relieve the sufferings of his fellow creatures but that trifle — reliable
instruments.
As it was thus often impossible even for an honest
apothecary to procure good wares, little confidence could
be felt in the druggists' shops. In small places especially
they were often combined with general goods' shops, and
not infrequently in the same room. Frequent complaints
of Medicines. 14 t
were made of the ignorance of their owners, who were
even accused of selHng drugs which they knew to be
spurious.* If such practices were openly complained of,
they must have been of frequent occurrence. If the
apothecary went on a journey in order to purchase drugs
— and this was necessary in those days — he abandoned the
making up of prescriptions and the sale of medicines to
his " apprentice," who often knew little or nothing of the
art. Even in good, well-supplied neighbourhoods, shops
are described where the drugs stood about covered with
dust, in no order and in unsuitable vessels.f Professor
Trommsdorff who was himself the owner of a well-known
drug-store in Erfurt, still in existence, narrates^ that he
found in many shops the evil practice of using cinchona
bark and rhubarb root over and over again to make
decoctions, and other injurious abuses.
Similar and worse practices were reported and lamented
in Q,xqS\!'s, Annalen\ "We might reasonably suppose that
apothecaries who had kept shops for a number of years
would at la.st become more careful and skilful in their
practice, but in vain ! they will not be weaned from old
waj's and routine."
This description is illustrated by a number of examples
" whose names could be given if required ; " among them
we find (besides the above-mentioned conscious adultera-
tion of drugs) the following : " An apothecary once asked
mc what I paid for boracic acid and saccharic acid, and
what they were ? Two substances not often asked for,
and which I imagine are only known to one in ten. It
was a disgrace to any apothecary not to know all about
such trifling matters."
Many physicians at that time complained of the unre-
liable quality of drugs ; especially blame-worthy was the
mode of preparing the narcotics : aconite, belladonna,
* Crell's Chein. Ajmalcft, 1792, I., p. 259.
t BerHnisches Jalu-b. dcr Phar?nade, 1795, P- 197-
X Jour. d. Pharmacic, 1796, III., St. 2, p. "jZ.
II 1792, I., p. 257.
142 Faulty modes of preparing
conium, hyoscyamus, &c., which were usually only adminis-
tered in the form of extracts. They differed as much as five
or ten times in strength according to the time they were
boiled or the way in which they were kept ; the most
pernicious results sometimes followed their administration,
and many medical men did not dare to prescribe them.
Scruple and drachm doses of these poisonous substances
were sometimes given without injury, if the extract was
bad, a fact which could not be known to the physician ;
on other occasions, the extract happened to be good, and a
fatal issue was almost inevitable. Monro (II. 270) writes that
he had repeatedly seen an ounce of extract of hyoscyamus
given in twenty-four hours. Hahnemann thereupon di-
rects attention to the boiling of the extract, whereby it
would be rendered as harmless as extract of lettuce. In
another place he warns us {Arneischatc, p. 30}: "If we
wish to spoil myrrh, an active and unknown drug, we in
Germany make an extract of it. We do not care and,
indeed, cannot estimate how much of the strength of the
drug is lost, or how much it is burnt during its preparation.
All the better for us — it is now all the more secundiuu
arteni ! "
Hahnemann says (Monro, II., 222) that he has seen extract
of aconite which could be given in scruple doses without
effect, while three grains of a good preparation would be a
very strong dose.
On another occasion he says (Monro, II., 267), that if
the extract is prepared by boiling — " and this is the almost
universal practice" — it may be taken almost like a food.
" The medical man — this is my well-founded opinion —
should either make his extracts himself after the afore-
said manner (the Hahnemannian), or see that the apothe-
cary does so."
Hahnemann repeatedly complains of the untrustworthi-
ness of druggists' shops : " I know capital towns in which
there is not a single apothecary who knows hemlock " (z<5.)
— " Many drugs are not properly prepared in many drug-
gists' shops" {Edinb. Disp. i, 312) — " We cannot even now
count upon the accurate measurement by apothecaries of
Extracts of Narcotic Plants. 143
such small doses as half to a quarter grain" {ib. p. 361.)
In another place, he deplores the careless way in which
the work is done in many, {ib, II., 492) also that his pre-
paration of mercury " is usually so carelessly and imper-
fectly prepared."*
Further : " How many different roots have druggists used
instead of black Christmas rose root (helleborus niger),
almost every kind except the right one. Ten distinct roots
have been introduced into apothecaries' shops under this
name, and the helpless practitioner relies upon the officinal
extract, helleb. nigri ! wretched man ! "
An author laments the absence of results from the admi-
nistration of extract of aconite, Hahnemann : " The in-
spissated juice was worthless. That is the solution of this
constantly recurring mystery."
No single critic has proved the falseness of these stric-
tures upon the pharmaceutists of that time.
Hahnemann, who was theoretically and practically so
skilful an expert in the apothecary's art that few equalled
or surpassed him, usually gave the patients who entrusted
their health to his care, his own medicines, thus trenching
on the privileges of the apothecaries.
" How much lower will the servile spirit of the physician
bend under the despotism of the monopolising apothe-
cary ?" exclaims Hahnemann, when again discussing the
unreliability of a preparation. {ArzneiscJiats, p. 160)
There was a time when a medical man who allowed his
drugs to be prepared by anyone else was looked down upon.
But when the mixing of drugs came more and more into
vogue, he could no longer prepare the complicated brews
himself, and the apothecaries thereupon gradually came
into existence in Germany in the XVth century (in
Prague and Niirnberg as early as the XlVth century).
The apothecary was, therefore, only a means to an end,
and he was only required by those practitioners who would
not or could not prepare their own medicines. No one
ever thought of compelling the physician to have his medi-
* lb. II., 247 and 371.
144 Origin of the Apothecaries Guild.
cines prepared by a third person. The encroaching guild
of apothecaries contrived to have a law passed at the end
of the XVIIth and beginning of the XVIIIth Century in
Prussia forbidding physicians to dispense their own medi-
cines ; it being expressly added, " that they may not thereby
do detriment to the apothecaries."* This did not meet with,
a proper opposition from physicians, because they had
gradually accustomed themselves to abandon the prepara-
tion of their instruments of healing to a third person, and
had not themselves sufficient time, inclination, or knowledge
to collect the drugs, ascertain their purity, and finally to
compound the mixtures. This is the cause of the origin
of the privileges of apothecaries, who have taken from
physicians through their own fault their natural, original,
and inherent right of preparing the drugs discovered and
introduced by themselves and not by the apothecaries,
whereby they might be sure of the purity of the remedies
they prescribed.
Hahnemann demanded, in opposition to this unnatural
condition, the restoration of their original right, and tried
to induce physicians to concern themselves more with the
purity of their drugs and reminded them of their ancient
rights, and many of them demanded back their rights.
How important was the preparation and dispensing of
his medicines by himself is self-evident. Hahnemann
would never have made his great discoveries concerning
the actions of drugs had he not dispensed his own medi-
cines.
Hahnemann has deserved the gratitude of both the
apothecary and the physician for having attacked with a
strong arm abuses existing in the druggists' shops, whereby
he effected a beneficent reform in this sphere, though
his manly intrepid assault has not always been welcomed
by the apothecaries.
* The medicinal edicts in question will be found in detail in Serene's
Dispcusirfrcihcit dcr Acfzfc, Berlin, Diimmler, 1877, p. 31 ; a work
that well deserves to be read.
Complete List of Hahnemamis JVor/cs. 145
Hahneniaiuis Writings arranged in tJie order of their
publication.
1777 Translation of Nugent's Essay on Hydrophobia, Leipzig. I. G.
Miiller. From the Engl. 150 p.
1777 Trans, of Stedman's Physiological Essays and Observations,
with plates. Leipzig. L G. Miiller. From the Engl. 134 p.
1777 Trans, of Falconer's Essay on Waters commonly used at Bath.
Leipzig bei Hilscher. From the Engl. 2 pts. 355 p. and
439 P-
1777 Trans, of Ball's Modern Practice of Physic. Leipzig 1777 and
1780, with Notes under the name Spohr. From the Engl.
1779 Dissertatio inaugur. medic : Conspectus afFectuum spasmodi-
corum aetiologicus et therapeuticus. Erlangae 1779. 4- 20 p.
1782 The first small Medical Essays in Aledicinisclie BcobacJitungeii
von Krebs, Quedlinburg. 1782 Heft 2.
1783 In the Sammlung der auserlesenen und neuesten Abhandlungen
fiir Wundartze, Leipzig, Weygand, are several articles by
Hahnemann. 1783, 1784, 1787.
1784 Trans, of Demachy's Procddds Chimiques. Leipzig bei Cru-
sius. 2 vols. 303 p. and 396 p. From the French, with
additions and plates. 2nd Edit. 1801.
1784 Guide to the Treatment of Old Wounds and Indolent Ulcers.
Leipzig bei Crusius. 192 p. (trans, in Brit. Jour, of Horn.
xlii.)
1785 Trans, of Demachy's L'Art du Distillateur Liquoriste. Leipzig.
2 pts. From the French, with additions. 332 p. and 2S4 p.
1786 On Arsenical Poisoning ; its Treatment and Judicial Detection.
Leipzig. Lebrecht Crusius. 276 p.
1787 Trans, of Demachy's L'Art du Vinaigrier. Leipzig bei Crusius.
From the French, with Additions and an Appendix. 176 p.
1787 The Signs of the Purity and Adulteration of Drug^s, by B. v.
d. Sande, Apothecary in Brussels, and Hahnemann. Dresden
bei Walther. 350 p.
1787 Prejudice against Coal Fuel, the Way to Improve this Combus-
tible, etc., with 2 plates. Dresden. Walther.
1787 On the Difficulty of Preparing Soda by Potash and Kitchen
Salt. Crell's cJiein. A7t7iate>j, II. St. 11. Pp. 387 — 396.
1788 Influence of some kinds of Gases on the Fermentation of Wine,.
tb. I. St. 2. Pp. 141 — 142.
1788 On the Wine Test for Iron and Lead, \ib. I. St. 4. Pp. 291 — 306.
1788 On Bile and Gall-stones, z<^. II. St. 10. Pp.296 — 299.
1788 An Uncommonly Powerful Remedy for Putrefaction, tb. II. St..
12. pp. 485 — 486, trans, into French by Cruet.
178S Instructions for Surgeons respecting the Venereal Disease.
Leipzig bei Crusius XIV. u 292 p. (trans, in Lesser ]Vritings i).
10
146 Complete List of
1789 Unsuccessful Experiments with some New Discoveries, ib. I. St.
3. pp. 202 — 207.
1789 Letter to Crell on Baryta, ib. II, St. 8. pp. 143 — 144.
1789 Discovery of a New Constituent in Plumbago, ib. II. St. 10. pp.
291 — 298.
1 789 On the Principium adstringens of Plants. Beitrage zu d. Chem.
Annal. Vol. IV. St. 4, pp. 419 — 420.
1789 Trans, of the History of Abelard and Heloisa, by Sir J. Bar-
rington. From the Engl. Leipzig. 17 sheets.
1790 Remedy for the Salivation and Destructive Effects of Mercury
J. Fr. Blumenbach's Medic. Bibliothek, Vol. 3. pp. 543 — 548.
1790 Smaller Articles on Various Subjects. Crell's Annal. I. St. 3.
pp. 256—257.
1790 Complete Mode of Preparing the Soluble Mercury, zA II. St. i.
pp. 22 — 28.
1790 Trans, of Ryan's Inquiry into the Nature, Causes and Cure of
Consumption of the Lungs. Leipzig b. Weygand. From
the Engl. 164 p.
1790 Trans, of Fabbroni's Dell' arte di fare il Vino ragionamente.
Leipzig. 278 p. From the Italian, with Additions.
1790 Trans, of Arth. Young's Annals of Agriculture, I'tc. Leipzig bei
Crusius. 2 vols. From the Engl. 290 p. and 313 p.
1790 Trans, of Cullen's Materia Medica. Leipzig. Schwickert. 2
vols. 468 p. and 672 p. From the Engl., with Notes.
1 791 Trans, of Grigg's Advice to the Female Sex in general. Leipzig.
Weygand. From the Engl. 285 p.
1791 Trans, of Monro's Materia Medica. Leipzig bei Beer. 2 vols.
480 p. and 472 p. From the Engl, with Notes. 2nd edition,
1794-
1 791 Trans, of De la Metherie's Essai analitique sur Pair pure.
Leipzig bei Crusius. 2 vols. 450 p. and 598 p. From the
French.
1791 Trans, of Rigby's Chem. Observations on Sugar. Dresden bei
C. C. Richter. From the Engl., with Notes. 82 p.
1 791 Insolubility of some Metals, and their Oxides in Caustic Am-
monia. Crell's Annalcn, II. St. 8. pp. 117 — 123.
1792 Contributions to the Art of Testing Wine. Scherfs Beitrage
zum Arcliiv der Medic. PoHzci., Leipzig. Vol. 3.
1792 On the Production of Glauber Salt according to Ballen's ^Method.
Crell's Annalcn^ I. St. i. pp. 22 — 33.
1792 Friend of Health. Frankfurt. Fleischer. Pt. i. loop, (trans, in
Lesser \Vriti7igs., 189).
1793 Apothekerlexicon. Leipzig b. Crusius. Theil i (A — E), 280 p.
1793 Something about the Wirtemberg and Hahnemann's Wine
Test. Intelligenzblatt der AUgcvi. Liter. Zciiu?7g, No. 79,
p. 630.
HaJmemann's Works. 147
1793 Preparation of Cassel Yellow. Erfurt 4.
1794 On the new Wine Test and the new Liq. probat. fort. Ci-ell's
Annalcn, I. St. 12. pp. 104 — in.
1795 On Crusta Lactea. J. Fr. Blumenbach's Medic. Bibliothek,
Vol. 3. pp. 701 — 705 (trans, in B. J. of H. xlii.)
1795 Apothekerlexikon (F — K) 244 p.
1795 Friend of Health. Leipzig bei Crusius. Pt. 2, 6 sheets (trans.
in Lesser Writings, 240)
1796 Trans, of J. J. Rousseau sur I'education des enfants, under the
title Mother's Manual. Leipzig bei Fleischer. From French.
1796 Description of Klockenbring during his Insanity. Deutsche
Monatsschrift, Februarheft (trans, in Lesser Writiiigs, 287)
1796 Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Cui'ative Powers
of Drugs. Hufeland's_/i^//r/?cr/. Vol. 2. St. 3 and 4. pp. 391 —
439 and pp. 465 — 561 (trans, in Lesser lVriti?igs, 295).
1797 Something about the Pulverization of Ignatia Beans. Tromms-
d^ox'i^s Journal der Pharniacie, vol. 5. St. i. pp. 38 — 40.
1797 Case of Rapidly Cured Cohcodynia. Hufeland'sy^iz/r;/. Vol. 3.
St. I. pp. 138 — 147 (trans, in Lesser Writings, 353)-
1797 Are the Obstacles to Certainty and Simplicity in Practical A'ledi-
cine Insurmountable .'' ib. vol. 4. St. 4. pp. 727 — 762 (trans.
in Lesser Writings, 358).
1797 Trans, of Taplin's Equerry, or Modern Veterinary Medicine.
Pt. I. Leipzig. From the Engl. 387 p.
1797 Trans, of the New Edinburgh Dispensatory. Leipzig bei G.
Fleischer d. Jiingeren, with 3 plates. Pt. i. 583 p. with
Notes.
179S Trans, of Taplin, Pt. 2. 304 p.
1798 N. Edinburgh Disp. Pt. 2. 62S p.
1798 Apothekerlexikon (L — P) 259 p. with 3 plates.
1798 Antidotes to some Heroic Vegetable Substances. Hufel. Jou7-n.
Vol. 5. St. I, pp. 3 — 21 (trans, in Lesser Writings, 374)
1798 Some .kinds of Continued and Remitting Fevers. Hufel. yc;//;'/7.
Bd. 5. St. I. S. 19 — 52. {Lesser Writings, 382.)
1798 Some Periodical and Hebdomadal Diseases, ib. Bd. 5. St. i. p.
45 — 59. {Lesser Writings, 395.)
1799 Apothekerlexikon (Q — Z) 498 p.
1800 Trans, of Thesaurus Medicaminum, a new collection of medical
prescriptions. Leipzig bei G. Fleischer d. J. From the Engl.
412 p. with a preface by the translator and notes signed " Y.''
(The preface trans, in Lesser Writings, 398.)
1800 Trans, of Home's Pract. Observations on the Cure of Strictures
of the Urethra by Caustics. Leipzig bei G. Fleischer d. J.
147 p. From the Engl, with Notes.
iSoi Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever. Gotha bei Becker.
40 p.
148 Complete List of
1 80 1 Fragmentary Observations on Brown's Elements of Medicine.
Hufeland's Journal, Vol. 12, St. 2. pp. 52—76. {Lesser
Writings, 405.)
1 801 On the Power of Small Doses of Medicine in General and of
Belladonna in particular, zb. Vol. 13. St. 2. pp. 153—159.
{Lesser IVri/ings, 443.)
1 801 Observations on the Three Current Methods of Treatment, id.
A^ol. II. St. 4. pp. 3 — 64. {Lesser Writings, 592.)
1 801 \'iew of Professional Liberality at the Commencement of the
19th Century. Reichsanzeiger No. 32. {Lesser Writi7igs, ^ij).
1803 On the Effects of Coffee. Leipzig bei Steinacker, 56 p. {Lesser
Writings, 450.)
1803 On a Proposed Remedy for Hydrophobia Reichsanzeiger, No.
71. {Lesser Writings, 447.)
1805 Aesculapius in the Balance. Leipzig bei Steinacker. 70 p. {Lesser
Writings, 470.)
1805 Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis sive in sano
corpore observatis. Lipsiae, sumtu J. A. Barthii. 2 pts.
VI n. and 269 p. — VL and 470 p.
1806 On Substitutes for Cinchona. Hufeland's yir^z/r;?.?!:/ Vol. 23. St. 4.
S. 27 — 47 (trans, in B. J. of H., xlii.)
1S06 Scarlet Fever and Purpura Miliaris two Quite Distinct Diseases.
ib. Vol. 24. St. I. pp. 139 — 146 (trans, in B.J. of H. xlii.)
]8o6 What are Poisons ? What are Medicines? ib. Vol. 24. St. 3.
pp. 40 — 57 (trans, in B.J. of H. xlii.)
1806 Objections to Proposed Substitute for Cinchona and to Suc-
cedanea in General. Rcichsanaeigcr,'^o ^j. {Lesser Writings,
542.)
1806 ^Medicine of Experience. Hufeland's yrwr;/. Bd. 22. St. 3. p.
5 — 99. {Lesser Writings, 497.)
1S06 Trans, of Albrecht v. Haller's Materia Medica. Leipzig.
1807 Indications of the HomcEopathic Employment ot Medicines in
Ordinary Practice. Hufeland's Joiirn. Vol. 26. St. 2. pp.
5 — 43, afterwards in the three fii'st editions of the Orgmion
(in Dudgeon's trans, of the Organoji).
1 80S On the Present Want of Foreign Medicines. Allg. Anzeig. d.
Deiitschen, No. 297. {Lesser Writings, 551.)
180S On Substitutes for Foreign Drugs. //^ No. 327. {Lesser JVritings,
574-)
iSoS On the Value of the Speculative Systems of Medicine, ib. No.
263. {Lesser Writings, 556.)
1808 Extract from a Letter to a Physician of high standing on the
great Necessity of a Regeneration of TVledicine, ib. No. 343.
{Lesser Writings, 581.)
180S Observations on the Scarlet Fe\-cr. zb. No. 160. {Lesser U^rztings,
546.)
HaJinenianiis Works. 149
1 80S Reply to a Question about the Prophylactic for Scarlet Fever.
YiVii.Journ. Vol. 27. St. 4. pp. 153 — 156. (Trans, in B. J. of
H. xlii.)
1S09 To a Candidate for the Degree of M.D. Allg. Anz. dcr
Deictsdien^ No. 227. {Lesser Writings, 625.)
1809 On the Prevailing Fever, ib. No. 261. {Lesser Writings, 62S.)
1809 Signs of the Times in the Ordinary System of Medicine, ib.
No. 326. {Lesser Writings, 640.)
1810 Organon of Rational Medicine. Dresden bei Arnold. 1810.
222 pp. — 2. Edit. 1 8 19, with the title : Organon of Medicine,
371 pp.— 3. Edit. 1824. XXIV. and 281 pp.— 4. Edit. 1829.
XVI. and 307 pp. — 5. Edit. 1833. XXII. and 304 pp. (This
last edition trans, by Dudgeon, 1849.)
1811 Materia Medica Pura, Pt. i. Dresden 1811. 248 pp. — 2. en-
larged Edit. 1823. — 3. enlarged Edit. 1830 (trans, by Dudgeon,
1883.)
1812 Dissertatio historico-medica de Helleborismo Veterum, quam
defendet auctor Samuel Hahnemann, med. et chirurg. Doctor,
academ. Mogunt. scient. ut societ. physic, med. Erlang. et
societ. reg. oeconom., quae Lipsiae floret, Sodal. honor.
Lipsiae. Tauchnitz. 86 pp. (trans, in Lesser Writings, 644.)
1813 Spirit of the New Medical Doctrine. Allgem. Anz. d. D.
March. Pp. 626 (afterwards in more complete form in the
second part of the M. M. P. {Lesser Writings, 696, and in
Dudgeon's trans, of the M. M. P.)
1814 Treatment of the Typhus or Hospital Fever at present Pre-
vailing. Allg. A. d. D. No. 6. {Lesser Writings, 712.)
1 8 16 On the Venereal Disease and its ordinary Improper Treatment,
ib. No. 211. {Lesser Writings, 728.)
1816 On the Treatment of Burns, ib. No. 156 and 204. {Lesser
Writiptgs, 716.)
1816 Materia Medica Pura. Pt. II. 396 pp. — 2nd. Edit. 1824. — 3rd.
Edit. 1833.— Pt. III. 288 pp.— 2nd. enlarged Edit. 1825
(trans, by Dudgeon, 1883.)
1818 The Same, Pt. IV. 284 pp. — 2nd. enlarged Edit. 1825 (trans, by
Dudgeon, 1883.)
1S19 The Same, Pt. V. 306 pp. — 2nd. enlarged Edit. 1826 (trans, by
Dudgeon, 1883.)
1819 On the Uncharitableness towards Suicides. A/lg. A. d. D. No.
144. {Lesser Writings, 781.)
1820 On the Preparation and Dispensing of Medicines by Hom. Phy-
sicians Themselves. {Lesser Writings, 783.)
1 82 1 Treatment of Purpura Miliaris. Allg. A. d. D.'i^o.ib. {Lesser
Writings, 782.)
1821 Materia Medica Pura. Pt. VI. 255 pp. — 2nd. enlarged Edit.
1826 (trans, by Dudgeon, 1883.)
150 BirtJi, Parentage and
1825 How may Homoeopathy be most certainly eradicated? Allg.
A. d. D. No. 26. {Lesser IVj-ithij^s^ 793.)
1825 Information for the Truth-seeker in No. 165 of the Allg. A. d.
D. lb. No. 194. (Expanded and altered in the Mat. Med.
Pura, Vol. 6, under the title " How can small doses of such
very attenuated Medicines as Homoeopathy employs still
possess Great Power?" Lesser IVrzllngs, p. 817 and
Dudgeon's trans, of Ma/. Med. Pura, H., p. 43. The L. IV.
gives the article as originally Avritten in 1825, the M. M. P.
as altered in 1827.)
1828 The Chronic Diseases, their Peculiar Nature and HomcEopathic
Treatment. Dresden b. Arnold. Pt. I. vi. and 241 pp. — Pt.
II. 362 pp. — 2nd. enlarged Edit. 1835. — Pt. III. 312 pp. —
2nd. enlarged Edit. Diisseldorf b. Schaub. 1837.
1830 The Same, Pt. IV. 407 p. — 2nd. enlai-ged Edit. Diisseldorf bei
Schaub. 1838.
1S30 The Same, Pt. V. — 2nd. enlarged Edit. 1839. (Trans, by Hempel)
1831 Allopathy; a Word of Warning to all Sick Persons. Leipzig
bei Baumgartner. 32 p. {Lesser IVritzngs, 827.)
I S3 1 Appeal to Thinking Philanthropists on the Mode of Infection of
Asiatic Cholera. Leipzig bei Berger. 20 p. {Lesser Writings.,
849).
1 83 1 Cure and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera. Cothen bei Aue.
{Lesser Writings., 845).
1 83 1 Letter about the Cure of Cholera. Berlin bei Aug. Hirschwald
15 P-
1832 Cure of Cholera, with an Appendix. Niirnberg bei Stein. 1832.
1832 Remarks on the extreme attenuation of Homoeopathic Medicines.
Arch. f. horn. Hcilk. Vols. 11 and 12. {Lesser Writi7igs,
857.)
HAHNEMANN, AS A MAN.
Hahnemann was born at Meissen, in the kingdom of
Saxony, on the loth of April, 1/55 ; he was the eldest of
a family of ten. His parents adhered to the evangelical
form of religion. His father was a painter on porcelain,
and his circumstances were not such as to permit him to
spend much money on his son's education ; young Hahne-
mann was, therefore, destined to learn his father's trade.
By the persuasion and with the help of his teachers he was,
however, placed in a position to attend the Princely School
Education of Hahnemann. 151
at Meissen, of which Muller was the principal. "A man
who," as Hahnemann says of him in his autobiography of
1791,* while he was still alive, " has but few equals in up-
rightness and industry, who loved me as his child, and who
allowed me a freedom in the choice of the subjects of my
education for which I shall always be grateful to him, and
which had a perceptible influence on the further course of
my studies. In my twelfth year he commissioned me to
teach to others the elements of the Greek laneuag-e."
Hahnemann received several other marks of partiality
from his master. " My father was strongly opposed to my
studying. On several occasions he took me away from the
grammar school for years together, in order to devote me
to some other occupation more suitable to his means. My
teachers prevented this by refusing all fees during the last
eight years, only begging him to allow me to stay with
them and follow my inclination. He could not refuse this,
but would do nothing more for me." Hahnemann's last
essay before leaving the Princely School was on a
subject selected by himself, " The Wonderful Construction
of the Human Hand."
In Easter 1775, my father sent me to Leipzig with the sum of twenty
thalers — the last money that I ever received from him. He had to
bring up several children on his limited income, and this sufficiently ex-
cuses the best of fathers.
Hahnemann never enjoyed the unlicensed freedom and
amenities of a student's life. He had to fight a hard battle
with adversity. Besides diligently attending the courses of
lectures, he taught German and French to a young Greek
from Jassy, and further increased his income by transla-
tions. He probably worked through many nights, while
his fellow-students were enjoying themselves in places of
amusement. " I can myself testify that while I was at
Leipzic I honestly tried to follow my father's injunction
never to play a merely passive part in the matter of
learning. Neither did I neglect exercise and fresh air, in
* In the work, .S". HaJincviann^ cin biographischcs Dcnknnil, Leipzig,
1851.
152 HaJincinann's Wanderings,
order to preserve that strength of body by which alone
mental exertion can be sustained." The fees of his courses
of lectures were remitted by all the professors of medicine
through the influence of the Counsellor of Mines, Porner,
a doctor in Meissen, and it thus became possible for him
to save a small sum of money.
With this sum Hahnemann, in the year 1777, went, after
a two years' sojourn in Leipzic, to Vienna, in order to study
" practical medicine," for at that time there were no hospitals
either in Leipzic or in many other university towns. Before
his departure from Leipzic he was cheated out of part of
his savings, so that he had only sixty-eight florins and
twelve kreutzer to pay for his living ih Vienna during nine
months. Here the young medical student diligently
attended the hospital of the Brothers of Charity in the
Leopoldstadt, and was a zealous disciple of the ph}-sician
in ordinary to the Emperor, Freiherr v. Quarin, of whom he
speaks with great respect. Quarin, for his part, seems to
have shown peculiar partiality for his pupil Hahnemann,
for he was the only one whom he took with him on his
private visits to patients.
Hahnemann himself says : — " He singled me out, loved
and taught me as if I were his sole pupil in Vienna, and
even more than that, and all without expecting any
remuneration from me." Professor Bischoff* states that
" Freiherr v. Quarin bestowed on Hahnemann his special
friendship."
" The slender resources still remaining to me were on the
verge of disappearing," so Hahnemann relates, " when the
Governor of Transylvania, Baron v. Bruckenthal, invited
me on honourable terms to accompany him to Hermann-
stadt as resident-physician and to take charge of his library,
which was considerable." Hahnemann obtained this posi-
tion through the warm recommendation of Quarinf, a
proof that during his long intercourse with his pupil he had
* A)isichten iiber das bisherige Heilvcrfahrcn, Prague, 1819, p. 28.
t Brunnow, Eitt Blick auf Hahnernaufi, Leipzig, S. 4, 1844 (trans-
lated by Norton, London, 1845).
Appointments and Marriage. 1 53
learnt to value his practical knowledge. " Here (in Her-
mannstadt) I had an opportunity of learning other languages
necessary to me, and also of acquiring other branches of
knowledge in wdiich I was deficient." Hahnemann seems to
have studied chemistry and the art of smelting with special
industry. After he had practised a year and three-quarters
in this populous town, he went to Erlangen in order to take
his degree of doctor. Here he also attended various lec-
tures by Delius, Isenflamm, Schreber and Wendt, to whom
he says, he " is indebted for much kindness " ; and on
the lOth of August he sustained his thesis : Conspectus
affectuum spasmodicorum aetiologicus et therapeuticus —
Erlangje, 1779, 4 to 20 p.
From Erlangen Hahnemann returned to his home.
" The yearning of a Swiss for his rugged Alps cannot be
more irresistible than that of a Saxon for his fatherland,"
he writes. After a sojourn of three quarters of a year in
the mining town of Hettstadt, in Electoral Saxony, and in
Dessau, he obtained in 1781 the post of parish doctor in
Gommern, near Magdeburg. On the ist of December,
1783, he married Henrietta Kiichler, the step-daughter
of an apothecary at Dessau, named Haseler, whom Hahne-
mann calls an excellent apothecary.* Hahnemann was
not satisfied with a permanent residence at Gommern,
and he therefore exchanged this place for Dresden. Here,
according to his own statement, he enjoyed the intimate
friendship of the towm physician Wagner, who instructed
him in forensic medicine (" for he w-as an expert in this
branch ") and committed to him (on account of his own
illness) the charge of the town hospitals for a year with the
consent of the magistrates — a proof that this doctor also had
great confidence in Hahnemann's practical knowledge. The
Superintendent of the Electoral Library, the well-known
philologist Adelung, treated him with great kindness, and
as we learn from Hahnemann's autobiography, both he and
the Librarian Dossdorf, contributed largely to the pleasure
and instruction afforded to him by his sojourn in Dresden.
* Brunnow, /.c, p. 4.
154 HaJiuevianiis retreat from
" To be nearer the centres of knowledge," he went to
Leipzic in 1789.
Hahnemann everywhere displayed indefatigable literary
industry, and was considered a learned and very skilful
physician.
Hahnemann was in Gotha from the year 1793, and
treated the well-known author and private secretary,
Klockenbring, who was confined in a lunatic asylum
founded by the Duke at Georgenthal, with acknowledged
success. He published an acccount of this case in 1796.*
After he had spent some time in Molschleben, near
Gotha, he went in 1794 to Pyrmont, remaining there only a
short time, and then to Brunswick. In 1797 he was at
Konigslutter ; in 1799 he went to Altona and Hamburg.
His residence in this commercial town does not, however,
seem to have pleased him, for he soon returned to Eilen-
burg in his native country, where he had a difficulty with
the municipal medical authority, because he insisted on
dispensing his own medicines. On this account he again
took to his wanderings and went to Machern near Leipzic.
Thence he went to Wittenberg, and then to Dessau, where
he remained two years; in 1806, he removed to Torgau.
Here he wrote his Oj'ganon der rationellen Heilkinist, and
in 181 1 he went to Leipzic to qualify himself at the Uni-
versity there, so as to be able to give lectures on his new-
system of treatment. Here he and his pupils were
zealously occupied with proving medicines on their own
bodies, and the further development of his doctrines. His
increasing practice aroused the envy of the doctors, and his
practice of dispensing his own medicines alarmed the
apothecaries. The latter took proceedings against him in
1 8 19, on account of his dispensing his own medicines.
Hahnemann in vain contended in an able vindicationf
that his medical treatment did not come under the existing
medicinal regulations, and that his therapeutic implements
had nothing to do with the medicines subject to these regu-
lations. In vain! Hahnemann was forbidden to dispense
* See Lesser Writings^ 2S7. f Lesser Writings^ 783.
Leipzic to CoetJien. 155
his own medicines, and it was made impossible for him to
practise in Leipzic. Duke Frederick Ferdinand of Anhalt
offered him a refuge at Cothen, together with full liberty to
practise as he chose. Hahnemann, therefore, went there
in the spring of 1821 as Hofrath and physician in ordinary
to the Duke.
The following few fragments concerning Hahnemann's
connexion with the ducal house have been published : * —
(0
" Cothen, Jan. 29th, 1823.
" My Dear Hofrath Hahnemann,
" While expressing to you my thanks for your medical help this
year, and for the past two years, and assuring you of my complete
satisfaction, I wish you to accept the enclosed trifle as a slight recom-
jjense for your medicines and for your ser\ices. May Heaven pre-
serve you in good health for many years to the benefit of suffering
humanit}'.
" Ferdinand, Duke."
(2)
" I hereby wish to thank you sincerely in my own name, and in that
of my wife, the Duchess, for your good wishes for the New Year, and
hope that you, too, may be preserved for many years for the benefit of
mankind. At the same time let me have the pleasure of assuring you
of the continuance of my favour.
" Cothen, 3rd Jan., 1S29. "Ferdinand."
(3)
" My best thanks, my dear Hofrath, for your kind wishes for my
birthday. I owe to your exertions one of the pleasantest gifts on
entering on a new year — viz., impi'oved health. I hope to preserve
this to your praise and credit.
" With sincere pleasure,
" Yours very affectionately,
"Julie, Duchess of Anhalt."
(4)
" I have learnt with the greatest distress, my dear Hofrath, of
the sad blow which has fallen on you this nightf — the news was all the
greater shock to me since I had no suspicion of the illness of the
* Hahnemann's Lebcn totd Wirkcn von Albrecht, Leipzig, 1S78.
t His wife's death apparently.
156 Brunnoivs accoiint of
departed. I beg you to be assured of my most hearty sympathy, and
to grant my earnest request that, under this severe shock, you will
not neglect your health, which is so necessary to the welfare of man-
kind.
"Julie, Duchess of Anhalt."'
Duke Henry also expressed his gratitude to Hahne-
mann on various occasions. The number of his patients in
Cothen grew from year to year, so much so that Hahne-
mann was obhged to engage Counsellor Lehmann to help
him in his work. He occupied himself with the devel-
opment of his system with undiminished energy and
pleasure.
On 31st, March, 1830, Hahnemann lost his wife, who, for
forty-six years, had shared the storms of his life with
him.
Hahnenianiis Pei'sonality and CJiaracter.
Sufficient information is obtainable on this subject, but
with regard to the history of his life, the accounts of his
biographers are so meagre that it is now very difficult, if
not impossible, to fill up the existing gaps. Brunnow re-
lates :* " On a bright spring day in the year, 18 16, I, then
a young, newly inscribed student of law, was strolling along
the pleasant promenades of Leipzic with some companions.
The University then possessed several notabilities, and not
a {q.\n originals among its professors. Many a professor
and tutor marched gravely along in the old Franconian
dress of the previous century, with wig and hair bag, silk
stockings and buckled shoes, while the flaunting students
of the various nationalities strutted about swaggering
in hussar's jackets and braided trousers, or in leather
breaches with high dragoon boots and clanking spurs —
" Who is that old gentleman with the intelligent face, walking arm-
in-arm with a stout lady, and followed by four rosy-cheeked girls .'' " I
asked one of the older students near me.
" That is the celebrated Doctor Hahnemann, with his wife and
daughters ?" was the answer. " He walks round the town regularly
every afternoon."
* Ein Blick ai/f HahncmanJi, Leipzig, 1S44.
I
Hahneviann in Leip::ic. 1 57
"Who is this Hahnemann," I asked? " for what is he celebrated?"
" He is the discoverer of the homcEopathic method of treatment
Avhich is upsetting the old system of medicine," replied my ac-
quantance, who, like me, was an inhabitant of Dresden, and who
served under the banner of Themis.
Brunnovv made further inquiries, and as he was himself
in indifferent health, he consulted Hahnemann, and was
admitted to intercourse with the family, concerning whom
he gives us welcome information : —
Hahnemann was then in his 62nd year. Silvery locks surrounded
his lofty, thoughtful brow, beneath which his intelligent eyes flashed
forth with piercing fire. His whole face had a calmly inquiring,
grand expression ; only at times did the expression of a delicate
humour replace that of deep earnestness which indicated that he had
gone through many troubles and struggles. His bearing was upright,
his gait firm, his movements alert, like those of a man of thirty.
When he went out he dressed quite simply in a dark colored surtout,
and breeches and boots. In his own room, however, he liked to wear
a brightly-flowered dressing-gown, yellow slippers and black velvet
cap. His long pipe was seldom out of his hand, and this indulgence
in tobacco was the only relaxation from his abstemious mode of life.
His drink was water, milk and white beer, his food extremely frugal.
His whole domestic arrangements were as simple as his dress and
food. Instead of a bureau, he used a large plain square table on
which three or four huge folios lay, in which he had entered the his-
tories of the maladies of his patients, and which he was accustomed,
Avhen interviewing them, to consult diligently, and in which he wrote
down their cases. For his examination of patients was carried out
with the exactness which he recommends in his Organo?i.
Hahnemann received me most kindly, and our intimacy increased
every day. I was attached to him by strong bonds of veneration and
gratitude. I shall never forget the good he did me.
The life in Hahnemann's house was peculiar. The members of
the household and his academic pupils lived and worked for one object
alone — that was homoeopathy, for which everyone strove to labour in
his own way. The four grown-up daughters helped the father in pre-
paring his medicines, and willingly took their part in proving the
various remedies. The students who were devoted to the great re-
former were still more eager to do this, and their names are still to be
found carefully recorded in the pathogeneses of the various remedies
in the Mate7ia Medica Piira.
The patients were enthusiastic in their praises of the grand results
of homoeopathy, and became apostles of the ne\\- teaching among the
unbelievers
When the day's work was done, Hahnemann was accustomed to
158 HaJineniamis Domestic and
recruit himself from the hours of eight to ten by conversation in a
famihar circle of friends. All his friends and pupils had free access
to him, and were happy and cheerful while smoking and drinking
white beer. In the middle of the hstening circle in his comfortable
arm-chair with his long pipe in his hand, sat the venerable vCsculapius,
and alternately related amusing and serious stories from his stormy
life, while puffing clouds of smoke from his pipe. Natural Science
and the condition of foreign nations often formed the subjects of
those evening conversations. Hahnemann had a special partiality for
the Chinese, and for this reason that they lay very great stress on the
respect and strict obedience due from children to their parents — a duty
which is becoming more and more neglected in our civilised European
world. Hahnemann's family, indeed, presented an example of the
old German family discipline. It was evident that the children not
only obeyed but truly loved their parents.
Hahnemann demanded not only intelligence and industry from his
pupils, but also strict morality. I know of a case in which a talented
young medical student was forbidden the house on account of a dis-
reputable connexion with a pretty girl of easy virtue.
With regard to religion, Hahnemann, who belonged to the Lutheran
confession held aloof from all dogmatic creeds. He was a pure
Deist, but he was this with full conviction.
" I cannot cease to praise and thank God when I contemplate his
works," he was accustomed to say.
Strict as was the obedience Hahnemann demanded from his
children, as a husband he was far from having the rule in his own
hands. His tall and stout wife, who, as Agnes Frei did to the noble
painter, Albrecht Diirer, gave him many a bitter hour, exercised the
most baneful influence over him. It was she who cut him off from
society, and set him against his medical colleagues. It was she who
often caused dissension between himself and his most faithful pupils,
if they did not treat the doctor's wife with the deepest respect. Not-
withstanding this, Hahnemann was accustomed to call this scolding
Xantippe, who took pleasure in raising a storm in the house, " the
noble companion of his professional life."
We learn the following particulars from the Seminary-
Director, Albrecht,* who enjoyed familiar intercourse with
Hahnemann from 1821 to 1835: —
Hahnemann was always happiest in his family circle, and dis-
played here as nowhere else a most amiable disposition to mirth and
cheerfulness. He joked with his children in the intervals which he
could devote to them, sang cradle songs to the little ones, composed
little verses for them, and used every opportunity to instruct them
* Hahnemann's Lcbcn^ Leipzig-, 1875, 2nd edit.
Professional Life in Leipzic. 1 59
Although at first he had but little, he spent as much as he could
possibly save on the education and culture of his children. He wished
them to learn what was worth learning. His son understood and
spoke Latin, Greek, French, English and Italian ; he understood as
much of Arabic as could be required and desired from a highly-educa-
ted physician. He was also a very fair musician : he played the
guitar and the piano, and displayed great skill in many other useful
acquirements. He became a medical man, and in this capacity wrote
a defence of his father against Hecker (Dresden, 1811). He was per-
secuted by both doctors and chemists on account of his practice of
dispensing medicines himself. He emigrated at last and died during
Hahnemann's lifetime. " Four daughters and a son are, together
with my wife, the pleasure of my life," so Hahnemann wrote in 1791.
The son, whose name was Frederick, was then five years old
Hahnemann paid attention, too, to the education of his daughters.
They were thoroughly instructed in all domestic and feminine duties
by their mother. Their mother had, indeed, greater influence over
them than their father so long as they were still at home. She was a
remarkable woman of an energetic character and educated above the
ordinary standard. She was much respected and belo\"ed by her
husband and children. She had also had a musical education, and
composed music to words written by herself Hahnemann, too, was a
great lover of music, and had a pleasant singing voice, but without
knowing a note. He was fond of coming into the parlour when he
took an interval of repose from his work — between nine and ten —
and of getting his wife to play him something on the piano.
Here is another description of Hahnemann's family Hfe: —
Hahnemann combined firmness and kindness in the education of
his children ; he was unwilling to punish, and when he did so was
always dispassionate and just. Where he could do so it gave him
real pleasure to forgive. One of the peculiar features of his educa-
tional plan was that his daughters were not allowed to learn to dance.
Was he then an enemy of social enjoyment .'' On the contrary, he
enjoyed innocent mirth in the society of his friends ; he was fond of
jokes, and sometimes laughed till the tears stood in his eyes. But he
never indulged in inordinate demonstrations of pleasure, and his self-
respect preserved him from anything like a false step, from any over-
stepping of the strict line of propriety.*
All the authors who describe Hahnemann's family life
from their own experience agree in bearing witness to the
cordial relations existing between Hahnemann and his
children. They acknowledge the worth of his first wife, of
* Hahnemann^ cin biographisches Dc7ikmal^ Leipzig, 1S51, p. 113
i6o Hahnemann on Paternity.
whom Hahnemann always spoke with love and esteem.
Even if she were, as Brunnow says, fond of power and
imperious — and Brunnow's writings bear the stamp of
truthfulness — ■ yet she must have possessed excellent
qualities which were highly valued by her husband. Her
energy was, no doubt, often a support to him in his stormy
life. " The region of romance was far from her — she lived
in realities."
A letter from Hahnemann to Stapf, written on the i/th
of December, 1816,* shows his high conception of family
life. Stapf had in the first year or two of his married
life, informed Hahnemann of the birth of a daughter.
Hahnemann replies : —
I take the most cordial interest in this happy event — the addition to
your family. May your dear little daughter grow up to be a joy to
her parents. I, for my part, have been accustomed to look upon each
increase of my family, each confinement of my A\ife, as one of the
most important events of my life. An offspring of our most intimate
union, a new human being springing from our blood sees the light of
day, increasing the joys and the (wholesome) sorrows of his parents,
awaiting a wonderful development and destiny in this life and a prepai-
ation for the higher ends of his existence through all eternity. A
solemn thought well calculated to lead us to serious reflections.
And behold I with what solemn preparation the new citizen enters
the world, after the throes of his mother between life and death, and
uncertain whether she herself may not sacrifice her earthly life and
leave her children orphans and her sorrowing husband desolate. I
see the grave of the wife open whose life was so full of promise — the
grave of departed happiness for husband and children, and the
portals of eternity opening for her — and side by side with these awe-
inspiring possibilities there appears the new-born longed-for life for
mother and child, the triumphal entrance into existence of a young
being of divine origin — ^both events during these anxious moments
await decision in the unopened hand of God. What a terrible yet
ecstatic time of anxious expectation !
For myself, every accouchement of my wife, every one of these
almost supernatural occurrences deeply agitates my inmost life. I have
accepted each as a refining and purifying process for my moral being
from the great principle of Good, the Father of perfected spirits —
and I have striven to use these awe-inspiring moments, fraught with
eternal purposes, for the cleansing and purifying of my own character
* Published in 1844 in Archiv f. horn. Hcilk.^ XXI., H. i, p. 157.
Hennicke's Appreciatioji of Hahnemann. i6i
— and where I could still detect stains in myself — envy towards my
fellow-creatures, any suspicious or hypocritical taint in my heart, any
trace of falsehood or duplicity, any disposition to appear and to speak
differently from my true conviction, I have resolved to purge myself
of them.
The editor of the Allgemeiner Anzeiger der Deutschen^
Legationsrath Dr. Hennicke, passes this judgment on
Hahnemann in his paper (1825, p. 901): "The editor
(Hennicke) had, in 1792, the honour of making the ac-
quaintance of this man distinguished by his rare acumen,
his powers of observation, his clear judgment, as well as by
his originality of character, uprightness and simplicity."
And in another passage {ib. 1833, p. 133): "I have for
more than twenty years printed the coarsest invectives
against homeopathy and its founder, so long as they had
the semblance of truthfulness and justice and bore the
name of their author, and this, although I have been for
more than forty years on the most friendly terms with
Hofrath Hahnemann, and respect him as one of the
greatest benefactors of the human race, on account of his
far-reaching scientific culture, his piercing intelligence, his
profound and clear spirit of observation, and his great
medical services, which, for the past fifty years, have
been thankfully acknowledged by all competent judges of
medical science. Two cures which Hahnemann success-
fully accomplished in the year 1792 in Gotha and Geor-
genthal, and which excited general admiration, together
with the opinion of him held by a doctor who died here
(Dr. Buddeus), first directed my attention to Hahnemann,
filled me with the greatest esteem for him, and were the
origin of our friendly relations and of our subsequent un-
interrupted correspondence."
Griesselich,* who visited Hahnemann in Cothen in 1832,
writes of him thus : —
Hahnemann at the age of seventy-seven showed in every action all
the fire of a young man. No trace of old age could be detected in his
physical appearance, except the white locks surrounding his temples,
andthe bald crown, which is covered with a velvet cap. Small and sturdy
* Skzssen, SiQ. Karlsruhe, 1832.
II
1 62 HaJmeniann at Home.
inform, Hahnemann is lively and brisk ; every movement is full of life.
His eyes reveal his inquiring spirit ; they flash with the fire of youth.
His features are sharp and animated. As old age seems to have left
few traces on his body, so is it with his mind. His language is fiery,
fluent ; often it becomes vehement as a stream of lava against the
enemies and opponents — not of himself personally, for that he never
alluded to but — of the great truths to the testing of which he
had summoned his colleagues for many decades. His memory
seems to be unaffected ; after long interludes and side conversation
he continues where he left off. When he becomes heated in con-
versation, which often happens, whether about friend or foe, or on
scientific subjects, his words flow forth uninterruptedly, his whole
manner becomes extremely animated, and an expression appears on
his countenance which his visitor [Griesselich] admired in silence.
Perspiration covers his lofty brow ; his cap is removed : even his
long pipe — his trusty companion — goes out and must be re-lighted by
the taper which is at hand and kept burning all day. But the white
beer must not be forgotten ! The venerable old man had so accustomed
himself to this sweet drink that it always stood in a large covered
glass on his table ; at his meals, too, he takes this drink, which is un-
known in South Germany [Griesselich lived in Karlsruhe]. He does
not drink wine ; his mode of life is very simple, abstemious, and
patriarchal
There is generally something polemical in Hahnemann's conversa-
tion. At the same time he proclaims openly that he would give every-
one free scope who entered on the field of experience in order to con-
firm and complete defective results (his own included), and who did
not seek to overthrow them by mere assumptions he is, indeed,
far from seeking to establish a despotism over his followers which
v.-ould shut out every other view.
Men who have known Hahnemann personally recall with
pleased admiration his grand, bright, penetrating eyes,
his lofty, clear forehead, his remarkably well-formed head,
his firm but not unkindly mouth.
Certain incidental expressions in his books reveal his
ambition to excel the majority of men in his deeds. He
had the just consciousness of superior powers. Petty vanity
was far removed from him. He wrote to Stapf in 1816, in
a letter published after his death : * " One word more ; no
more encomiums of me ; I altogether dislike them, for I feel
myself to be nothing more than a plain, straightforward
* Arch. f. d. horn. Hcilk., Vol. XXL, H. i, p. 162 (transl. in BriL
Jour, of Hoin., Vol. III., 141).
His indifference to hostile attacks. 163
man who merely does his duty. Let us express our regard
for one another only in simple words and conduct indicating
mutual esteem." No single passage in his writings indicates
that he ever weakly complained of the persecution to which
he personally was subject. Griesselich, in describing his
visit to Hahnemann, specially mentions this habit of putting
his personality out of the question. He himself writes :*
" I care nothing for the ingratitude and persecution which
have pursued me on my wearisome pilgrimage, the great
objects I have pursued have prevented my life from being
joyless." While a storm of opposition was raging against
him and repeated attempts were made to crush him,
he was occupied with unwearied and unremitting zeal
in developing his doctrines, finding compensation for all
these attacks in the consciousness of having striven for and
attained great ends. " The satisfaction 1 have derived from
this mode of treatment I would not exchange for the most
coveted of earthly possessions," he writes to Hufeland.f
In 1829 he wrote to a young physician, Dr. Schrctcr,
of Lemberg,! who had been inveighing warmly against
Hahnemann's medical opponents, to abstain from doing so :
" No good result will come of it. You put yourself out of
temper by it (a most undesirable state of mind), and
matters wnll not change until Divine Providence produces
a better state of things in its own good time. Rather
compassionate the poor blind infatuated creatures ; it is
mortification enough for them not to be able to accom-
plish anything valuable. Just leave them alone and go
along in the path of rectitude. Be honourable in your
practice without allowing yourself to be led astray ; you
will then have the blessing of a good conscience and can
live your own life cheerfully and happily in privacy."
He never for a moment doubted of the final triumph of
homoeopathy as is shown by many passages in his works.
We quote one here. In the year 18 15 Stapf had expressed
* Chron. Krank.^ Vol. I., p. 8.
t Lesser Writings .^ p. 587.
t In a letter published after his death, Archiv, XXL, H, 2, p. 1S2
{Brit. Jour, of Horn., Vol. V., 398).
164 Testimony to HaJinemaniis
to him his hope that a distinguished allopath might be con-
verted in order that the spread of homoeopathy might be
more rapid. Hahnemann answered :*
Our art requires no political lever, no worldly decorations in order
to become something. It grows gradually, at first unrecognised, sur-
rounded as it is by all manner of weeds which luxuriate around it,
from an insignificant acorn to a sapling ; soon its summit will over-
top the rank weeds ; patience ! it is striking deep its roots into th
earth, it is increasing in strength imperceptibly but all the more surely,
and will in its own time grow into an oak of God, w hich, no longer to
be shaken by storms, spreads out its branches into all regions that
suffering mankind may be healed under its beneficent shade.
So Hahnemann wrote in 181 5, when only a few isolated
doctors in Saxony were among his adherents. He lived
to see his system spread over the whole earth, to see
thousands of homoeopathic practitioners, converts from
allopathy, some of whom occupied brilliant positions,
and, further, to see the number of enthusiastic adherents
of homoeopathy amounting to many millions.
Hahnemann's handwriting was small and neat but firm,
and he preferred to write on small-sized paper, as appears
from his letters and notes.! He took pains to write every
letter distinctly and he wrote a beautiful hand. He was
very particular in his forms of expression, and often we
find in one line two or three corrections. Up to his latest
years he read and wrote without spectacles (Albrecht).
Albrecht (I.e.) writes thus of his knowledge : —
His amount of knowledge was astonishing. He was at home in
all the sciences, even in those which had no connexion with
medicine — information could be obtained from him about them all ;
for even if he had not particularly pursued any branch of science,
he was sure to have read a great deal about it. " A really educated
man " he used often to say " must be well up in all subjects." Thus
he was well acquainted with astronomy. A planetary system hung
in his room; he was fond of con\ersing with his nephew, Hofrath
* ArcJiiv, XXL, H. 2, p. 129 {B.J. of H. III., 198)
t See Lesser li'/iti/ii^s, p. X.
Scientific acquirements. i 65
Schwabe, who had a telescope in his garden, on astronomical
matters. He was a good meteorologist, and was something
of a weather prophet. This he owed to the hygrometer,
barometers and thermometers which he liked to watch in his room
and garden. He was not less thoroughly acquainted with geography ;
and a rich collection of maps formed part of his large library, con-
taining works on all branches of science. Magnetism and mesmerism
were more closely allied to the study of medicine. Hahnemann
paid especial attention to them both and made use of them in certain
cases of disease with favourable results. Up to his latest years
Hahnemann spent a great part of his leisure hours in reading.
Hahnemann's numerous translations show that he was proficient in
modern languages. But this did not interfere with his love for ancient
philology — he was a thorough philologist [his inaugural thesis* shows
that he was even able to read Chaldaic works.] This to a great
extent explains his friendship with the philologist Professor Adam
Beyer. They met occasionally in the evening, and most earnestly
discussed syntactic and critical points in Greek and Latin, and the
Leipzic Professor listened with particular attention to the opinion of
his medical friend on controverted points in various philological
controversies.
Hahnemann's wonderful and thorough acquaintance
with all branches of knowledge can, notwithstanding his
natural gifts, be only accounted for when we learn from
Hartmann that his health was such that he could work
through every other night, and this he doubtless frequently
did.
Besides his many translations of scientific works, we are
indebted to his industry for the translation from the English
of the History of Abelard and Heloise, a work which is of
both political and ecclesiastical importance. The Allge-
nieine dentscJie Bibliothek\ contains this criticism on it : —
Hahnemann's translation is correct and fluent, and we can recom-
mend his work to those who have long wished to have this interesting
subject better treated.
In the year 1834 a highly cultivated French lady,
thirty-four years of age, Melanie d'Hervilly Gohier (born in
1800) came to Cothen and placed herself under Hahne-
* On the Helleborism of the Ancients. Lesser Writings^ p. 644.
t 1792, Vol. CVI., p. 243.
1 66 HaJineniann's second luamage, removal
mann's medical treatment. She succeeded in fascinating
Hahnemann by her intelligence, her unusual degree of
culture and her natural grace, so that he resolved to throw
in his lot with hers. His friends heard with surprise, as
Rummel states, that the old man of eighty had married
again on 28th January, 1835. His young wife persuaded
Hahnemann to quit his native land. Paris she thought
was the town where her husband's renown could be still
further extended ; Paris alone could give him the honour
which was his due. Hahnemann yielded. And Paris and
France did not fail to fulfil his wife's promises. He was
received with enthusiasm and distinguished marks of
honour in Paris, and enjoyed high respect and grateful
recognition up to the end of his life.
His domestic life there seems to have been very happy, as
is apparent from his letters. Thus he writes on the 13th of
August, 1840, to Dr. Schreter of Lemberg,* in a letter
published after his death : —
I cannot remember in my long life having ever felt better and
happier than here in Paris, where I am enjoying the affectionate inter-
course of my dear M^lanie, \\ho cares for nothing in the world more
than for me. I find, too, that my medical labours begin to excite
more than attention — respect — for our divine healing art in this great
metropolis.
He kept up a constant and affectionate correspondence
with his family in Germany, who also visited him in Paris.
On his death, Jahr writes from Paris on the 4th of June,
1843, in the Allgein. JionwopatJiische Zeitjing (vol. xxiv.
No. 17):-
HaJiueniann is dead !
About the 15th of April he was taken ill with the malady that
usually attacked him in the spring — a bronchial catarrh — and it took
such hold of him that his wife admitted no one. The report was
spread several times that he was dead : this was, however, contra-
dicted. I had been intending to call myself, when I received a note
from Mme. Hahnemann begging me to come that same day. I went
at once, and was admitted to Hahnemann's bedroom. Here— think
* Archiv.f. horn. Hcilk., \o\. XXIII., H. 3, p. 107.
to Paris, and Death. 1 67
of the sight ! — instead of seeing Hahnemann — the dear, friendly old
man smile his greeting — I found his wife stretched in tears on the
bed and him lying cold and stiff by her side, having passed five hours
before into that life where there is no strife, no sickness and no
death. Yes, dear friends, our venerable Father Hahnemann has
finished his course ! a chest affection has, after a six week's illness,
liberated his spirit from its weary frame. His mental powers remained
unimpaired up to the last moment, and although his voice became more
and more unintelligible, yet his broken words testified to the continued
clearness of his mind and to the calm with which he anticipated his
approaching end. At the very commencement of his illness he told
those about him that this would be his last, as his frame was worn out.
At first he treated himself, and, till a short time before his death, he
expressed his opinions relative to the remedies recommended by his
wife and a certain Dr. Chatran. He only really suffered just at the
end from increasing oppression on the chest. When, after one such
attack, his wife said : — " Providence surely owes you exemption
from all suffering, as you have relieved so many others and have suf-
fered so many hardships in your arduous life," he answered, " Why
should I expect exemption from suffering .' Every one in this world
woi'ks according to the gifts and powers which he has received from
Providence, and 7nore or less are words used only before the judgment
seat of man, not before that of Providence. Providence owes me
nothing. I owe it much. Yea, everything ! "
Profound grief for this great loss is felt here by all his followers.
All shed tears of gratitude and affection for him. But the loss of
those who have had the happiness of enjoying the friendship of this
great man, can only be estimated by those who have known him in
his domestic circle, and especially during his last years. He himself
when not persecuted by others, was not only a good, but a simple-
hearted and bene\'olent man, who was never happier than when among
friends to whom he could unreservedly open his heart. Well, he has
nobly fought through and gloriously completed his difficult and
often painful course. Sit ei terra levis !
For the student who follows the development of Hah-
nemann's great idea, who carefully reads his numerous
works, comparing them with the views of his contemporaries,
and who thus becomes aware of his iron industry, his rare
gift of observation and the lofty enthusiasm with which he
strove to do all that lay in his power for the advancement of
the healing art, and for those who have repeated, as he de-
sired, his experiments, and who know by experience gained
1 68 Testimonies of Opponents to
at the sick bed what this grand genius has accomplished —
for these and such as these it would be taking " owls to
Athens" to quote words of praise from the lips of strangers ;
it would be like trying to prove Humboldt's greatness as a
naturalist by citing the recognition he received from his
contemporaries. But for those who hold themselves aloof
or are even hostile we may be permitted to quote certain
proofs that it is not only homoeopaths who show respect
for this man.
All the following appreciations are from non-homoe-
paths : —
Compare the testimonies quoted on pp. 74, 75.
Prof J. R. Bischoff* writes in 1819 : " Dr. S. Hahnemann
has won for himself during a period of forty years a most
honourable name in the field of medicine."
About the same time Professor Puchelt writes in
Yi\x{€i2iX\6^ ?, J oiirnal ^ in an article which he published in
the following year, 1820, as a separate pamphlet : —
All this ought not to make us unjust to a man to whom we cannot
deny a very high degree of acumen, logical powers and perseve-
rance, who had previously done much valuable work in the field of
medicine before the invention of his system, and who, in the system
itself, according to our opinion, promulgates many views, which well
deserve to be noticed, and which will certainly be acknowledged
sooner or later in scientific medicine.
Further on he repeatedly speaks of him as a " learned
physician."
In the same place Hahnemann is spoken of in a note by
Hufeland as " the worthy founder of homoeopathy."
Dr. V. Wedekind, formerly professor of clinical medicine
in the University of Mainz, says : — %
Hahnemann is known to me as an experienced, learned, and genial
physician
Far be it from me to assert that Herr Hahnemann wishes to serve
the purposes of the obscurantists ; his clear intellect loves the light
My learned opponent
* Afisichtctt iiber das bishcrigc Hcilverfahren U7id die horn. Kfa/ik
licit slehre, Prague, 18 19, p. 27.
t St. 6, pp. 15 and 27.
J Priifung des horn. Systems^ Darmstadt, 1825.
his Learning and Genius. 169
Learn, gentlemen, the opinions held by Hahnemann, an old, learned,
experienced, highly educated and renowned physician, respecting our
science and ourselves. The manner in which this man propounds his
ideas, shows so deep and earnest a conviction that you must pause
before you reproach him with charlatanry
How in all the world could the celebrated and learned Hahnemann,
fall into the error of propagating such a doctrine ?
He believes in his theory. Where shall we find a remedy to cure
homceopathically this meritorious savant.
The passage has been already referred to in which Hufe-
land characterises Hahnemann as one of the " most dis-
tinguished, gifted and original physicians." He continues
as follows : " Is it necessary to remind my readers that
medicine has to thank him for the discovery of the wine
test and of the soluble mercury, which is in my opin-
ion still the most efficacious preparation of mercury, as well
as for so much else. He has given sufficient proof in
many of his earlier writings of a grand philosophical
acumen and of a rare power of observation." In Oken's
/y/i- (1822, p. 135), Hahnemann is thus spoken of: "This
earnest thoughtful man, one of the best physicians of our
time."
Dr. Fr. Groos (physician in ordinary to the Grand Duke
of Baden) says,* " I cannot refrain from admiring Hahne-
mann's profound thoughtfulness and originality."
Naumann : f " The doctors of Germany have gladly
accorded Hahnemann their respect as a highly accredited
thinker."
He also praises him in these words : " Hahnemann's
services with respect to the more accurate knowledge of the
properties of many drugs will never be forgotten." {ib. p. 1 16.)
Urban passes the following judgment in Hufeland's
Journal in 1827:! "The undisputed merit remains to
him for all time of having directed attention to the pure
curative properties of medicines, and of having thus paved
the way for a rational and experimental development of
the materia medica.
* Ucbcr das hoiii. Heilprincip. Heidelberg, 1825, p. 19.
t Hufeland's Bibliothek, 1825, Vol. LHI., p. 42.
% St, 4, p. 80.
i^O Testiuwiiies of Opponents to
In Froriep's Notizen ans deni Gebiete dcr Natur- nnd Heil-
knnde, 1829,* Hahnemann is compared "with other men of
genius Although the system of homoeopathy is very in-
complete, yet its founder is to be considered thrice happy
because he has found a standpoint from which he has been
able mightily to move the intellectual world, and his name
will be mentioned with reverence and admiration by
posterity, along with those of Galen, Paracelsus and Brown."
In 1833, Kruger-Hansen,t whom no one could accuse of
friendship for Hahnemann, writes : " The history of medi-
cine will always assign to him an honourable place among
those physicians who clearly recognise the faults of extreme
allopathy, and who perseveringly call new ideas into life."
Gcheimrath Dr. Link calls Hahnemann " a man of large
information and great acumen."^
Kurt Sprengel, the historian, expresses himself thus ;
" So far am I from bearing ill wnll to a man whom I have
never seen that I have on the contrary for more than forty
years spoken highly of his learning and his great technical
skill."§
Stieglitz :|| " It is impossible to deny that Hahnemann
is a man of great intelligence and possessing much know-
ledge."
C. A. Eschemnayer, Professor in Tubingen :1[ " Hahne-
mann undertook his great experiment with a perseverance
and circumspection to which we cannot refuse our admira-
tion." " So much has been achieved that we can only gaze
with admiration at this gigantic intellect who conceived
the idea of reforming medicine, and showed by example
how it was to be done."
On the 7th of April, 1841, the Saxon Ambassador in
* No. 7, Klcineit, Rtporior. der gcs. dciifscli. ined.-c/u'r. Joiirn.^ 1S30,
IV., 119.
t Die AUopatliic und Honioopatliic aiif dcr M'agc, p. 11.
X Hufeland's/^//;-//., LXXVI., St. 6, p. 64.
§ Uebc7' Homdopathic^ translated from the Latin by Schi'agge.
MaKdeburg, 1833, p. y:,.
II Die Hoiiibopailde, Hano\er, 1S35, p. 89.
H Die AUoopatlne und Hoiuoopatlne, Tubingen, 1834, pp. 47 and 122.
Jiis Lemming and Genius. 17 1
Paris presented him with the freedom of his native town
Meissen.
It would be easy to add a still greater number to
these recognitions of Hahnemann's merits on the part of
non-homffiopaths, if Hahnemann required such supports.*
* [To these we may be permitted to add a couple of testimonies
from two of the most learned and illustrious old-school medical
authors of this country. Fletcher {Elements of General Pathology,
p. 493) says : " Hahnemann's book (Organon) is an original and
interesting one, and displays more reflection in every page than many
of his reviewers will evince in the whole course of their life and conduct
for half a century." Sir J. Forbes writes {Medical Review, Vol. 21, p.
226) : " Hahnemann was undoubtedly a man of genius and a scholar,
a man of indefatigable industry, of undaunted energy. In the history
of medicine his name will appear in the same list with those of the
greatest systematists and theorists, surpassed by few in the originality
and ingenuity of his views, superior to most in having substantiated
and carried out his doctrines into actual and most extensive practice.""
—Ed.]
PART 11.
The Opposition to Homoeopathy.
As has already been several times mentioned, Hahne-
mann first brought forward his method of healing in the
year 1796, in Hufeland's Journal:^' A very unfavourable
criticism of it appeared soon after in the Journal der
Erfindiingen^ by Hecker. It was to the following effect :
{a^ Hahnemann's statement of the large number of specific
remedies is exaggerated and opposed to rational medicine.
{J}') The effects of medicines on the body are so various
that they can scarcely be estimated. Nevertheless it
cannot be denied that the proving of substances on
healthy persons may give valuable indications for their
employment as medicines. (<:.) The effects on sick persons
are still more variable. Hahnemann's principle has, there-
fore, no basis. (^.) The effect of certain remedies in accord-
ance with the principle siniilia similibiis is only apparent ;
if this were so, smoke, which causes inflammation of the
lungs, would also cure it. (t-.) Hahnemann pays too much
attention to symptoms. (/!) He recklessly recommends
certain very poisonous substances — arsenic, belladonna,
hyoscyamus, stramonium, &c. — and for this advice he
cannot expect the approval of cautious physicians. He
therefore concludes that " Hahnem.ann's principle is a
principle without a principle," that it has no practical
value and leads to empiricism and the pernicious em-
ployment of poisons ; there are better ways of working
* Essay on a New Principle^ &^c. Lesser Wriiings, p. 295.
t St. 22, p. 71.
Hecker, Fischer and Spre7igel. 173.
than this, which rests on vague, mistaken, and nonsensical
allegations.
This was Hahnemann's first reception ; he did not answer
it, but complained incidentally later, in 1800, that he had
been " badly treated by this periodical."
All medical men, however, were not of Hecker's opinion.
A later reviewer says :* " Hahnemann has in this article
given ample proof of his sagacity, and has thrown much
light on the properties and uses of many medicines."
" This article has excited much attention, and has been
subjected to sharp criticism, which has caused the sup-
pression of original and fruitful ideas, probably to the
detriment of science."
Another physician, Dr. A. Fr. Fischer writes,t concerning
this first essay : —
Feeling most strongly that the accurate appreciation of the effects of
medicines, particularly of those which are extremely powerful, is
indispensable for perfecting the medical art, we gave Hahnemann
our approval when he began to investigate the remedial powers of
various medicines, and to indicate a new way for their proper appre-
ciation, the results of which he communicated in the second and third
volumes of the older Hufeland"s Journal. He at that time thought it
right to administer medicines in doses adapted to the animal bod)",
as is shown by the reports of cases communicated by him to that
journal.
Kurt Sprengel's judgment^ upon the same article is as
follows : —
Samuel Hahnemann has made an interesting attempt in the gen-
eral theory of therapeutics to furbish up anew the ideas of the old
methodists as to the transformation of the body, by showing by a clear
induction that most of the powerfully acting specific remedies are useful
in as much as they produce an artificial irritation, often causing symp-
toms similar to those of the disease. Our common experience of the
action of artificial counter-irritation, by means of which the morbid
irritation is removed, confirms Hahnemann's theory completely.
* Pierer's AUgem. medic. Annal. dcs i() Jalirh., 1810, Nov., p. 961.
t Die Honwopatliie vor dem RichtcrstiiJilc dcr Vcriiiinft. Dresden,
1829, p. 32.
X Kritische UebcisicJit dcs Ziist(tinics dcr Ai-zncylaindc in den: letzten
JdJu-zchend. Halle, 1801, p. 303.
174 Simple prescriptions derided.
Amongst the notices of Hahnemann's teaching in Hufc-
land's Journal itself, we jfind the following: In I799>
Sponitzer,* a medical writer of repute, afterwards nominated
Rcgierungsrath to the Government of Pomerania, writes : —
" In this case, to give only one or at most two remedies
would be merely to act in a capricious and irrational man-
ner and to neglect the patient. Therefore, I do not agree
with Herr Hahnemann. Simplification may be carried too
far. Indeed, such abstract ideas are liable to be often mis-
understood and badly applied, and are of little value in
actual practice." The author expands this view in an
article on the difficult teething of children, in which he
commends the employment of emetics, clysters and
aperients. " These latter must be continued through the
whole course of the illness if there is any ground for sus-
pecting the retention of concealed noxious matters."
The simplicity of Hahnemann's doses of medicine ap-
pears to Professor Nolde, of Rostock f (1799) "so natural
and clear that it can admit of no doubt. On the other
hand, it would be going too far to act always in accordance
with Hahnemann's proposal to use only one single remedy
in diseases," this would, indeed, be quite wrong, e.g:, can-
tharides must often be given with camphor, opium with
aperients, &c.
These remarks and views show that Hahnemann's ideas
were not understood. He wanted to know the specific re-
lations of different medicines to special kinds of diseases,
to special parts of the body and to special tissues ; he
wished to overthrow the crude ideas respecting morbid
matters, and to get rid of the chimney-sweep and stupefy-
ing methods of treatment. He showed a correct physio-
logical apprehension of the subject, even if he could not
utilize the physiology of his day in support of his views.
And his colleagues come forward and prate about " con-
cealed noxious matters " and a combination of opium with
aperients. In order that opium might not paralyse the
peristaltic action of the bowels and thus prevent the
* Vol. VII., .St. 2, p. So. t Vol. \'III., St. 2, p. 68.
' The Prophylactic of Scarlatina. .175
expulsion of the morbid matters, an aperient must be
given at the same time. This was scientific practice.
The following confession shows the character of the
prescriptions then in use. In Vol. X. (St. 3, p. 60), 1800,
Wichmann, after speaking of Hahnemann, says that he
gives some remedies in which he has confidence quite
alone. " By doing so I make the apothecary, who is accus-
tomed to prescriptions a foot long, shake his head over
my meagre prescriptions, or even look upon me as an
idiot." So that doctors were ashamed to order simple
remedies. This makes Hahnemann's remarks (p. 80)
intelligible.
Dr. Jani, of Gera,* was the first who wrote about Hahne-
mann's remedy and prophylactic for scarlatina, belladonna.
He states that with this remedy he had observed good re-
sults in several cases, but that it was not an unconditional
prophylactic. " It is therefore conceivable," he says, " that
the worthy Dr. Hahnemann made his observations under
a more favourable concurrence of circumstances than I did,
and was thus led to a false conclusion." In mentioning
small doses, Jani says that these have met with opposition
on the part of the public. In the following year, iSoi, a
reviewer, who had himself made no practical experiments,
writes on the subject of Hahnemann's doses in the same
periodical (IV. lOO) : " It would be worth while giving the
man a civic crown, or, better still, a big pension, to keep
him from writing any more of such incredible things."
Hufeland was of a different opinion : — f
I was sorry that a man whose services to our art have been so
great should have been so badly used in reference to his prophy-
lactic for scarlet fever, and I cannot deny that the almost infinite-
simal smallness of the dose of belladonna staggered me In any
case it [Hahnemann's treatise] contains valuable hints on the more
subtle effects of medicines and the modifications they may receive
in various states of the organism and in the preparation and mode
of exhibition of the remedy, to which generally no attention has been
given. [Here it is expressly acknowledged that most physicians in
* Med. cJiir. Ztg., IV., 316, Oct., 1800.
t Hiif.Joum. VI., St. 2.
lyG The TJicrapeittic ride of Similars.
contradistinction to Hahnemann, usually gave no attention to the
preparation and exhibition of medicines.] There are undoubtedly
secrets here unsuspected by the ordinary pharmaceutist and practi-
tioner, and the voice of a man who has occupied himself for more
than ten years with the preparation and administration of narcotic
and other poisonous substances, deserves the greatest attention. I,
at least, am persuaded that the usual quantitative proportion of
remedies is not always the right principle for determining their effects,
and that a grain may, under certain circumstances and combinations,
produce more effect than a ten times greater quantity — nay that even
the smallest dose may produce results not to be obtained by a large
one.
In the year 1800 Hufeland in his System dej- prakt.
Heilhinde* gives his judgment as follows (he is speaking
of the choice of the remedy) : —
The resemblance of the effects of the remedy to the symptoms of
the disease. We notice, for instance, that a certain remedy induces
mania in a healthy person, or produces general or local convulsions or
paralysis. This may lead us to employ this remedy in cases of mania
and in similar convulsious or paralysis. Belladonna which makes
a healthy man maniacal cures the insane. A'iolent emotions which
can produce a form of intermittent fe\er can also cure it. This
principle enunciated by Hahnemann may doubtless serve to guide us
to the discovery of useful remedies, but it always remains an empirical
principle, and seems to be only applicable in purely nervous diseases.
In Vol. XIII. of Hufeland's Journal, 1S02, an instance
of cure by means of veratrum album on the principle in-
dicated by Hahnemann is related.
The ]\Ied. cJnr. Zeitung contained, 1801 (I. 253), a criti-
cism of the Ar::neiscJiat:~, with Hahnemann's notes, in
which he so clearly and convincingly showed the absurdity
of mixing medicines and enjoined simplicity in prescrip-
tions. The reviewer does not give Hahnemann one word
of approbation for this, but blames him for rejecting an
electuary of valerian, cinchona and sal-ammoniac, as both
the worst way to administer it and an unhappy combina-
tion. " Both theory and experience," so sa}-s the reviewer,
" are in favour of this combination," and strong doses are
likewise necessary.
In 1805 the article entitled Medicine of Experience ap-
* Jena und Leipzig, 1800. \o\. I., p. 201.
HaJinenianiis first book of Provings. 177
pcarcd in Hufeland'syi9//r7/«/.'''' Though the author in 1796
still held to a large extent the ordinary views, the pecu-
liarity of his ideas is here more prominently given. It is
evident that he had reflected and worked hard during the
past nine years. He advances his views with much greater
confidence, and insists on the necessity of proving medi-
cines in order to ascertain the finest shades of their
specific relations to the several parts of the body, and to
use them when those same structures are similarly affected
upon which they act specifically. It must be clearly under-
stood, and we therefore call attention to it, that he did not
seek for specific remedies against certain definite patho-
logico-anatomical forms of disease, nor }-et such as act
on certain organs, as Rademacher proposed ; he expressl}-
protested against this. His idea was to trace the effects of
medicines up to the ultimate perceptible phenomena.
The first collection of the effects of medicines on healthy
organisms, according to his own observations and those of
others was, as is well known, published in the work, Frag-
meiita de viribiis viedicanientoriun, 1805. He himself indi-
cates its character by calling it " fragmenta," and he by no
means concealed from himself the defects of this first at-
tempt, which were also pointed out by the critics. This
was, at any rate, the first undertaking of the sort, and was
meritorious on this account ; a reviewer! characterised it as
" a remarkably interesting and meritorious work." Augustin;!:
called it " the results of some excellent experiments on the
effects of medicines on the human organism."
Hahnemann's Medicine of Experience, the forerunner of
the Organon, met with the following reception in the Med.
chir. Zeitung (HI. p. 25), 1806: —
No great benefit, either to the theorist or the practitioner, is to
be obtained from this diffuse treatise of 99 pages full of para-
doxes. Hahnemann appears to have no idea of medical science in its
highest sense for he confines it entirely to the senses. Every disease,
* Lesser Writings, 497.
t Hufeland's Bibliothek, XVI., p. 181.
X Wissenschnftl. Uebcrs. der ges. vied. chir. Literatiir des faJwes
1805, p. 409.
12
178 Unable to infiuence routine practice.
according to him, is produced by some special unnatural irritation,
and in order to cure diseases we have nothing to do according to Dr.
Hahnemann, but to oppose to it another morbific ag^ent of very similar
action. Such is his idea of the action of remedies ! But enough of
this !
In the year 1807 Hahnemann wrote the article in Hufe-
land's Journal, Fingerzeige aufden honioopathischen Gebrauck
der A.rzneyen in der bisJierigen Praxis. This was also un-
favourably criticised in the Med. chir. Zeitiuig (1808, II. p.
147), because Hahnemann only paid attention to symptoms :
" Such things are learnt incidentally by every father of a
family." The instances adduced are said to be vague, and
often to prove the principle " contraria contrariis." The
reviewer uses the expression " homoeopathic," without
hesitation.
Hahnemann's endeavours did not produce the effect they
should have done, his proposals to prove medicines method-
ically in order to ascertain their specific action on one's
own body, remained without result. This was also the case
with his further proposal to use as simple prescriptions as
possible, and not to repeat a dose until the former one has
exhausted its effect, so that the knowledge of the manner
and extent of the operation of remedies may, by means of
united efforts and a rational mode of procedure, be firmly-
grounded and extended. The old routine practice went
on as before. In 180S he attacked the traditional mode
of treatment in a series of articles in the Allgevieiner A71-
zeiger der Dcutschen, and powerfully exposed the miserable
character of medicine as then practised. We have above
quoted some passages from them. These articles were
almost all anonymous, and were mostly rejoinders to pre-
vious articles from the pen of other physicians ; so that
there is no foundation for the accusation that Hahnemann
was actuated by unworthy motives or unprofessional conduct
in writing in this paper — an absurd reproach which his
opponents are in the habit of casting upon him with
greater frequency and vehemence the farther his day re-
cedes from our own.
[The author proceeds to show by a series of quotations from and
references to articles that were published between iSoi and iS22inthis
Medical articles in a daily paper. 179
paper (which was first pubHshed under the title of Der Anzetger, then
as Dcr Reichsanzeiger^ and finally from 1S06 as Der allgemeine An-
vciger der Deutschen) that medical men of the highest rank frequently
made use of it to carry on medical controversies with one another, to
publish hospital statistics, to recommend special modes of treatment
for special diseases, and even to trumpet their own nostrums and offer
them for sale. Some of these medical contributors were the most
illustrious physicians of the day, occupying the most exalted positions
such as Court Physicians, Medicinalraths, Hofraths, Professors of
Universities and Chief Physicians and Surgeons of various hospitals.
The names of many of them are still remembered in medicine, such
as Hufeland, Professor J uncker of Halle, Professor Kreysig of Witten-
berg, Professor Harless of Erlangen, Professor Feiler of Altdorf, Dr.
von Bernard, physician in ordinary to the King of Bavaria, Pro-
fessor J. B. von Siebold, head surgeon of the Julius Hospital, Wiirz-
burg. Professor Kieser of Jena, Professor Lobenstein-Lobel of Jena,
Hofrath Dr. Fenner, IMedicinalrathDr. Wendelstadt, Professor Dzondi
of Halle, and many others of equal rank and renown. The treatment
recommended by these coryphaei of old physic would stagger the most
ardent advocate of heroic treatment of our clays. One renowned
doctor, " perhaps the greatest and most experienced authority on the
diseases of children of all times," as an enthusiastic colleague describes
him, earnestly recommends his colleagues to treat all cases of croup
with leeches and blisters, " as these,'' he says, " are the best, indeed
the only remedies for the disease." A learned professor recommends
all doctors and attendants in hospitals where infectious diseases are
treated, " to establish issues in both arms, and keep them constantly
discharging," in order to keep them from catching these diseases. A
doctor enjoying an important municipal post, strongly advises typhoid
fever to be treated with purgatives and emetics given every day, " for
most patients feel strengthened after this medicinal stimulation."
The same professor who advised issues as prophylactics against
infectious diseases further recommends for protection against the
prevailing typhus epidemic, besides issues, blood-letting, emetics
and purgatives. Another doctor, the President of the Bavarian
Medical Board, counsels all his colleagues, " who have the welfare
of their patients at heart," to employ frequent venesections and anti-
phlogistics in typhus, because he is convinced that it is an " inflam-
mation of the brain." One blood-thirsty enthusiast calls on the State
to compel doctors to resort to instant blood-letting in inflammatory
diseases. A distinguished Professor recommends his own machine
for the cure of spinal curvature, and begs the editor to speak a
word for it. One doctor promises to reveal his discovery of the
nature of yellow fever if only one thousand persons will subscribe half
a-thaler each. A professor professes to cure all agues in old or young
by means of glue. An Inspector-General of hospitals denounces the
treatment of syphilis with mercury, and calls upon " all medical men
I So Becker's attack on the " Orgmionr
in the kingdom " to treat it with a mixture of cream of tartar, cinna-
mon, opium and ammonia. Another doctor offers for sale a nostrum
for syphihs which he says he has discovered. Thus, it will be seen
that Hahnemann did nothing unprofessional or unusual in publishing-
medical articles in this daily paper, which was not political, but was
the organ through which scientific and literary men of all sorts were
accustomed to interchange ideas. But what a contrast do Hahne-
mann's contributions offer to those of his colleagues. It was in this
paper that he published between 1801 and 1821 that series of interest-
ing and original essays, which will be found translated in the Lesser
Writings. Their titles are : View of Professional Liberality at tJie
comnienceniejit of the igth Century : On a pj'oposed remedy for
HydropJwbia; Objections to a proposed substitute for Cinchona Bark j
Obser^'ations on Scarlet Fever; On the present watit of Foi'eigJi
Medicines J On the value of the Speculative Systems of Medicine ; On
substitutes for Forcis^n Drugs; On the Regeneration of Medicine ;
Address to a Candidate for the degree of M.D. ; On the prevailing
Fever; Si^ns of the times in Ordinary Medicine ; On the Treatment
of Typhus; — of Burns; — of J'enereal Diseases ; — of Purpura
Miliaris. — Ed.]
In the first half of the year 18 10, Hahnemann's Organon
of Rational Medicine appeared. It was criticised in July
of the same year by A. F. Hecker.* All Hahnemann's
exaggerations and mistakes were clearly exposed, but the
good was rejected together with the bad. This critique
reveals the personal irritation of the writer. Here is one
example — Hahnemann, in the Organon, incidentally blames
Hecker for having used " various mixtures " of medicines.
Hecker remarks (p. 228, note) : It was in a case of caries,
' I used only (i) a simple solution of corrosive sublimate in
distilled water with liq. m)-rrh. (2) Powders for internal use
of calomel, sulphuret of antimony and sugar. (5) Some pur-
gatives of calomel mixed with jalap on account of a good
man}- thread-worms. Greater simplicity was impossible,
moreover a cure was soon effected. Whoever calls the
remedies used 'various mixtures of medicines' lies'' (the
*' lies " printed prominentl}' to attract special attention).
* Annalen dcr gcsammtcn Medicin, \o\. II., pp. 31 and 193.
Comniencevient of the confiict. i8l
Here were five remedies used at the same time, and yet
"greater simplicity was impossible." Anyone not acquainted
with the medical literature of that time, can form from this
an idea of the usual prescriptions when they were not
simple, and this was usually the case.
In the Allg. vied. Annalen des ig Jalirhiinderts^ a
simple reference was made to the Organon in Nov. 1810,
with the following introduction : —
The system of rational medicine which Hahnemann has unfolded
in this work deserves to be favourably judged because the author has
been known for more than 20 years as a thoughtful physician and a
good observer, who has laboured with unwearied energy to establish
and confirm his previously stated opinions, and at the same time he
has maintained his reputation as a skilful and successful practitioner.
Of course this does not prove the validity of his statements, nor should
it influence the unbiassed judgment of the reader. The saying :
opiiiionuin covimenta dclct dies remains eternally true.
In 181 1, a full criticism appeared in the January number
of the Med. chir. Zeitung. This journal answered the same
purpose as Schmidt's JaJirbiicJier does now ; it contained
criticisms of the whole of medical literature. The most
prominent physicians of Germany were among its contribu-
tors. Unfortunately the reviews appeared anonymously.
The reviewer begins by blaming the great self-sufficiency
with which Hahnemann comes forward and looks down
upon his colleagues. The proofs he adduces of his prin-
ciple are not sufficient ; Hahnemann pays too much atten-
tion to symptoms. " How can that be rational where there
is no question of thought, and where nothing but observa-
tion by means of the senses is required." Strict indi-
vidualisation is good, but it may be carried too far. The
keeping of a carefully-conducted clinical journal which
Hahnemann recommends is very difficult in ordinary prac
tice. " Every disease represents a special process, which
like every other natural process, runs its own fixed course.""^
* P. 92. Virchow in his Oration on Schbnlein ^pp. 22 and 67),
asserts that the expression "morbid process" was first employed in
1824 by Stark in a clear and lucid manner. This, and other passages
show that this statement is not correct.
1 82 Desultory attacks.
In certain cases, where by supporting the vital energy the
process of healing in the direction taken by nature can be
furthered and brought to a more speedy conclusion, the
homoeopathic principle ma}', in the opinion of the reviewer,
prove useful, but it can never be the chief principle of
medicine.
The reviewer has quite a different estimation of the work in its
relation to pharmacology. The experiments of the author, made with
medicines on healthy persons and their results may have a very im-
portant influence on this branch of medicine.
The review is written in a very calm style, in spite of
Hahnemann's attacks on the ordinary practice.
A second review appeared in the following number of
the same journal which likewise blames the vehement tone
of the author and opposes the mode adopted of establish-
ing the new principle of cure. " Who would not have ex-
pected better logic from a man who has in other ways done
so much for medicine ? Siinilia siinilibus ciwantiir is a
maxim which no rational physician of any experience will
deny, but it is to be accepted, not in Hahnemann's sense as
a universal therapeutic rule, but only in special cases to
which we are guided not by rational, but by empirical
medicine. Hahnemann's idea would, doubtless, have been
gratefully received by the medical public if he had an-
nounced it as applicable only in certain cases and not
universally." After refuting certain theories of Hahne-
mann's, the following judgment is passed : —
The reviewer must admit that in these 222 pages the author has
expressed many fine ideas, and has displaced much originality, but it
is a pity that their application is too general, and that he attempts to
prove that his homoeopathic system is universally applicable. If the
intelligent reader draws correct conclusions he will lay down the book
not altogether without having derived some satisfaction from its
perusal. The reviewer desires further to ask this question, which
concerns medical jurisprudence : Is this mode of procedure which
Hahnemann here teaches, to make experiments with all sorts of drugs
(even poisons) on healthy human beings, in order to obtain a rational
materia medica according to homa:opathic principles, quite allowable .'
This reviewer, too, preserves a judicious calm. Both
reviews avoid touching on the question of doses.
Hahnemann answered none of these reviews, but remarked
of tJie Eiieviy. 183
upon his opponents' statements, without personally attacking
them (with one single exception in which he was provoked
to do so) — a fact which is important in forming our judg-
ment of Hahnemann — in a subsequent edition of the
Organon, as well as in the introductory remarks to the
provings of medicines in the Reine Arsfieimittellehre.
His son, Dr. Frederick Hahnemann, published a Refuta-
tion of Hecker's Attacks (Dresden, 181 1.) Indeed, even
an opponent of Hahnemann, Professor Puchelt, condemned
Hecker's virulence.* He complains of " the dogmatic and
contemptuous criticisms of homoeopathy in some of the
journals " — he probably alluded to the Neties Journal der
Erfindiingen qt^c. in der Medicin, Vol. I., St. 3, which, soon
after the appearance of the Organon, published a violent
criticism similar to that in the Annalen — and he strongly
condemns Hecker's criticism. " Hecker merely attacks and
does not appreciate or do justice to Hahnemann's doctrine.
He who wishes to judge fairly of an opinion must not
hold the opposite one to be unconditionally true."
Puchelt's review of homoeopathy in Hufeland's Journal
did not appear until 1819 — nineyearsafterHecker's criticism.
Up to that time Hahnemann's views are only mentioned
incidentally in this journal. Thus in 18 10 a doctor men-
tions! that in Karlsbad and the neighbourhood sufferers
from diarrhoea had taken a glass of hot spring water with
very good effect, and he calls this an illustration of Plah-
nemann's therapeutic principle. Two years later| the same
thing happened when arsenic was mentioned as a remedy in
intermittent fever. About the same time§ a physician pro-
tests against Hahnemann's demands for simplicity of medi-
cal treatment and during these eight years no one took up
the pen in support of Hahnemann's opposition to the mixing
of remedies. Prescriptions remained just as long, and the
hotch-potch of remedies continued to flourish. The efficacy
* Hufeland's y(W;v/(z/, 1819, St. 6, p. 10.'
t Vol. XXXI., St. 9, p. 75.
X Vol. XXXV., St. ir, p. 94.
§ Vol. XXXIV., St. 5, p. 88.
184 Recognition of some good in
of belladonna in scarlet fever, recommended by Hahnemann,
is called attention to in various passages, and in 18 12
Hufeland writes in a note:* "It certainly deserves con-
tinued and careful investigation. For to be deterred by the
infinitesimal smallness of the doses is to forget that here
we have to do with a dynamic, i.e., living action, which
cannot be weighed by pounds and grains. Is to dilute
always to weaken ? Does not dilution often cause new
developments and an increased display of the more delicate
properties?"
In the same year-}- Hofrath Schenk, of Siegcn, publishes
passages from a letter of Hahnemann's. Schenk asked for
advice as to the use of belladonna in scarlet fever. Hahne-
mann sent three grains of an extract prepared by himself
" because the officinal extracts are often very uncertain
and their properties are often destroyed by the heat of the
fire, &c.," and gave information as to its further preparation.
" I was exhorted to try to overcome any incredulity arising
from the smallness of the dose ; it was rather too large
than too small, for we had at present no idea of the force
residing in powerful medicines." Schenk here expresses
his thanks to Hahnemann for his readiness in sending him
the belladonna, and gives an account of the very favourable
results produced by this remedy in a prevalent epidemic.
Hahnemann's inaugural thesis, published at Leipzic, De
Helleborisnio J^etcnnnX was favourably noticed in many
places. " Though the action of veratrum may not be so
beneficial as the author thinks, he has nevertheless rendered
a further service by collecting all the data referring
historically to this method of treatment, and he here gives
a complete historical account of it ; such a work as the
present has all the more interest because similar works
are rare. The first traces of the use of ver. alb. are to be
found 1,500 years before Christ," &c.§ Another reviewerjl
* Vol. XXXIV., St. 5, p. 120.
t Vol. XXXIV., St. 5, p. 120.
X Lesser lVriiings.i p. 644.
§ Med. chir. Zte^., XIX., p. 234.
II Allg. mcd. Annalcn das ig JalirJi., 1S12, p. 1053.
HaJineinaniis doctrine and practice. 1S5
calls the thesis " an interesting contribution to the history
of medicine collected with care and in a critical spirit."
A third* considers it a very " thorough treatise." Professor
Choulant is stated to have said that this work displays
great learning— an opinion that every reader will confirm.
In 18 12 Kranzfelder wrote, Symbola ad criticoi nova
theoricc, Honiceopathiccd dicta;, Erlanga; 18 12, a work directed
against Hahnemann, which seems to have excited no atten-
tion.
Hahnemann stated publicly in 181 3f that homoeo-
pathy in the space of three years had found so " many
estimable adherents and practitioners." If we hesitate to
believe the testimony of the first homceopaths that his
teaching had spread rapidly among students and doctors,
this is nevertheless manifest from an article by Professor
Clarus, of the Faculty of Leipzic,^ who opposes the opinion
of his colleagues, that Hahnemann's lectures should be
suppressed by force. Science should be free. " I con-
clude these remarks with the wish that a proposal, w^hich
I advanced long since, may, notwithstanding its difficulties,
be carried out, viz., to test Hahnemann's doctrines by a com-
mission composed of scientifically trained doctors, and with
the co-operation of Dr. Hahnemann himself, in a hospital."
The difficulties must have been on the side of the allopaths,
for Hahnemann often expressed a wish for a hospital. We
shall see later how Clarus saw fit to change his opinion.
We here pass over the political journals — the Leipziger
Zeitiing, and the Hamburger Correspondent— whxch. also
confirm the spread of homoeopathy, although they do not
espouse Hahnemann's side.
The vehemence of the contest advanced pari passu
with the spread of homoeopathy. The allopaths and the
apothecaries of Leipzic were on one side, Hahnemann
and his adherents on the other, and the public espoused the
* Augustin, Wissensch. Ucbcrs. d. ges. incd. chir. Literatur, 181 2, p.
\ Allg. Anz. d. Dciitschcn, 1813, p. 634, note.
X Huf. Journ.^ 41, St. 4, p. 112.
1 so DeatJi of Prince ScJnvarrjenherg.
cause of one side or the other. The contest found its way
into the pohtical papers of Leipzic, into the beershops, into
the domestic circles, and reached its cHmax when Prince
Schwarzenberg, the winner of the battle of Leipzic, con-
sulted Hahnemann. The latter had been requested by the
Prince to come to Prague to give him the benefit of his
advice. Hahnemann declined this, and invited the patient
to take up his abode in Leipzic. So he travelled there to
be treated by Hahnemann. He had had several attacks of
apoplexy and suffered from a heart disease. Certainly the
Field-Marshal improved under Hahnemann's treatment ;
he was able to go out for regular walks. Dr. Jos. Edler
von Sax, and other allopaths, declared that Hahnemann
neglected to employ " powerful measures," and that he was
responsible for hastening the Prince's death. Some time
before the fatal termination of the illness Hahnemann visited
the patient, accompanied by Dr. Marenzeller who had been
sent from Vienna, and found the allopaths employed in
making a venesection. After that he never visited the
patient again, as Dr. Argenti relates.;|: Unfortunately I
am unable to ascertain how often the bleeding was
repeated. Five weeks later, on the 15th October, 1820,
the Prince died. Clarus remarks : " On the same day,
and nearly at the same hour, his solemn funeral procession
passed along the same road as that on which he had made
his triumphal entrance seven years before."
The post-mortem examination, which was most minute
and thorough, revealed several apoplectic foci. " The size
of the heart is uniformly increased to double the normal,
and at the sam.e time the walls of the right ventricle of
the heart are attenuated and those of the left enormously
thickened. The valves of the heart are not ossified but
extremely thin and delicate." The art. coronar., hepat.
and splenica, as well as the ascending aorta, showed
" traces of commencing ossification." The report was
X Hovi. Bcha7idhiuq dcr Ki'aiikheite7j^ end edit., Presburg und
Leipzig, 1820, p. 22.
Hahneviamis rejection of blood-letting. 187
signed and sealed by Clarus, Dr. von Sax, Dr, Samuel
Hahnemann and Prosector Dr. Aug. Carl Bock,
It is easy then to judge whether the attack of Hahne-
mann's opponents on account of his neglect of blood-
letting was justified. But anyhow they had the majority
on their side. Doctors and chemists at length contrived to
obtain the prohibition of Hahnemann's dispensing his own
medicines, and he, therefore, left Leipzic for Gothen.
The constant spread of homoeopathy caused its opponents
to take greater notice of it in a literary way than pre-
viously. In 1 8 19, Dr. Bischoff's pamphlet, which has been
already quoted, appeared, and in it the neglect of blood-
letting is severely condemned, as is also " the general tone
of the Organon, which is not worthy the importance
of the subject," and many of Hahnemann's theories arc
scouted. He particularly mentions Hahnemann's former
services to medicine, and commends Hahnemann's mode
of preparing medicines (p. 120), as well as his proving of
drugs. " This part of the work is always valuable " (p.
117). He rejects the homoeopathic system, and lauds (in
the preface and later) " the method of the ordinary system
of medicine vv^hich by the labours of physicians is of so
much benefit to mankind." The views of the author on
the subject of blood-letting will be given by-and-bye.
The same year saw the publication of Prof Puchelt's
treatise in Hufeland's Journal (a. a. O.) " It is the aim
and object of this article to criticise Hahnemann's homoe-
opathy which has recently spread so much among the
younger doctors and has begun to gain a certain amount of
acceptation among the non-medical public. A more com-
plete examination of this system seems to me to be
specially well-timed, as very little has been hitherto done
in this direction." He then condemns Hecker's hostile
attacks. He severely criticises Hahnemann's contempt for
the sciences auxiliary to medicine (and in this even Hahne-
mann's adherents soon joined him), and opposes some
theories in Hahnemann's Organon, on which, however, no
stress had been laid by Hahnemann himself, and which
even his most faithful disciples have rejected. He blames
J 88 Modified acceptance of some
Hahnemann for forming a system and despising every-
thing else in medicine. He proposes to use homceopathy
in the case of " dynamic " affections and in such organic
diseases as arise from " derangement of the nervous sys-
tem." " I should like to know Hahnemann's opinion on
this modification of his therapeutic principle For the
rest, we heartily wish that homoeopathy, if it once becomes
allied with scientific medicine, may have a still greater
influence [what influence had it at that time ?] in producing
greater simplicity and moderation in the use of medicines."
What he says about the personal feeling of allopaths to-
wards Hahnemann explains so well the cause of their in-
veterate hostility that we must let the author speak for
himself.
However contradictory it may appear at first sight to attempt to cure
diseases by remedies which produce similar effects, it must be admitted
that the paradox disappears when more careful consideration is given to
the question than has hitherto been usually given by the opponents of
homceopathy. I believe, indeed, that the system would not have met
with so much opposition, that, on the contrary, it would even have been
accepted and employed by a great number of physicians, if Hahne-
mann had not declared open war upon the whole existing medical
art, for every one who has lived and worked in it, knows it is not
so entirely built on sand as Hahnemann maintains.
It would be possible to quote here from the first allo-
pathic " authorities " any time during the last forty years,
quite as strong a condemnation of the allopathic thera-
peutics as Hahnemann's, though perhaps not stated in
such impassioned terms as they were not engaged in an
anim.ated controversy as he was.
If he had not allowed himself to be borne away by the rage, which
twenty years ago, was very common among the best men, for reform-
ing the whole science and destroying everything that was old ; if he
had yielded less to the spirit of opposition which led him to take up a
position of antagonism to other medical men, he would have met with
a more cordial reception, and would have been been inore practically
useful.
In what follows, the feeling of personal irritation dis-
played by the allopaths is still more clearly shown : —
With the hostile attitude assumed by him towards other doctors,
some self-effacement is required to attain the point of view from which
he may be justly judged, and what is useful extracted from his teach-
of Hahnemann's doctrines. 189
ing ; we are apt to be prejudiced against him by many offensive ex-
pressions, which indeed may ha\-e been deser\ed by some, but cer-
tainly not by all the thoughtful physicians against whom they were
directed. [Hahnemann's principal therapeutic charges were directed
against all allopaths of the period without exception]. This excited a
prejudice against him which it was necessary to overcome before a
calm judgment could be arrived at becoming a seeker after truth.
This power of self-control is not possessed by all, and least of all by
those who most deserve the reproach of writing careless prescriptions.
The latter act as Hahnemann does with the whole of medicine, they
reject the good with the bad, and throw all on one side because some
i&w things do not please them.
The author's characterisation of the medicine of that
day shall not be kept back from the reader, because it
serves to indicate a phase in the history of medicine, and
is also of importance for our purpose. " We live now in a
time in which most systems are blended and united. The
mechanical and chemical views of the organism [we must
remember the condition of physiological chemistry in 18 19]
have united, are subordinated to, or collocated with the
dynamico-vital view. The humoral and solidary theories are
amalgamated, and have resolved themselves into the idea of
the reciprocal action of the solid and fluid portions of the
organism." From this sentence we seem to be transported
into our own times, but the next brings us back into the
good old times. " The evacuating and stimulating, depleting
and fortifying, and many other conflicting methods of treat-
ment dwell peacefully side by side in general therapeutics,
and mutually limit one another ; all are used by our con-
temporaries in various diseases, though one may prefer one
method — another another." Here the entire unsoundness
of the allopathy of that period is indirectly admitted.
In 1822, the first homoeopathic periodical appeared,
ArcJiiv fiir die Jioni. Heilknnst, edited by Dr. E. Stapf
and later by Stapf and Gross. In the same year, the allo-
path, Jorg, published his Kritische Hefte fiir Aei'cte 2ind
Wnnddrzte (Leipzig bei Knobloch), in which he attacked
the Organon and the homoeopathic provings of drugs.
At the same time Dr. Groh published a criticism of
Hahnemann's system in Oken's periodical /i-/i-(i822,p. 120),
and he characterises it as a doctrine " acting like a breath
iQo Hoiniivpai/dc Works of Darkness.
of poisonous air on the blossom of medicine, which was
beginning to unfold after its long winter sleep." But he
was no blind antagonist. He accepted a great deal, and
owned that Hahnemann had taught " much that was good
and true" in the Orgauon. He calls him an "earnest
thinker, one of the best physicians of our time."
He considered it "very praiseworthy" in Hahnemann to
call attention to the necessity of individualisation. He
blames the large number of medical men who neglect this
counsel, and compares them with the knights errant. " I
would like to see these practici crrantes, many of whom have
been robbing their suffering fellow cteatures of blood and
money to the disgrace of scientific Germany, follow these
and other teachings of the, in many respects, conscientious
Hahnemann, as slavishly as they can." The reason why
the critic considered Hahnemann " conscientious in some
respects" only, is very soon seen. Hahnemann rejected
bloodletting in inflammation of the lungs, inflammation of
the brain, croup, etc., as also calomel in large doses, and that
was unpardonable. In speaking of the mode of employing
remedies " he unwillingly omits to mention (on account of
lack of space) the praiseworthy matter contained in this sec-
tion,'' and he says, with reference to Hahnemann's proposed
method of discovering the curative properties of medicines
by testing them on healthy organisms, " I rejoice to have
arrived at a point where Hahnemann's services to medicine
become conspicuous." " He had a profound insight into
the inner springs of life when he advanced or confirmed the
principle that with regard to the action of drugs as with
everything in life there are alternating states." " It is to
be hoped that Hahnemann may continue on in the path he
has begun to tread, though his materia medica ma}' still
be a mdis indigcstaqnc molest
As the same kinds of attacks on the part of his opponents
were constantly repeated during the following years, it is not
Avorth while to give more of them in detail. We need only
mention that such attacks became more and more vehement.
In 1824, there appeared : ITorks of Darkness in tJie
Domain of Honiccopat/iy, brought to light by Dr. Th ,
HaJuieinann likened to the Devil. 19 1
and Authentication of the Facts mentioned in the ' Works of
Darkness', by the same author, Altenburg, These con-
tained nothing but idle gossip, untruths and personal at-
tacks on the homoeopaths of Leipzic, but they are welcome
as furnishing evidence of the method of attack pursued by
the allopaths. Under the pseudonym "Dr. Th " was
concealed the personality of a Dr. Meissner, who appears
in the text in the third person as a witness. Even a few
allopaths deprecated such conduct,* and he was cited before
the tribunals and punished.
Hofrath and Physicus Dr. Rau, an old and respected
physician, wrote in 1824, On the Value of Honiceopathic
Treatment, in which he exposed the weak sides of Hahne-
mann's theory, but declared himself in accord with his
therapeutic principles. This work and Rau's high reputa-
tion attracted many physicians to homoeopathy.
" Rau was already well known as a thoughtful man,"
according to Schmidt's Jahrbiichcr (Vol. 7, p. 164), and
it is added that he only turned to homoeopathy after a
practice of twenty- two years and tested it for twelve years
before defending it publicly.
From this time onwards pamphlets and counter-pam-
phlets appeared in such numbers that it would be a weari-
some and profitless task to examine each individually. We
will only mention in connexion with this period, a book
by Professor L. W. Sachs, of Konigsberg, A Final Word on
S. Hahnemann s Homcvopathic System, in which Hahnemann
is compared to the devil. (Leipzig, 1826, p. 52.)
There is no fault, no error in the devil, he is out and out the false,
the reprobate, the l}"ing one. Now, the homoeopathic system does not
suffer from errors (if such could be shown in it, that would redound to
its honour !), it is not impregnated with false notions (such could be
refuted, corrected, minimised and changed into true ones) it is not
illogical (it must in that case be logical in some places, it must
have some internal coherence : — but it has no more than a heap of
sand) it has not the faults possessed by any other system, no human
weakness, but it is contrary to all our conceptions, to all laws of thought,
and all the results of experience ; it scorns all Nature's teaching,
* Augustin, I.e., 1824, p. 334.
192 Hiif eland acts as Umpire.
mocks at reason, excludes all truth. It cannot be said of it, as Polo-
nius says of Hamlet's madness, " there is method in it.''
On the other hand, the advantages reaped by the allopaths
from Hahnemann's researches are evident. Jorg published
in 1825, Materials for a future Materia Medica, obtained
bv Experiments on Healthy Persons, Leipzic. He in-
stituted these experiments with the help of students,
and arrives at the conclusion Hahnemann came to more
than twenty years previously, viz., that medical men have
little or no knowledge of the positive effects of iTiedicines.
In the course of this work we shall see how certain of
Hahnemann's teachings begin to take effect, even in the
camp of his opponents.
Hufeland's journal was distinguished b}- the fact that in
it the combat was carried on with decency. Hufeland
himself seems to have zealously occupied himself with
homoeopathy for several years. In the year 1826 (St. i.
p. 20 u.f ) he thus formulates his views : —
Advantages of HonixopatJiy.
1. It calls attention to the necessary individualisation of
cases.*
2. It will help to give a proper importance to diet.
3. Will do away with large doses.
4. Will lead to simplicity in prescribing medicines.
5. " It will lead to a more exact testing and knowledge
of the effect of drugs on the living subject, as it has alread)'
done."
6. The homceopathic system will direct more attention
to the preparation of medicines and will lead to a stricter
supervision of the apothecaries.
7. It can never do positive harm.
8. It will give time to the diseased organism to recover
itself quietly and uninterruptedl}-.t
* This is a confession that medical men neglected this requisite, as
do the allopaths of our time.
f It gives the diseased organism the physiological impulse to cura-
tive action, without complicating the natural disease with a medicinal
disease.
Proposes a compromise. 193
9. " It will diminish in an extraordinary degree the
expense of treatment."
Disadvantages.
1. It may prevent rational treatment.*
2. Would have an injurious effect upon the study of
medicine, as was the case with the systems of Brown and
Broussais.t
3. Would cause sins of omission.:);
4. Would constitute an attack on the fundamental prin-
ciples of all good medical police.§
5. Deprives physicians by its maxims of their respect
for and trust in the healing power of Nature, to which, how-
ever, the homoeopath gives full play. (?)
Hufeland writes, in reference to the dispensing of medi-
cines by the physician : —
The writer by no means fails to recognise that there are two sides to
the question, and he believes that on this subject he is entitled to
give an opinion, as during the first ten years of his practice he dis-
pensed his medicines himself; it being then the custom in Weimar.
He knows by experience that a medical man gives medicines prepared
by himself with much greater certainty and confidence, and that while
preparing them many new and happy thoughts may strike him which
he can use for the benefit of his patients, just as they do every artist
who prepares the instruments of his own art The patient gains
by the diminution in expense ; indeed, he thinks that it may be ac-
cepted as a self-evident proposition, that it is more to the interest of
the physician to have reliable medicines, and his conscience is more
concerned in the matter than is the case with the apothecary'. But the
monopoly of the apothecaries offers, on the whole, greater security,|j
especially the check on doctors through their prescriptions.^ I ad-
vise a union in both these respects, so that the doctor should prepare
* What is rational ?
t Right for that time.
X Blood-letting and emetics!
§ The dispensing of medicines by the practitioner !
II The apothecary gains more money.
IT Are medical practitioners, then, conscienceless poisoners ? How
often do not the apothecaries make fatal mistakes, which would have
been impossible for the doctors.
194 SovietJiing good may be
his medicines, or cause them to be prepared, and should then give
them to the apothecary to dispense.*
The following is Hufeland's opinion concerning homoeo-
pathic preparations :
With regard to the purely dynamic effect of remedies as accepted
by homoeopaths, no one can believe more fully in that than the author,
as he has often expressed in his writings. That every effect produced
on the living" organism, and therefore also the effect of every remedy, is
an actio viva, has long been my principle That in the case of many
volatile substances an almost infinite divisibility, far beyond all ponder-
ability, is compatible with a continued efficacy is shown us in the case
of musk. A few grains of this substance are able to perfume the air
of a whole room, so that every atom smells of musk and must, there-
fore, contain some particles of musk, certainly not stronger than the
trillionth dilution, and yet the musk does not lose in weight. It has
long been observed in the case of ipecacuanha that the smallest doses,
iVth or tVth grain rubbed up with sugar, acquire very great and even
new powers. Might not then other volatile substances, particularly
narcotics, possess a similar, almost endless divisibility, and yet
continue to be able to act on the organism 1 This is certainly a
question that deserves investigation.!
To have been the first to call attention to the increase of efficacy
by the increase of the points of contact by solution in a fluid or by
long continued trituration, is undoubtedly a merit of Hahnemann's,
and deserves thanks.
In the same year (St. i, p. 29-60) a detailed account is
given of homoeopathic cures by Dr. Messerschmidt, of
Naumburg, and he pursues the subject later on in St.
2, pages 59-102. Rummel contributes a polemical article
on the homoeopathic side (St. 5, p. 57-74), and a longer
article on homoeopathy (St. 3, p. 43-74). Dr. Widnmann,
of Munich, blames the bad and praises the good sides
of homoeopathy (in the April number of 1827), and writes
on the same subject in 1828 (St. 2, p. 3-41).
In the year 1828, Dr. Ant. Fried. Fischer, of Dresden,
wrote an article in the same journal On some Defects of
AllopatJiy, with Remarks on the Homa^opathic Illethod of
TreatmentX
* Then patients exist for the benefit of the apothecary ?
t But still waits for it, as far as the allopaths are concerned.
\ Huf. fount., 1828, St. 2, p. 42-60.
learned from HonuvopatJiy. 195
There is first the subject of diet, to which the homoeo-
paths assert that allopathy does not give sufficient atten-
tion.
If we observe the practice of many allopaths, the discovery is in-
voluntarily forced upon us that frequently even where the therapeutic
treatment is most secundum artem, much too little attention is paid to
diet. This fact must have been often observed by every attentive and
impartial physician, for opportunities are not wanting, and this to such
a degree that this lack of attention to diet has often astonished even
thoughtful non-professionals, and has caused them to become converts
to Hahnemann's doctrines. In vain do we attempt to point out to
them the slippery and insecure foundation of his system, for they are
far too enlightened to credit any of our teaching with a firm and stable
foundation. What do our scientific explanations matter to them ?
they have seen how in a brief space of time one system succeeds
another ; how the a priori assumptions and assertions even of the
most learned doctors are quickly refuted by experience and shown to
be untrue. Attracted by the simplicity of homoeopathy, the practical
application of which is neither unpleasant to the palate nor burden-
some to the purse, the well regulated and strict diet enjoined by
homoeopathy induces them to lend a willing ear to the new doctrine.
This, however, they would not, according to the author,
have done, if allopaths had paid greater attention to diet —
a subject on which the author dilates. In the strict diet of
the adherents of the homoeopathic system we may see
" how powerful is the influence of physicians who are reso-
lute and confident in their principles and in themselves.
Even if it is entirely irrational, yet the very follies of
this school should admonish us to make an earnest search-
ing examination of our therapeutic treatment. And here
it may be mentioned that our pharmaceutical prescriptions
are much too composite. Only a few of us really strive
after simplicity in prescribing. Our prescriptions ought to
be chemically correct and as simple as possible, if they are
not to be the laughing stock of homoeopaths and the jest of
all well-educated people Until then we cannot be sur-
prised if educated laymen, and especially those who have a
knowledge of natural science, make merry over the viixtinii
conipositmn of our prescriptions The so-called magis-
tral formulas cannot be excluded from investigation Ps.
mode of treatment simplified in this manner would redound
to the credit of our art, and would prevent Hahnemann's
196 Neglect of Uood-letting the
bait from attracting any more deserters, and would contri-
bute to gain more respect for the art among thoughtful
students of medicine."
"The constant changing of medicines,'" the author con-
tinues, " is likewise a sign of indecision, and in this par-
ticular, too, we must learn from homoeopathy."
Homoeopaths do not bleed, and God only knows how they arrive
at the desired result in those cases where bleeding is the only mode by
which we can expect to save the patient ! There are many laymen
who do not like bleeding, and these go over to the homceopaths. We
must therefore obviate the necessity of blood-letting by means of a
regimen which does not conduce to the formation of blood We
possess in oxy-muriatic acid an agent best calculated to alter the
crasis of the blood and to subdue its orgasm ; but we must not be
sparing of it but must administer it in the greatest cjuantities as a
drink. It is a pity that this acid never quite loses its peculiar coaly
smell
Only thus does it seem to me to be possible to convince the
educated part of our fellow-citizens of the reliability of our method of
treatment
The medical man who acts according to homceopathic principles
prepares his medicaments to a great extent himself; it is most im-
portant to him that the simple remedies which he alone has brought
into use should not only be prepared with the greatest care, but
should also be promptly administered.
With us the preparation of medicines leaves much to be desired
The apothecary, therefore, should be an experienced chemist and a
good botanist, qualities which are not always found singly, much less
in combination, in the same person. This must be mended If we
had arrived at this, we also, like Hahnemann, should be able to give
our patient a guai'antee of the purity, excellence and freshness of our
medicines, and no longer would there be occasion for the witticisms of
those who are eager to find fault with the allopathic method of treat-
ment.
Hufeland then again expresses his opinion on the subject
of homoeopathy :
After repeated trials, and a careful collection of evidence, and after
proper consideration of the objections, I hold the same opinion con-
cerning it as I expressed two years ago.
I have seen many successful and indeed highly surprising cures
brought about by its means, chiefly in chronic nervous complaints,
where other kinds of treatment had been tried in vain.
But I have also seen unsuccessful cases, and many which lasted
longer and were more tedious than they would have been if other
modes of treatment had been employed
great sin of Homccopathy. 197
The chief fault to be found with it however is the neglect of those
two most important means of saving life — bleeding and emetics, which
it is impossible to replace, and for the neglect of which nothing can
afterwards make up.
The histories of two cases are given. A child had croup.
The homoeopath gave hep. sulph. and within twenty-four
hours the symptoms of croup disappeared, but the next day
capillary bronchitis supervened and the child died. " The
child would probably have lived if leeches had been applied
at the beginning by means of which the inflammatory
diathesis would have been stopped." (No one now would
agree with the honourable and well-intentioned Hufeland,
any more than they would recognise the correctness of the
following view): Another child had " erysipelas of the face,"
and this disappeared under homoeopathic treatment ; but an
abscess formed, it would " probably " have been prevented
by the application of leeches.
It would be as wrong to make homceopathy the universal system of
treatment, and not to use what is really good and true in it, as to dis-
card it altogether. Let us welcome it as a new method of curin
disease, but subordinate it to the approved rules of a rational mode
of treatment Let its task be to discover new specifics against
individual diseases No homoeopathic art of medicine, but a
homoeopathic method in rational medicine !
Dr. Fischer, of Dresden, quoted above, appears soon to
have altered his temperate view of homoeopathy into the
very opposite. He wrote in the following year (1829,
Dresden), an indignant pamphlet, entitled, Homceopathy
before the fudgment Seat of Common Sense. The good
recognised by the author a year before in Hufeland's
Journal^ has marvellously shrunk in this book, which is a
" text book of instruction for educated people," for, " even
among a public claiming to be highly educated, as is the
case in my beloved native town [Dresden, where among
other homoeopaths, Trinks and P. Wolf practised], homoeo-
pathy is making rapid and bold strides." "The most
shameless bragging of a boastful homoeopath."
Allopaths could not understand how homoeopaths can
be so shameless as to assert that many diseases can be
1^8 Germany disgraced hy being
more easily cured under homoeopathic treatment than
under the irrational treatment by blood-letting.
Notwithstanding all attacks on the philosophical elaboration of the
science of medicine, it stands firm and radiant in immortal ethereal
splendour in the everlasting mansion of sublime intelligence, shed-
ding forth life-giving and fertilising beams over all branches of know-
ledge and culture. That which prejudiced contemporaries dare to
mock at will be honoured and cherished by a wiser posterity, as con-
taining the ideas and principles of true wisdom.
He is indignant at the idea of dispensing with bleeding,
which is hallowed by the experience of lOOO years.
It is a humiliating and shameful thought that Saxony is the birth-
place of this false doctrine, and Dresden the principal arena of the
the homoeopaths. [The Leipzic allopaths were in the habit of com-
plaining that Leipzic was the chief scene of action of these " children
of darkness."] So much is undoubtedly true that the inhabitants of
Leipzic have pretty well got rid of these magical doctors, and they
would rather welcome black-a-moors than these genii. They have,
indeed, left there an evil odour behind them, but it will not be diffi-
cult for a Clarus to destroy it, as the salt works of Kosen are near
at hand, and it is easy to procure Nordhausen oil of vitriol (p. 7.)
According to Fischer homoeopathy proved a failure in
Vienna, although that city is not quite free from its con-
tamination. " The capital on the Spree alone is a laudable
exception to the rule, because the medical authorities there
are earnestly concerned to preserve the inhabitants of the
town from such fanfaronades ! Why do they not hasten
thither? Because they shun the light and wish to hide
behind the mask which would there be forcibly dragged
away ;" (in 1833 the spread of homoeopathy in Berlin is
lamented, consequently only four years later.) " The basis
of homoeopathy is furnished by bold and unprovable asser-
tions," and this is enforced by reference to the " heroes of
grey antiquity." A year before he had blamed the allo-
paths for not paying proper attention to diet, the prepara-
tion of medicines, &c., now in all these particulars they
are far superior to the homoeopaths. The author states
that he has already exposed the " follies" of the hom.oeo-
paths in a non-medical journal, the Dresdener Merkur.
We also once gave Hahnemann our appro\al when he first attempted
to ascertain the curative properties of various medicinal substances, and
the birtJi-place of Hoiua^opatJiy. 199
to open a new way for a just estimation of their powers, in the secon
and third vols, of the older Hufeland's Journal . [Why did he not
then publicly come forward on Hahnemann's side ? It was, in great
part, the indolence and indifference of his colleagues which embittered
Hahnemann against them].
From the following passage it appears that from the
beginning he did not rightly understand Hahnemann. He
continues : —
All the less can we allopaths be astonished that Dr. Hahnemann
and his adherents declare the medical traditions of thousands of years
to be deception and folly, scorn our knowledge, and do not trouble
themselves about the older medicine and its main doctrines Great
self-control is required to restrain one's pen.
When Hahnemann dares to deny the crises of diseases which no
school and no physician has ever ventured to dispute, which thou-
sands of physicians have recognised in their works, and which
millions of practitioners have witnessed at the sick bed, we can only
compassionate such an aberration of human intellect
I and other allopaths think nothing of experiments on senseless
animals.
The homoeopath can render no help when the efforts of Nature to
get rid of injurious matter are too violent, or on the contrary, when
Nature's efforts are too weak and ineffectual.
Homoeopathy is nonsense. "Hence, both English and
French look upon it as a chimera, and in those countries no
one thinks of trying it." (The author must soon have heard
the lament over the spread of the detested homoeopathy
beyond the Rhine and the Channel).
We have selected this article from among the multitude,
and gone into it more fully, because the author was a phy-
sician of repute, and because it is a type of most of the
other allopathic diatribes of this time, which constantly re-
peat themselves, and which it would be waste of time
and paper to examine individually.
Before we describe the quarrel in its further develop-
ments it is necessary to understand the
Medical Standpomt of the Opponents,
particularly with regard to blood-letting, emetics, and pur-
gatives, which Hahnemann so pitilessly attacked.
Dr. J. R. Bischoff, professor of clinical medicine, and
200 Blood-letting the sheet anchor
senior physician to the General Hospital at Prague, Con-
siderations on the medical treatment hitherto piwsned, and
on the first principles of the Jiomceopathic doctrine of disease.
Prague, 1819.
Page hi: Hippocrates would have saved many lives —
" it can be proved from his records of cases of disease " — if
he had employed " a cooling treatment, administered mild
purgatives and used derivatives and blood-letting."
At p. 126 and following, the author attacks Hahnemann's
statement : " Homoeopaths were much more successful than
the ordinary school, which, as has lately again become the
fashion, on theoretical grounds advises only the so-called
antiphlogistics and merciless blood-letting,* and does a
monstrous deal of harm thereby."
Bischoff appeals to the sense of duty and to the con-
science of physicians, " to the approved experience of cen-
turies," and to Hahnemann's own instructor, Quarin.
No harm had ever arisen from a right employment of
bleeding, but " great good has been done by it."
Out of 197 patients, who suffered from inflammation of
the lungs and the pleura, only ten died in his hands (as all
his students could testify), and of these ten four suffered
from phthisis, and three were victims to mistakes in diet.
Neglect of blood-letting produces chronic disease ; he had
bled two women of eighty-one and ninety-seven years
respectively with favourable results. He, in conjunction
with a friend, bled a strong man twelve times in three
days and a-half, taking a pound of blood each time,
and " after the twelfth time profuse bleeding from the nose
ensued twice, and the blood still showed a marked in-
flammatory coat. Nature gave thus the most convinc-
ing proof that not an ounce too much blood had been
taken. In six weeks the patient was entirely restored
More especially in haemoptysis and pulmonary apo-
plexy, in certain cases of nervous diseases and many
other affections, blood-letting is often the only saving
remedy." The true physician should not suffer himself to
* He is alluding to the treatment of pneumonia.
of Scientific Lledicine. 201
be deterred from the repetition of blood-letting when it is
seen to be necessary, " by the lamentations of the by-
standers, who look askance at this proceeding " ; he must
conquer himself and think of the words of Hahnemann,
although they refer to the very opposite set of circum-
stances :
" The oak garland bestowed on us by a good conscience
rewards us a thousand-fold for such self-conquests."
Prof Puchelt* " agrees entirely " with Bischoff. The
Med. chir. Zeitting also (1820 I. p. 93, 84) declares itself to
be in accord with Bischoff's views about bleeding.
Prof. Heinroth expresses the following views in the Anti-
Organon. Leipzig, 1825.
We must begin by stating that Heinroth was a physician
of note. '* This great mind, who would measure himself
with his intelligence?" says a certain Kreisphysicus Dr.
Wesener.f Mention is made of the " learned Heinroth " in
Schmidt's JaJirbiicJicrX and in many other places, and this
Anti-Organon is also spoken of as " Heinroth's classical
work." He is not unknown to the history of medicine.
Pages 52 and 53: — What becomes of experience in Hahnemann's
observations of patients if he did not find bleeding of great use in
inflammation of the lungs ?
Page 94 -. — The author would acknowledge the principle
of similars in emetics for over-loaded stomachs, copious
blood-letting for headaches, palpitation of the heart, &c.,
in the absence of that natural remedy, epistaxis. Hahne-
mann does not admit this : "What are we to infer from
that ? That all physicians without exception, even the most
talented and successful, have acted in a senseless and
thoughtless manner." This will give the reader some idea
of the " irresistible logic and the classical style in which
* Hufeland's/<7?^r;zrt;/, 1819, St. 6, p. 11, note,
t Hufeland'sy^//T;?rt/, 1828, p. 69.
X Vol. 7, p. 106.
202 Contvaria contrariis the
Hcinroth grapples with and throws his opponent ; he first
assumes the truth of Hahnemann's principles, and then
logically demonstrates the absurdities to which they lead."
Page 99 : — How salutary' are the-above-mentioned leeches, cupping,
blisters, &€. Where does Hahnemann mention these remedies ? And
even venesection ! Is Herr Hahnemann not an avowed enemy of
this great remedy? Do we not see the most exhausting haemor-
rhages arrested by bleeding to syncope?
Page 181 : — We can therefore say that the great therapeutic
principle is coiitraria contrariis.
Freiherr von Wedekind, Pi'iifting des Jio^ndopatJiiscJieii
Systems. Darmstadt, 1825 :
Page 49 : — I am perhaps the only living writer who am a pure
materialist in contradistinction to Hahnemann.
He combats both here and in Hufeland's Jo2irnal, 1828,
Hahnemann's dynamism, respecting which the opinions of
homoeopaths themselves are sufficiently known.
Page 56 : — The beneficial effects of blood-letting and
emetics, &c., are spoken of " I should like to know what
physician would not retire from practice if he were obliged
to renounce even the employment of purgatives." He then
exclaims : " I should like to ask whether the acknowledged
impossibility of foregoing the use of evacuating medicines
and bleeding is not the most convincing proof of the worth-
lessness of Hahnemann's doctrine in practical medicine ? "
Page 132 : — How on earth could the learned and renowned
Hahnemann fall into the error of promulgating such a doctrine, and
how could he be so audacious as to speak in such disparaging temis
of the physicians who lived 3000 years before him, and of his con-
temporaries ?
Wedekind was one of the most distinguished physicians
of his day, a disciple of Fr. Hoffmann, and a pupil and
friend of L. Hoffmann, the iatro-chemist.
Dr. Fr. Groos, Court Physician to the Grand Duke of
Baden, Ueber das JionidopatJiisclie Heilprincip. Heidelberg.
1825.
true tJierapentic rule. 203
Page 24 : — Is there any other method of treating true inflamma-
tory fevers of such universal application, and yielding such good results
as Sydenham's antiphlogistic method ? where, therefore, the principle
C07jtraria contraj'iis leads to a radical cure.
Sydenham was, as is well known, a great advocate of
bleeding.
Groos strove to pronounce an impartial judgment :
The principles contraria contrariis and similia similibiis have each
their unqualified application, each in suitable cases will conduce to a
radical cure.
Page 36 : — Homoeopathy will become an extremely valuable and
integral part of medicine and will remain a treasure-house of noble
and original ideas.
But his beloved venesections, emetics and purgatives
formed a party-wall which separated him from Hahnemann,
as it did so many of his other opponents.
Mijckisch, Die Honwopatliie in Hirer Wiirde, &c. Vienna,
1826 : MiJckisch was director of the second Hospital for
Children's Diseases of Vienna.
Page i : — Medicine has incontestably made important progress
towai'ds perfection in the nineteenth century ; whereby with the
greatest possible certainty it protects the lives of generations and saves
them from premature death by the innumerable host of diseases. But
it has only attained this high position as a science of experience,,
moulded and regulated by rational criticism.
Page 41 : — The universal organic law of nature is contraria con-
trariis.
Page 53 : — Intimately conversant with children's diseases for
fifteen years I have treated a thousand such children with derivative
and revulsive remedies, or, in other cases, with purgatives and ene-
mata, or emetics, or blood-letting, or by re-establishing eruptions
which had been driven inwards by means of artificial cutaneous irri-
tants, and have almost always obtained a rapid and permanent cure.
Page 60 : — In cases of atony of the stomach and of the prinur
vice from quantitative indigestion, manifested by stomach-ache, head-
ache, spasms, oppression of breathing, vertigo, &c., should we not
give an emetic, which is the approved remedy for these sufferings ?
Page 72 : — Thousands and thousands of persons suffering from
inflammation of the lungs have been quickly and permanently cured
by blood-lettings in sufficient quantity and frequency, but we never
imagined that artificial bleeding and antiphlogistic agents of all kinds
cure in such cases by similarity of symptoms. Nature herself often
cures antipathically inflammation of the brain by spontaneous bleeding
from the nose and inflammations of the abdomen by metrorrhagia.
204 Seignarc^ purgare,
^
Pages 93 and 94 :— We quarrel most with Hahnemann for his
neglect of purgatives and emetics, for we have regarded them as
accredited remedies in obstructions, gastric crudities, material hypo-
chondriases, and generally in accumulations of unassimilable matters
and such like, because when indicated our patients made speedy and
permanent recoveries through their employment.
Page 95 : — Time, which tries all doctrines, will show whether by
the general acceptance of homceopathy all purgatives and emetics may
be dispensed with, for hitherto they have proved the most indispen-
sable and salutary remedies in material diseases of the digestive
system caused by our modes of living.
Elias, Homoopathische Gurkennwnate. Halle, 1827:
Page 42 : — The fact that it allows patients suffering from inflam-
matory diseases to be suffocated in their blood is no very brilliant
proof of the harmlessness of homoeopathy.
Page 44 : — Homoeopathy is only innocuous in three out of a
hundred cases in which it is employed, i. Because, though the pre-
vailing morbid character may not be absolutely inflammatory but
either purely catarrhal, bilious, gastric, nervous or complicated, still
plenty of cases occur in which bleeding either general or local is in-
dispensable ; and some chronic diseases, particularly dropsies com-
bined with great weakness, in my experience and that of other phy-
sicians (and it is perhaps worth as much as that of the homoeopaths)
sometimes require general bleeding, and cannot be cured without it.
2. Because it ignores the periculum in mora. 3. For a hundred
other reasons.
Fischer, Dresden. Op. at. 1824.
Page 3 : — Complete ignoring of the aid afforded by Nature, of the
real essential important vis incdicatrix naturcE neglect of remedies
found to be valuable during thousands of years, e.g.., bleeding, which
no school, by whatever name it was called, could ever dispense with,
much less reject as useless, superfluous and injurious.
Pages 3 and 4 : — An impudent and inexcusable attempt to reject
to the injury of humanity as erroneous and false the therapeutics
which rests upon experience the edifice erected by the most dis-
tinguished thinkers of all ages and nations, which possesses an inestim-
able wealth of experience and can show the votive tablets of millions of
cured patients, could only be exchanged for a system that should earn
the undivided approbation of all adepts in the art — a system which we
could hardly expect to get from gods, never from men.
Page 10 : — It is exceedingly unlikely that homoeopathy can cer-
tainly and radically cure active inflammations without bleeding.
Page 31 : — Magistral formulas and mixtures devised by distin-
guished practitioners cannot be altered by conscientious medical men.
clysteTutni donare. 205
Page 40 : — Only a cold-blooded wretch could see without indigna-
tion how Hahnemann has ridiculed and disparaged the old school of
medicine, and looked down with pride and contempt upon those
mighty spirits who have earned immortal honours for their services
to the art of preserving life.
Page 54 :— The depreciation and disparagement of a Hahnemann
and his confederates cannot rob us of the trophies we have won in
the treatment of acute and chronic diseases.
Page 76 : —Among the higher and more wealthy class of citizens
where the efforts of nature to cure are either too violent or too power-
less for obvious reasons homoeopathy seldom succeeds.
Page 80 : — It is obvious that the homoeopath, unless he secretly
employs allopathic methods, cannot cure certainly and radically those
inflammations which are called acute, phlogistic or sthenic. For in
these cases commensurate bleeding can alone obviate the excessive
reaction, the application of cold to the surface of the body alone can
reduce the temperature to the normal, and a sufficient quantity of
medicines containing oxygen alone can restore the disordered res-
piratory process, otherwise the disease will suddenly paralyse all the
functions like a narcotic poison, and hfe will go out in ardent heat !
Anyone who, in cases like this, where the life hangs by a thread
and the great danger demands instant and copious abstraction of
blood, plays with the life of a fellow-creature by the culpable neglect
of what is essential, and in the spirit of Hahnemann employs neither
general nor local bleeding, nor the absolutely indispensable anti-
phlogistic method, has no claim to the name of a conscientious physi-
cian.
Page 81 : — The author can speak from personal experience ; more
than once his existence has depended solely upon an immediate em-
ployment of venesection, and he has experienced how every moment the
blood pressed more and more upon the central organs and increased
the danger to the highest degree ; after the commencement of the
venesection, and while the foaming blood was flowing, he at once felt
a return of bodily and mental vigour to its normal condition ! Only
those who have been in equal danger can realise how entirely at such
moments the life depends upon the lancet, and that no known agent
can replace venesection. Unfortunately cases are not wanting where
homoeopaths have unexpectedly lost their patients by their criminal
neglect of bleeding, or have been the cause of their becoming hope-
lessly paralysed.
Page 82 : — If the followers of Hahnemann boast that they have
sometimes cured cases of acute inflammation we are justified in
believing that they used deception and employed allopathic medi-
cines.
Page 84 : — And how disastrous are the results of the neglect of
bleeding ! if the patient is not at once killed, it is all the worse for
2o6 HovuvopatJis are fools,
him, for he falls into a rapid or slow cachexia, which kills him in
an exceedingly painful manner — and in the face of this the homoeo-
pathic school pretend to dispense with bleeding ! they, forsooth, boldly
and impudently declare that they treat their patients, indifferent to
consequences, according to the caprice of a man whose sole delight is
in contradictions, who, untroubled by the evil he does, strives only to
act in direct opposition to the experience of looo years.
Woe to those who suffer from inflammation of the brain, liver,
lungs, spleen or stomach, from croup, pleurisy^, pericarditis, periton-
itis, enteritis, cystitis or metritis ! they will obtain no relief or even
alleviation from homceopaths ; it is in these cases that the homoeopath
as we have often observed) deceives the patient, and in the anxiety
of his heart resorts to allopathic treatment.
We are always deeply distressed when we are assured that inflam-
mation of the lungs has been rapidly and agreeably cured by a
homoeopath without recourse to bleeding ! In such cases we always
wish that it may be a false report, and that some good-natured person
has been persuaded to testify to it.
This amiable confession is indeed worthy of thanks, and
deserves to be noted.
Page 6i: — Homoeopathy must appear to every rational being to be
the excrement of a mind whose brain has suffered decomposition in
ihe living body.
We cannot here subjoin Hufeland's opinions, as ex-
pressed in his Journal in 1830, and in a separate treatise,
Die Homdopathie* published, in 1 831, by Reimer of Berlin,
without a feeling of sorrow at the unfortunate aberration
of a man who had spent a long life in disinterested labour
for the benefit of humanity.
Page 9 : — It may be permitted to an old man to look at things in
a light different from that in which they are regarded by eager j^outh.
One is placed in quite a peculiar position, when one has already
lived through several ages of human life in the domain of science
and witnessed so many meteors arise, dazzle and disappear ; so many
systems, each of which professed to be the sole true one, thoroughly
exploded.
Page 12 : — I made a declaration to this effect in the Journal
fiir praktisclie HcilkiDide in 1826 [known to the reader] : "Time will
show."
Page 22: — Among these are first the contraria conirariis No
one will deny that excess of blood can be removed by abstrac-
tion of blood.
Translated in B.J. of H., Vol. XVI., p. 177.
criminals and uuirderers. 207
Page 30 : — But thereby the vital germ of inflammation is not dis-
troyed ; this blood-letting alone can effect.
Page 23 : — Who is there who has not witnessed the excellent
effect of purgatives of cutaneous irritants, of issues? the im-
mense experience of thousands of years.
Page 38 : — How I wish my feeble voice could be heard like
thunder ! What, as regards chronic, not dangerous cases, may l^e
a permitted, temporizing, indifferent, easily remedied treatment, in
such cases becomes a crime. He, who out of fanatical regard for his
mode of treatment, when life is at stake neglects to use the remedies
which a thousand years' experience has proved to be the best ; he
who, for example, omits blood-letting when the patient is in danger of
being suffocated in his own blood, in cases of pneumonia, apoplexy,
encephalitis and generally in inflammations of important oi'gans, and
death, or some chronic, incurable disease ensues — such a one has the
sin of blood-guiltiness on his conscience, which if he do not im-
mediately feel it, will some day weigh painfully upon him, when the
intoxication of fanaticism shall have passed away — such a man is
doomed by justice to punishment, if not by an earthly, yet certainly
by a higher ti'ibunal ; for he is a murderer by omission, just as
much as he who sees his neighbour in danger of drowning and refuses
to pull him out of the water.
Simon, 6". HaJineuiann, Pscudovicssias. Hamburg, 1830.
Page 140 : — So for example, there can be no doubt that, especially
in cases of hereditary predisposition to consumption, an occasional
venesection and issues on the arm are the best means of preventing
its development and of retarding its progress. Every experienced
practitioner has had in his own practice instances of this, and of such
a convincing character that none of the nonsense of the Organist [so
he calls Hahnemann] can upset or even shake it.
Page 297 : — If for instance, on rare occasions, a considerable
pneumonia recovers without venesection, that is a rai-a avis., nigra
siinillima cygno; for, as a rule, when an energetic antiphlogistic treat-
ment is omitted, the patient becomes consumptive or soon dies of
pulmonary apoplexy.
Simon, Geist der Honwopathie. Hamburg, 1833.
Page 25 : — We strive to moderate the congestion of important
organs, partly by diminishing the mass of blood, and partly by agents
which control the circulation and divert it from the implicated organs.
In Simon's Anti-Jionwopath. ArcJiiv (1835 Heft HI. p.
120) a physician says: "The reviewer would be afraid of
doing something very superfluous if he tried to demonstrate
the universally admitted advantages of bleeding, and the
methodus evacuans." Every number of this journal, \\hich
2o8 Without shedding of blood
worthily represents the allopathic style of polemics, affords
similar instances of views expressed in the same tone.
This is Simon's opinion of Hahnemann's intellect : " He
is always the same unreliable ignoramus, both in medicine
and in science." *
An anonymous writer, Winider der Hovidopatliie. Leip-
^^'g. 1833-
Page 60 : — True inflammation of the lungs cannot be cured with-
out venesection
Page 61 : — Homoeopathic swindlers and accoucheurs with their
confederates and accomplices.
Page 64 : — Nature has many ways and means of remedying
disorders of the organism, and the investigation of these ways and
their application in suitable cases is the task of medical science.
Nature relieves plethora of blood by haemorrhages ; the accumulation
of peccant matters in, and the overloading of, the alimentary canal she
relieves by spontaneous evacuations without the aid of art She
combats inflammation by suppuration and gangrene by inflammation.
Page 69 and 70 : — That chronic diseases often follow the suppres-
sion of itch was well known to all physicians, and Hahnemann need
not have transcribed 13 pages from the writings of others in order to
prove it, unless his love of lucre induced him to do this in order to
increase his honorarium.
Page i i i : — This is the weak side of homoeopathy ; it endangers
the recuperation of the- organs, the health and life itself by its neglect
of general and local blood-letting.
At the end of this work we read : " Let everyone now
draw his own conclusions as to which side truth lies on."
Dr. Zeroni, Hofrath of the Grand Duke of Baden, Ueber
Heilhuide, AlloopatJiie tuid HomdopatJiie. Mannheim, 1834.
Page 23 : — In this disease (scarlet fever) the greatest dangers can
be obviated by the employment of the well-known and approved
remedies of medicine, among which bleeding occupies the first place.
Pages 25 and 26 : — The author repeatedly speaks of the
necessity of blood-letting in scarlet fever.
Page 27 : — Unprejudiced observation shows that in dysentery all
the symptoms of the disordered bowels often disappear after vene-
section.
Page 31 : — One or more venesections are often necessary in
dysentery.
* Anti-hoiii. Archn\ I., H. 2, p. 25.
tJiere is no Salvation. 209
Page 32 : — Venesection is often necessary in dysentery to save
life the homoeopath allows the patient to die.
Page 35 : — True inflammations, if left to themselves, end in death.
Page 36 : — In true inflammatory fever the patient will die if not bled
in time.
Page yj : — In inflammation of the lungs the patient cannot be saved
except by large and repeated blood-lettings.
Pages 39 and 40 : — I once saw suppuration and adhesion follow
pleurisy and blamed myself for not having taken enough blood I
advise homoeopaths to take particular pains to learn the diagnosis
of inflammation of the lungs and pleurae and especially of inflamma-
tory fever.
Pages 45 and 46 : — In my experience patients after recovery from
intermittent fever in our climate should not leave the house for at least
twenty days. [Hahnemann recommends as much fresh air as
possible.] — I have drawn attention to the importance of venesection,
purgatives and tonics.
Page 63 : — It may now be generally assumed that the homoeopaths
have not the smallest knowledge of true medicine the observations
of the most remarkable men of the day experience venesection.
Page 76 : — The homoeopath is not a physician ; he does not know
the means by which life may be saved.
Conclusion : Let us hope that good sense will some day triumph
over medical prejudices I
C. A. Eschenmayer, Professor in Tubingen. Die All'oo-
patJdc unci Honioopathie. Tiibingen, 1834.
Page 39 : — In cases of general orgasm, depleting agents, and
venesection must be quickly employed in order to control reaction.
There are material hindrances to the operation of the vital force,
such as accumulations of bile, mucus, lymph, worms and excrements,
which must be removed by emetics and purgatives.
Page 61 : — When the action of a pernicious irritation is dimin-
ished by bleeding, depleting agents and blisters, who would look for
a drug disease here ?
The author pronounces an objective judgment on homoeo-
pathy, and acknowledges many of its advantages.
Page 30 : — I agree with Hahnemann that a great reduction to sim-
pler principles is required, and particularly to such as have a practical
value, and that the whole array of hypotheses should be abandoned
to oblivion, &c.
Page yj : — How can the uncertainty with regard to the action of
drugs be removed ? Only by proving them on the healthy, and then
seeking for a principle by which they may be applied in disease.
Hahnemann adopted this plan and discovered the principle. Only in
14
210 HomocopatJiy Jias its merits.
this way can we obtain specific medicines, and this is the goal for
which medicine should strive.
Page 47 : — As Newton was led to the discovery of the law of gravity
by the fall of an apple, so Hahnemann after a few experiments was led
to this thought : are not those drugs which produce certain condi-
tions in the healthy capable of curing the same symptoms in the sick ?
Many observations tended to confirm the truth of this thought, and
Hahnemann now undertook the great experiment with a perseverance
and intelligence from which we cannot withhold our admiration.
Page 100: — The homoeopathists, and chief among them their mas-
ter, confess that they are unable to explain how atoms of medicines
still display striking effects on the organism. Still such is truly the
case, and at least 400 physicians confirm it by their own experience.
Even Dr. Kopp, the unprejudiced critic of homoeopathy, is from his
own experience so convinced of the efficacy of the 30th dilution that
he is ready to testify to it on his oath.
Page 38 : — Homoeopathy is so thoroughly based on experience, that
to deny this betrays either ignorance, caprice, prejudice, indolence or
fear of the new system.
Page 134: — Homoeopathy was founded by a man who has the
fullest right to lead physicians on a new path. It has already formed
a school which contains many hundreds of worthy adherents, we
should therefore allow it full scope.
Pages 98 and 99: — Confesses that before Hahnemann
physicians neglected diet.
Prof. Dr. Riecke, also of Tubingen, gave an address on
September 27th, 1833, the birthday of the King, in which
he expresses the following views : *
In time homoeopaths will return to bleeding As homccopathy
now stands it is so replete with scientific contradictions, so full of
illogical conclusions, that it can have no future before it as a system.
It is nevertheless quite wrong to regard it as a phenonemon of no im-
portance. It has attacked allopathy on its weakest side, that is, its
materia medica, has drawn attention to the monstrous defects of our
medicine, and a total reform can no longer be postponed As yet
no university has taken any notice of homoeopaths. In Leipzic a private
hospital was established. The student must therefore study homoeo-
pathy in its literature, which embraces more than threehundred volumes
for and against, none of which will be found in the libraries of the
universities. No mere ephemeral sect has ever possessed such a
literature.
The homoeopathic physician must absolutely prepare his drugs him-
* Alii;. An::, d. Dcutscheu, 1834, p. 42SS.
HoiiKTOpathy has no merits. 211
self, which considering their simpHcity is not difficult. As all homoeo-
pathic medicines have neither chemical reactions, colour, taste nor
smell, there are absolutely no conceivable means of assuring oneself
of their genuineness except by the physician preparing them him-
self. The preparation of his medicines by himself is therefore a
conditio sine qua non for the homoeopathic physician.
Prof. F. G. Gmelin (with Eschenmayer and Riecke the
third Tubingen Professor who wrote about homoeopathy
between 1834 and 1835) Kritik der Principien der Houwo-
patJiie. Tubingen, 1835.
Page 63 : — It is a well-known fact that a wound will not heal, takes
on a bad appearance and may become serious if round worms
are present in the intestinal canal. When the worms have been ex-
pelled it at once heals. StoU observed something similar during an
epidemic of biliary fever. Trifling wounds would not heal, excited
serious symptoms, but at once became benignant and healed when
the bile was evacuated by means of an emetic.
Page 64 : — Very few physiologists now-a-days deny that the blood
is living matter ; nevertheless an undue quantity of it is often a great
obstacle to its proper circulation and interferes with the free activity of
the vital force.
Page 92 : — In this way, for example, laxatives relieve headaches
and diuretics lung and heart affections. As the greatest danger to the
patient lies in the concentration of the morbid action in one organ,
its diffusion through several organs will be of material benefit in
serious cases.
Page 60 : — The old school can pride itself on having advanced to
such perfection in the knowledge and treatment of many serious
diseases, incurable as a rule when left to themselves, as, for instance,
important inflammations, particularly of the lungs and brain, acute
hydrocephalus, croup, general syphilis, &c., that it will certainly cure
the great majority of these.
Page 65 : — If the blood is excessive in quantity or consistence, the
circulation, and therefore lifeitself is in jeopardy, just as the mechanical
occlusion of the windpipe instantly kills even the strongest man. In
these cases spontaneous or artifical bleeding, as is well known, restores
to health an apparently dying man. Hahnemann entirely denies that
the blood is ever in excessive quantity.
Page 243 : — Homoeopathy denies the oldest and best recognised
maxims, e.g., the employment of bleeding in true inflammations, of
emetics where there is excessive quantity of bile.
Page 239 : — In all medical systems, however they may dift'er amongst
themselves, the necessity of blood-letting in true inflammations, and
of emetics in biliousness is recognised — homoeopathy is almost (?) the
only exception.
212 Hahnemann a fool or a madman.
Prof. L. W. Sachs, director of the Dispensary at
Konigsberg. Die HomoopatJiie 7ind Herr Kopp^ Leipzig,
1834, says (page 4) that he had been asked by the BerHn
Society for Scientific Criticism to write a review of the
works of both sides.
Page 240: — P. Frank's remark concerning the therapeutics of in-
flammation of the lungs " vitas sors unica ex cuspide hceret lanceolas,"
is the simple truth.
Page 245-247 : — Kopp recounts a case of speedy cure of pleurisy
without bleeding, under homoeopathic treatment.
Page 247 : — I repeat that the circumstances were not as related by
Herr Kopp, and that the facts of the case were not as he represents
them.
Such cures without bleeding could not be scientifically
explained, therefore they did not occur.
Judgment upon Hahnemann :
Page 61 : — As is always the case with limited intellects and
ignorant men, he has not here, and has never elsewhere, succeeded
in emancipating himself from the barren abstraction of his vain
speculations.
As he was previously acknowledged to be a man of ordinary
sense, he ought to be examined in reference to his morbid aberra-
tions in short he must be handed over to a sensible mad doctor,
(conclusion page 26.)
Hahnemann has always shown himself deficient in logical rea-
soning.
Hahnemann's article in Hufeland's Journal., Bd. 4 [the reader
knows it] shows his inability to fundamentally grasp a simple idea,
and pursue it consistently back and onwards ; and this article is the
best he ever wrote {ib. page 57).
Stieglitz* calls Prof. Sachs " a highly talented author."
Lockner, Die HomoopatJiie in iJit'er Nichtigkeit, 1835.
Page 34: — The homoeopath will not bleed as the numerous
wretched victims everywhere where conscientious homoeopaths are
allowed to pursue their course uninterrupted show. [This is an appeal
for interference by the State].
Lesser, Die HomoopatJiie, Berlin, 1835.
To the doctor of medicine, who in the year 1935 shall be professor
of history in the medical faculty of Berlin, the author dedicates this
in the year 1835.
* Die HoinckpafJu'c, Hanover, 1835, p. 198.
Hahnemann on Allopathy. 213
Page 34:— Rational medicine (this designation was first used
by Hufeland in \i\% Journal in 1828, in contradistinction to homoeo-
pathy) not in order to characterise homoeopathy as irrational, but
only to intimate that allopathy treats logically and homoeopathy by
analogy [a distinction which the homoeopaths energetically repudiated.
The homoeopath, Dr. Attomyr, held that for more than 100 years
the word "rational," as now used by allopaths, was derived from
rations, e.g., as one now speaks of large or small rations for horses ;
this made the allopaths very angry.] Rational medicine guides the
vis medicatrix, and seizes the reins of unintelligent nature when
it sees her wandering from the road and causing disaster.
Page 144: — In order to prove that homeopathy neglects
rational treatment the well-known passage of Hufeland is
quoted : " He who neglects bleeding when life is at stake
when the patient is in danger of being suffocated in
his own blood, and death occurs, has the sin of blood-
guiltiness on his conscience deserves punishment by the
law is a murderer by omission," &c.
After the author has communicated some statistics
referring to his own military hospital, which "prove" that
bleeding is indispensable, he proceeds to quote Hahnemann's
own words,* to show his utter futility :
It is incomprehensible how the allopaths can consider it a great
sin if, in inflammatory diseases, e.g.., pleurisy and pneumonia, blood
be not drawn off and that repeatedly and in large quantity. But if
this is an efficacious sort of method, how can they reconcile it with
the fact that of all who die in a year, a sixth part of the whole num-
ber dies under them of inflammatory affections, as their own statistics
prove ? not one twelfth of them would have died had they not fallen
into such sanguinary hands [this agrees strikingly with the subse-
quent statistics of the Vienna experiments], had they but been left to
nature, and kept aloof from that old pernicious art. Hundreds and
thousands more die miserably every year, the most promising youths
of the country, in the flower of their age — of wasting, consumption
and ulceration of the lungs. You have their deaths on your con-
science ! for is there one among you who has not laid the seeds
for it by your fine mode of treatment, by your senseless blood-lettings
and your antiphlogistic appliances in a previous inflammation of
the lungs, which must thereby inevitably turn into pulmonary con-
sumption and prove fatal ? This irrational antipathic, barbarous
mode of treating pneumonia, by numerous venesections, leeches,
and debilitating remedies (called by you antiphlogistics) yearly
* Allopathy. See Lesser Writings, p. 830.
214 Prophecies of the dire effects of
sends thousands to the grave by fever from deprivation of the
forces, dropsy and ulceration of the lungs ! Truly an excellent
privileged mode of quietly destroying wholesale the very flower of
mankind.
After the lapse of fifty years, the professor will agree
with us that Lesser could have hit upon no more unfortunate
plan of demonstrating the utter futility of Hahnemann's
doctrines than that of contrasting Hufeland's and Hahne-
mann's expressed opinions.
Page 175, the house physician prescribes venesection " the
old lady," neglects his advice and consults a homoeopath ;
naturally she subsequently died of apoplexy " in the first
year of her homoeopathic career."
This is apparently the same lady mentioned in an article
by Griesselich in the AUgemeine Jiomoopath. Zeitg*
The report disseminated by South German Journals, that homoeo-
pathy is to be prohibited throughout the whole of Prussia in con-
sequence of an unfortunate case that occurred in Berlin, turns out
from information given by Stiiler to be false. The death of an old
lady who had long been treated with all manner of stimulants and
counter-irritants, who was treated first by Hofrath Recher, and then
after much persuasion by Stiiler, and who suffered from asthma, after-
wards complicated by a paralytic stroke, for which the world would
have wished to see her bled, probably gave rise to this report, which
Avas received with much jubilation by the physicians here [Karlsruhe].
Page 182 :— Lesser continues : I know that there are acute diseases
in which bleeding must be resorted to as soon as possible and that
very copiously in order to save life I also know that, in many cases,
if it is postponed for ten or twelve hours, nothing can repair its
neglect ; I know that occasionally large venesections, of 30 to 40
ounces {i-iyi pounds) are of the greatest service, and that in many
cases such repeated bleedings may be necessary. I know, &c., &c.
Page 184 : — When once the facetious Attomyr's youthful blood
shall cease to effervesce so much, a less amount of vapour will be
generated in his brain-pan, and when he then comes to his senses he
will have recourse to blood-letting.
Page 188: — Many an inflammation passes into mortification
especially when treated by a homoeopath. Such unfavourable results
ensue because either no blood is drawn, or bleeding is not practised with
sufficient vigour or sufficiently early Inflammatory diseases are no
doubt not always followed immediately by death, but death often ensues
* Vol. III., p. 40, 1883.
discarding Phlebotomy. 215
slowly by adhesions, exudations, thickenings, contractions, indurations,
obstructions, ulcerations, and other sequelae of the inflammatoiy
disease. All these evils would be avoided, and many tedious suffer-
ings and dyscrasias prevented, if the homoeopath would only bleed.
Pages 191, 218, 227, 234, and 243, contain similar state-
ments about bleeding, which will not be without interest
for the professor of the year 1935.
Page 34 Note : — Lesser shows that he agrees with
Simon in regarding Hahnemann as " a gross ignoramus in
medicine and in science."
In 1836, Professor Most,* in his article HovwopatJiie,
quotes Hufeland's words: "Voice of thunder crime
murderers the law should take cognisance of it
" and adds : "Thus Hufeland. May his warnings be
taken to heart by every physician."
Up till the year 1840, seldom did an anti-homoeopathic
work appear which did not violently reproach homoeo-
pathy for its rejection of blood-letting, &c. We will spare
the reader the perusal of extracts from all of them. We
shall only cite a few more authors to show the kind of
medical arguments with which they sought to crush
Hahnemann.
Hofrath and Leibmedicus Holscher, of Hanover, speaks
in 1840,1 of "the tooth of time which is eating away
homoeopathy," thinks that homoeopaths will return to
bleeding, and thereupon makes the following observa-
tion : " It is a copsoling fact in the history of medicine
that it gives us so many proofs that we cannot be deprived
of really useful salutary measures, either by juggling or
quackery, or the efforts of isolated imposters or their dupes."
Another author, whom we must trouble the reader with,
is Dr. Leopold von Windish, first physician of the Royal
Free-town Pesth, Director of the town hospital of St. Roch,
&c., &c. Schmidt's y«/^r^«c//^r, 1836. Vol. 9, p. 224:
The frequently occurring acute rheumatic fevers and inflammations
of the chest require antiphlogistic treatment often in the same
* Encyclopddie der Medicin, 2nd edit., Leipzig, 1S36, p. 1045.
t Hanttover'sche Annalen fiir die gcsammtc Heilkzindc, Bd. V., p.
865.
2i6 Hoinceopaths all rogues and liars.
patient at short intervals, eight or more copious venesections must be
performed [the interpretation of the word " copious '' is left to the imag-
ination] The cruoris always covered by a thick and tough coat
[this was the scientific proof of the necessity of bleeding] We
should not be chary of bleeding, for we have seen such patients,
treated according to such fallacious and mischievous doctrines
[homoeopathy to wit] without blood-letting, die a frightful death from
suffocation [the author carefully omits reference to any particular case].
Verily I should despise myself, if I could be so lost to shame as
that I should communicate to the medical world fictitious cases invented
by myself and not observed at the bedside ; particularly in our days
when, owing to the unhappy schism introduced by homoeopathy into
medicine, not only every rational practitioner, who when it is required
bleeds his patients, is denounced, but also, owing to the various opinions
caused thereby among physicians as well as laymen of all degrees, dis-
putes, quarrels, enmities and even persecutions are excited, and a war to
the knife declared ; all of which would never have occurred had not the
founder of homceopathy pretended to have obtained the mastery over
nature, into whose secrets no created being has penetrated, to mould
its eternal laws, which are unknown to him as to all mortals, accord-
ing to his fancy to mislead so many educated and uneducated
people by sophistry, falsehood and cunning.
Can anything more dangerous or irrational be conceived than what
homoeopathy teaches concerning bleeding.'' which condemns the
physician who, in sthenic inflammations of the parenchyma and pleura
of the lungs, and at a time when only a thin partition divides life from
death, can only save the patient by the lancet ? — which confidently
maintains that these diseases can be cured with greater certainty and
rapidity by its remedies without recourse to the murderous fleam. I
do not know which to admire most in this homoeopathic doctrine, its
founder's ignorance or his presumption As long as I do not
myself see these wonderful homoeopathic cures, I shall continue to dis-
believe them, the more so as I have seen in our hospital several cases
of inflammation of the lungs treated homceopathically, that is to say,
without bleeding, perish miserably.
Further on the author gives full rein to his rancorous
hatred of homoeopathy. He is really very angry with it.
I cannot help thinking that these cases were not real pneumo-
nias but merely trifling rheumatic affections easily relieved by rest in
bed, warmth, restricted diet, &c. ; the laity, and especially sensitive
ladies, have been too ready to accept them for genuine coin, of course
not to the disadvantage of the homoeopaths. The insignificant cough
accompanied by pain in the side or external muscles of the chest yields
to the warmth of bed and the administered homoeopathic powder
without venesection, without leeches or blisters, in short, without any
The sangtiiiiary reign of Broiissais. 217
of the allopathic impedimenta ; naturally it is thought wonderful, gold
and praise are lavished upon the practitioner, who laughs in his sleeve
and congratulates himself on his skill in hoodwinking the patient.
What did the homoeopaths say to all this? They de-
fended their views in innumerable works — they demanded
an opportunity of displaying their superior results in the
hospitals. In vain ! " You are charlatans, impostors, and
swindlers ! " was the answer they got. " Experiments have
been tried in Russia and lots of other places, and their
results have been unfavourable to you. Your ignorant
presumption knows no bounds. The State should proceed
against this medical demi-monde who stifle their con-
sciences in the purse." This is the sort of language with
which homoeopaths were met in allopathic literature.
The same contest raged in America, England, Italy and
France. Broussais reigned in France. Opposed to this
rational Parisian professor, were the rational German
professors, who, however, know how to bleed — innocent
midges ! Most diseases were supposed to depend upon
" gastro-enteritis," which must be treated by blood-letting,
as if the blood in the patient's body were the most viru-
lent poison. The results were horrible: In the year 1838,
Broussais treated by his method 219 cases of inflammation
of the lungs in his hospital; of these 137 died, i.e., more
than 62 per cent. ; the remainder recovered slowly, and
had serious subsequent diseases* — nevertheless everything
was done scientifically.
The homoeopaths were never weary of protesting against
the folly of bleeding and excited in the minds of the pub-
lic more and more disinclination to submit to it, and the
allopaths complained bitterly of this. Here and there an
allopath appeared as an opponent of bleeding ; among
these Krliger-Hansen was conspicuous. The expressed
opinions of such authors were carefully collected by the
* Gaz. mc'd. de Paris., 1S39, Vol. V., p. 173.
2i8 All sense and li'orth on
homceopaths, and disseminated as confirming the sound-
ness of their practice.
The poHtical and literary papers were dominated as now-
a-days by the allopathic majority, and were used by them to
inculcate the doctrine that everything coming from the
mouths of homoeopaths was to be disbelieved. They were
all charlatans, swindlers, impostors or dupes, and Hahne-
mann was the devil himself. How could truth come from
the mouths of such people ? The most distinguished phy-
sicians, the professors, the Hof- and Geheimraths, the
Royal physicians, all the Universities, the Municipal au-
thorities, the State itself, in short, with few exceptions,
" all the intelligence, learning, integrity, worth and honesty
of the world " were on the other side. The trade in leeches
was carried on wholesale, these animals were bought and
sold in hundreds of thousands, in millions ; in Paris at the
time of Broussais there was a regular leech exchange.
Germany possessed a valuable export trade in leeches to
England and France,* where all the universities and
learned corporations were in favour of bleeding. In the
preceding centuries van Helmont (i 577-1644), Sylvius
(1614-1672), Bordeu (1721-1771) inveighed against exces-
sive bleeding. Bontekoe (1647-1685) also entirely rejected
venesection. He preferred diluting the rebellious blood,
and for this purpose recommended Chinese tea, which was
at that time a rarity. Fifty or more cups were to be taken
daily ; the East Indian Company should out of gratitude
have voted him a handsome sum of money for this.
Latterl}-, Brown and his followers tried to mitigate the
medical thirst for blood. Nevertheless, the " scientific "
treatment always kept the upper hand.
Common sense was in favour of bleeding. Bleeding
from the nose relieves congestion of the head, the relief
is felt at once ; and so it is with other bleedings. Is this
not a very important hint to us from nature ? Must not
the physician follow the way indicated by nature ? And
what will become of medicine if we do not hold by what
* Hufeland's/fJ//;-;/., 1826, St. 3, p. 59.
tJie side of Allopathy. 219
we see with our eyes and understand with our reason ?
What changes does blood undergo in inflammatory diseases ?
It has become morbid from excess of albumen ; the fibrin
is morbidly increased in quantity. It is the fibrin which
obstructs the finer vessels and retards the circulation and
produces consolidation and ultimately suppuration. Rational
therapeutics imperatively requires the diminution of the
morbid albumen and of the pathological fibrin ; this is treat-
ment of the cause.
What is the condition of the lung after death in a case of
pneumonia ? It is gorged with blood. What is the condi-
tion of the heart ? It is full of thick, dark-coloured blood.
The blood overloads the organs, and the patient is suffocated
in his blood. The organs must be disembarrassed. These
are the simple but true laws of science. Medicine, however,
must be tried by its results, says the professor, experience
at the bedside must support the deduction if it is not to
remain an empty theory. The professor, therefore, takes his
audience to the bedside and opens a vein ; the patient experi-
ences a momentary sense of relief. The proof of the correct-
ness of the theory is thus afforded, it is evident and clear.
The evil after-effects are not considered ; the subsequent
course of the disease, especially if it be unsatisfactory and
not in accordance with the theory, is not seen by the clinical
professor, it is left to his assistants.
Even as late as the 5th decade of this century the
" scientific " bleeding practice was still flourishing. Skoda
and Dietl, of Vienna, were considered first rate clinical
teachers. Skoda was still a rational bleeder. In the year
1842,* he treated in the hospital at Vienna fifty-nine pneu-
monias, of which sixteen died, though " free venesection
usually gave relief." Gradually a few voices made them-
selves heard throwing doubt on the indispensableness of
bleeding, and these voices increased in number every year
not Vv^ithout meeting with " rational " and violent opposition.
Dietl was one of the most decided opponents of venesection.
* Oesier. vied. Wochenschrift^ 1845, No. 3. YAwtxl, Beitrag zu den
Riickschritten^ (Sic, Bremen, 1S40, p. 24.
220 Explosion of dyiianiite in
He,* indeed, maintains that tartrate of antimony had upset
the beHef in bleeding. But there are plenty of proofs that
homcEopathy was this tartar emetic to the allopaths. He
confesses that he was first led by homoeopathy to aban-
don bleeding in pneumonia, but that he afterwards gave
up homoeopathy. He does not say what homoeopathic
remedies he gave, so that we cannot criticise his treatment.
It was, however, according to Dietl, a fact that for some
years past the prejudice of the public in favour of bleeding
began to decline, " a circumstance partly attributable to the
influence of homoeopathy and partly to the spirit of the age."
It can, however, be proved that " the spirit of the age "
in this matter was determined by homoeopathy. Between
the years 1842 and 1846 Dietl treated 380 individuals in
the Vienna Wieden Hospital for inflammation of the lungs,
85 of these by venesection, 106 with large doses of tartar
emetic, and 189 by dietetic means. Of those treated by
Venesection. Tartar Emetic. Diet.
Recovered ... 68 ... 84 ... 175
Died ... 17 ... 22 ... 14
Mortality ... 207, ... 2077, - 7°/o
Therefore, in round numbers, 20 per cent, died under
rational treatment ; without rational treatment, 7 per cent.
As homoeopathy admittedly did no harm, the mortality
under rational treatment exceeded that under homoeo-
pathy by 13 per cent. As a matter of fact, the results
of homoeopathic treatment were much more favourable
than those of dietetic treatment. We are not adducing
these statistics in proof of the superiority of homoeopathy,
but to show that according to them the results of homoeo-
pathy must have surpassed those of allopathy.
These statistics were only furnished by a single indi-
vidual, but we quote them because they agree with those
subsequently obtained. Richterf even maintains that the
allopathic treatment of that day gave a mortality of 25 per
* Der Aderlass, Vienna, 1849.
t Der Einjluss der Cellularpathologic, Berlin, 1863, p. 6.
tJie allopathic fo)'t7'ess, 22 r
cent., while that of expectant treatment was only 7 per
cent. Be this as it may, it is certain that the allopaths did
a great deal of harm, while homoeopaths had an immense
superiority in the results they obtained. This is in inflam-
mation of the lungs alone. Think of the number of other
inflammatory diseases, " gastric fever," typhus, measles,
scarlet fever, small-pox, dysentery, cholera, &c., in which
lifelong injury to health often resulted from bleeding.
What misery have the allopaths brought upon the human
beings who trusted themselves to them ! but we must
not blame them for that. They, no doubt, honestly en-
deavoured to perfect medical science. But the reproach
will always remain at their door that, at a time when the
better way was made known, they through pride and
indolence refused to inquire into it.
In 1849 Dietl published his results, which excited the
greatest attention among the homoeopaths ; he was violently
attacked for his opinions by the allopaths, and he collected
and published a great number of new observations* which
fully confirmed his first results. But the allopaths would
not allow themselves to be so quickly weaned from their
dear old habits. As late as 1850, venesection is recom-
mended in cholera without a word of disapproval by the
editor of Schmidt's /(^/^r^//V//^r; t in 185 1 venesection is re-
commended in " all the stages of consumption " X and in
1854 it is spoken of as a "sovereign remedy in cholera."§
In i860, in the treatment of scarlet fever, we are recom-
mended as a first measure to administer an emetic, then a
purgative, and finally, as a third " prime remedy," vene-
section. || The year 18671! shows that in inflammation of
the lungs free venesection was still employed, and even in
the present day many allopaths still hanker after venesection,
though now-a-days the majority occupy the same position
* Schm\dt' s Jahrbiicher, Vol. LXXVL, p. 30.
t Vol. LXVI.. p. 251.
% lb., Vol. LXXII., p. 347.
§ lb., Vol. LXXXIV., p. 113.
II /^., Vol. CVIII., p. 209.
IT lb., Vol. CXXXV., p. 354.
222 TJie strong arm of the laiv will
with regard to this disputed point as was occupied seventy
years ago by the homoeopaths, to the great advantage of
those who trusted to them.
But the weight of blame which these " rational " physi-
cians incurred, with the best intentions and in the firm con-
viction that they were doing right, is only in part represented
under the head of bleeding. This "rational" medicine has
further caused not a little mischief by the administration to
the sick body of large quantities of powerful drugs which
have often added a worse artificial disease to the natural
malady already existing.
In order to continue the history of the opposition to ho-
moeopathy, we must refer back to the year 1829. We here
meet with the criminal action brought against a homoeo-
pathic physician. Dr. Trinks;* an account of which, founded
on the legal documents, was given by Moritz Mliller, for
whom even his bitter antagonist in Hufeland's Journal,
Prof. Wedekind,t acknowledged his high esteem.
A woman named Kampfe, twenty years old, fell ill with
typhoid fever in 1829, for w^hich she was treated during
four days by Dr. Trinks, a homoeopathic physician of Dres-
den ; after the lapse of that time she was removed to
an allopathic hospital, where she died after four days of
treatment. The hospital physician was Dr. Schrag. On
the assertion of some laymen that the homoeopathic pow-
ders had disagreed with the patient, and because she
was violently delirious when received into the hospital, an
accusation of poisoning and mala praxis was founded.
The following points were ordered to be inquired into in
the municipal doctor's official report : —
Whether the necessary evacuating medicines for the correction
and removal of morbid bile were given in sutificiently large doses .''
* Archivf. d. horn. Heilk., Vol. VIII., H. 3.
t 1828, Vol. LXVI., St. 6, p. 21.
put dozvn the pestilent heresy. 223
Whether antiphlogistic measures, such as venesection or leeches,
and if so, how many, were employed at the proper time ?
Whether the disease, treated according to Hahnemann's method
Avas thereby neglected and aggravated to a fatal degree ; whether
poisons were given in a homoeopathic form. The last was denied by
the official chemist, after analysis of the intestines.
After receiving the history of the case and its treatment
from the homoeopathic physician, the following report was
given : —
The homoeopathic treatment had not paid attention to the essential
nature of the malady. The nature of the disease, according to the
opinion of the municipal doctor founded on the report of the post-
mortem examination, was an accumulation of corrosive bile with in-
durated faeces and violent enteritis. The materies morbi was overlooked
and had acted prejudicially on the whole body. Rational and expe-
rienced physicians in all ages always appreciated the importance of
fever and febrile matter. If derivative, antigastric, antiphlogistic and
cooling treatment, together with the removal of the saburra biliosa
from the intestinal canal and bleeding at the proper time had been
employed, relief would have been given and the patient's life would
have been saved.
In conclusion, this official report called homoeopathy a
" mystic absurdity " and a " disgrace to the medical history
of our times," which should be put down (of course
with assistance from the State), for people's lives were at
stake, and the homceopaths rejected with scorn the " ex-
perience of the greatest physicians of all ages " (in respect
to bleeding, emetics and purgatives).
We therefore consider it our duty to signify the same, and to append
our names and seals — Dr. Erdmann, Amtsphysictis, Gonne, A/ntsc/irr-
icrgus. .
The Stadtphysicus, Dr. Kuhn, of Dresden, cross-examined
the accused, Dr. Trinks, on October 5, 1829, as to why he
had not employed leeches, cooling and " mildly resolvent,"
antiphlogistic and purgative remedies.
Why, seeing that the menses were checked, did you neglect [we must
not forget that the case was one of typhoid] the employment of the re-
medies which have been sanctioned by the experience of so many — t'.;,'.,
derivatives, foot and half-baths, vapour baths into the vagina [the post-
mortem showed that she was a virgo intacta], frictions on the abdomen,
sacrum and inner surface of the thighs, mustard and vesicant plasters,
dry cupping and leeches to the same parts or to the cahes and hypo-
224 If at first yo2L don't succeed^
gastrium, besides internal remedies such as borax, melissa, fixed air,.
saffron, myrrh, the natural balsams, aloes, helleborus niger, and even
sabina ? [the victim is to be congratulated, even though she is in her
grave, that ' science ' was not let loose upon her.]
In further examination the enquirer showed some anxiety
to know why the homoeopathic practitioner had not em-
ployed general and local bleedings, cooling, " mildly re-
solvent " and "purgative remedies?"
Unfortunately, the answers of the accused are not com-
municated, about which a man like Trinks would have no
difficulty, but M. Muller has made some very appropriate
observations in the article referred to.
The result of the trial will be found in the Archivfiir Jiom.
Heilhinst!* From this we see that the Juridical Faculty of
Leipzic pronounced that it was not clear that Dr. Trinks
was to blame for his medical treatment of Kampfe, and
that " the defendant and the two prosectors and reporters,
Dr. Erdmann and Surgeon Gonne, should each pay a third
of the costs." The law authorities based their verdict on the
previous report of the Medical Faculty of Leipzic, in which
the following declaration is made : —
Finally, the aforesaid municipal physician and municipal surgeon,
have, unmindful that in a judicial report all attacks on opponents must
be eschewed, attacked Hahnemann and homoeopathic physicians in a
manner unbecoming educated medical men though, fortunately, not
capable of inducing medical judges to swerve from the path of abso-
lute impartiality.
This dispute had not been settled before the Dresden
homoeopaths were subjected to a second trial. The allopaths
have also given an account of this trial. There are two
publications about it. One is by a homoeopath, and is
called, Znr GescliicJite der HonwopatJiie, by Dr. Moritz
Miiller.f The other, by an allopath, is entitled, Der HaJinc-
manniancr als GcsdncJitscJircibcr iind Critiker, by Dr. Fr. J.
Siebenhaar, of Dresden.^ Anyone wishing to know how
the contest was carried on on both sides should not neglect
* Vol. X., H. I, p. 2—4. t Arch.f. horn. Heilk. X., H. i.
X Leipzig, W, Neuck, 1831.
then try, try, tij again.
225
to read the reports of the trial. In both works interesting
illustrations are given in reference to the previous affair.
The allopath, Dr. Siebenhaar, was called on the 21st of
July, 1829, to see the master shoemaker Leischke, whose
physician he had been for several years. The patient was
54 >-ears old. It was found that Leischke had " suffered
from cough for a long time before this attack." On the
above-mentioned day Dr. Siebenhaar found, according to
his account, inflammation of the lung with a thickly coated
tongue, loss of appetite, and severe vomiting of mucus and
bile. Prescription: venesection to 8 or 10 ounces of blood,
and a mixture of sal ammoniac, senna, melag. graminis, a
spoonful every two hours. Some hours afterwards the
" spitting of blood and retching were little altered," and
there was profuse perspiration. The next day he was worse.
Prescription: local blood-letting, to which however the
patient would not submit. He wanted homoeopathic assist-
ance. His medical attendant in vain tried to dissuade
him from it, and finally declared that he would continue to
attend in spite of the homoeopathic treatment, but first
prescribed a powder containing sulphur, saltpetre and
cream of tartar in equal parts, a teaspoonful to be taken
every hour. In the afternoon the homoeopathic physician.
Dr. Trinks, was sent for; he being prevented through busi-
ness from attending himself, sent his assistant Surgeon
Lehmann. Lehmann gave his report of Leischke's state to
Trinks at eleven o'clock at night when he returned from his
visit, whereupon Trinks, who was still occupied with the
first trial, resigned the case and sent word to this effect to
Leischke at 8.45 next morning. Lehmann had ordered all
allopathic medicines to be left off, but had purposely pre-
scribed nothing himself
The patient was now obliged to have recourse to the
homoeopath. Dr. Wolf As Wolf was not at home his wife
sent the Surgeon Helwig to the patient. Helwig, though
according to the law of that time, not allowed to treat
internal maladies, nevertheless gave aconite, and later
bryonia, though it was illegal for the medical attendant to
dispense his own medicines. He expected that Wolf
15
226 Glorious trmvipJi over
would continue the treatment. But the sword of Dannocles
of judicial prosecution for neglect of bleeding and other
" scientific " measures, was always suspended over the
heads of the homoeopaths. Wolf, therefore, after hearing
Helwig's report, declined to take the case. Helwig, there-
upon, begged the allopath Siebenhaar to continue his treat-
ment, and this he "finally consented" to do, "but without
being able to effect anything, for the unfortunate patient
died just about that time," on 24th July, the fourth day of
his illness. The above facts are admitted by both sides.
Siebenhaar now, as he himself narrates, consulted his
colleagues as to what course he should pursue, and the
Stadtphysicus, Dr. Kuhn, already spoken of in connex-
ion with the previous trial, took proceedings against the
homoeopaths, but the judicial authorities did not consider
" that a legal post-mortem examination was necessary, I
therefore had to content myself with a private autopsy on
the afternoon of July 26, in the presence of Drs. Kuhn,
Schrag [both of whom took part in the first trial,] and
Leonhardi." We must here remark that Helwig in vain
demanded to be allowed to be present. The private post-
mortem showed " one lung engorged with blood," which
^' was adherent in several places, especially on the left side,
to the chest walls." " The left lung was besides partially
hepatised in various places, and at some points mortifica-
tion had set in."
" The conclusion drawn from this post-mortem could
naturally be no other than that Leischke had died from
the effects of violent inflammation of the lungs ending in
gangrene." We must here remind our readers that homoeo-
pathy was, at that time, reproached with causing gangrene
of the inflamed parts by the neglect of bleeding. The
judicial proceedings against homoeopathy were commenced
and the documents were sent to the Court of Judicature of
Leipzic, and this Court, after receiving a report from the
Medical Faculty, condemned Drs. Trinks and Wolf to a
fine for neglecting a summons for medical help, and Helwig
to imprisonment for four weeks for treating without a li-
cense and for illegal dispensing, Lehmann to six months
ilie homceopatJiic viisci'eants. 227
imprisonment with hard labour, because " the patient, when
Lehmann visited him, was in a condition requiring instant
medical treatment as with every moment his life became
more jeopardised," "and the violent inflammation took
on a fatal character from the postponement of the requisite
treatment till next morning."
Lehmann therefore acted with culpable negligence.
Lehmann was the person who told the patient suffering
from vomiting of mucus and bile to leave off the allopathic
medicine (a mixture of sulphur, saltpetre and cream of
tartar, according to the statement of the allopath him-
self, a teaspoonful every hour), and to do nothing in the
meantime. " Lehmann, as he was not himself qualified to
treat medically, should have sent for a properly qualified
physician. He should have communicated Dr. Trinks'
decision not to treat the patient some hours sooner."
The accused appealed, and the Juridical Faculty of Leipzic
was empowered to pronounce judgment. This court ac-
quitted all except Helwig, who was obliged to undergo his
four weeks' imprisonment.*
It is interesting to read the report of the Medical Faculty
of Leipzic. It pronounced : " That in such cases sudden
death or relapse into slow consumption could only be
* Our own criminal jurisprudence can show a case that will match
these two processes in German law courts. In September, 1849, our
late colleague, Dr. C. T. Pearce, was consigned to Newgate on the
verdict of a coroner's jury, which found him guilty of the manslaughter
of his brother, Mr. R. D. Pearce, whom he attended during an attack
of cholera for a few days, until he himself was laid up with the same
disease, when the case was handed over to an allopathic surgeon
under whose care Mr. R. D. Pearce died. To get them to pass this
monstrous verdict the jury had to be harangued and brow-beaten for
two hours and a half by the deputy-coroner, Mr. M. Wakley, who
presided in the place of his father, Mr. T. Wakley, who combined in
his person the shghtly incongruous functions of Coroner for Middle-
sex and Editor and Proprietor of The Lancet (the organ of rampant
allopathy, called after the phlebotomizing instrument now, happily,
rendered obsolete by homceopathy). Though only " Crowner's quest
law," this infamous sentence was hailed as a splendid triumph over
homceopathy by all the organs of the dominant clique. See Brit.
Jour, of Hom.^ VIII., p. 70. — [Ed.J
228 ^^ Blood is their Argtimeiit."
obviated by repeated venesections." " That in such inflam-
mations bleeding must be practised once, twice, or even
three times." Siebenhaar complains of the judgment of
the Juridical Faculty of Leipzic, because the interposition of
the homoeopaths took from him the opportunity of employ-
ing efficacious treatment, (page 35) " Leischke's resolution
to be treated homoeopathically prevented me from em-
ploying the other indicated remedies — namely, repeated
blood-letting and epispastics."
On page 22, Siebenhaar writes : —
Daily experience is too conclusive in favour of bleeding We
must consider the actual facts of the case ; the patient died suffocated
in his own blood, as in spite of the bleeding already performed, the
post-mortem examination showed the lung gorged with blood and
in parts gangrenous, and the liver was also found to be congested
with blood, and it can only be supposed that the physician (Dr. Miil-
ler), who said that a further venesection would be superfluous or even
injurious, must have been making a bad joke. When the latter (Dr.
Miiller) in support of his position, promulgated the proposition " that
the allopaths do not know and will not learn that homoeopathic treat-
ment can supersede bleeding with its consequent weakness and slow
recovery of the patient ;" this shows the incredible infatuation of
Dr. Miiller in believing Trinks' fables* on the one hand, and his aston-
ishing impudence in presuming to persuade rational physicians of this
on the other hand. For none but a credulous visionary can believe
that such inflammatory diseases can be cured by Hahnemann's me-
thod, in spite of the many examples recorded in various periodicals by
the deceivers.
Siebenhaar continues, page 24: —
This point is emphasized the further it is pursued, and the law
should take cognizance of the neglect of bleeding in other well-
inarked diseases, such as sanguineous apoplexy, encephalitis, enter-
ritis, &c.
The further consideration of these medico-forensic matters would
however occupy me too long, and I will now content myself with the
quotation of our respected colleague Staatsrath Hufeland's remark in
his masterly treatise Die HomoopatJiie^ published in the Journal der
practisclicn Heilkiindc, 1830, page 24 [the reader already knows it.]
" He who neglects bleeding where life is at stake and death is the
result, has the sin of blood-guiltiness on his conscience, which will
weigh terribly upon him he should be punished by law he is a
murderer by omission."
* Sec Scjidsclircibcn an Hnfcland^ p. 30.
The retort co7irteous. 229
Hahnemann saw and heard the behaviour of the allo-
paths. He had left the refutation of his opponents to his
adherents. These events took place in the years 1829 and
1830. In 183 1 a book by him : Die Alloopathic, cin Wort
der Warmuig* appeared. This work may be regarded as
an answer to these fanatical attacks. In 1830 appeared
Hufeland's well-known article containing the expressions:
" voice of thunder " — " murderers " — " punishment by the
law," &c., which was cited with approval by many, Hahne-
mann's patience tried by the long conflict seemed to be now
completely exhausted. Not we, he says, but yoit are the
murderers of the patients. " This irrational antipathic and
barbarous treatment, with its repeated bleedings, leeches
and depleting medicines, brings thousands every year to
their grave." " Truly ! an excellent, privileged method to
put the flower of mankind quietly out of the way wholesale.
Are we to call this a rational method of healing ? Treat-
ment of the cause?"
Probably with reference to the criminal prosecutions,
he advises his adherents " not to receive at any price those
patients who have been injured to the verge of incurability
by the allopathic exterminatory art." We must realise the
" stand-point of science " of that time, and the attitude
assumed by it, in order to be able to understand these
words.
First let the patients be again restored by these titled destroyers
of health to the former state of natural disease they were in before
these medical attacks upon their lives were perpetrated — if they are
able to do it ! Allopaths deserve for their determined adhesion to their
antiquated homicidal treatment nothing but contempt and abhorrence,
and impartial history will brand their names with a stigma on account
of their scornful rejection of the real aid which they might have
afforded to their much-to-be-pitied patients, had they not impiously
closed their eyes and ears against beneficent truth !
Hornburg was one of Hahnemann's pupils in Leipzic.
He had passed the examination for the bachelor's degree,
and had visited the hospitals for a year. He occasionally
treated patients in the town homoeopathically, and this
* Hahnemann's Lesser IVtitings^ p. 827.
230 A viciwi to allopatJiic spite.
drew down upon him the hostility of the doctors. Also
the fact of his attending Hahnemann's lectures gave offence
to the professors. He took every opportunity to openly and
courageously oppose the old system. He was an intelli-
gent, thoroughly well-educated man, and highly enthusiastic
on behalf of homoeopathy. Probably many a patient re-
covered under his treatment who had been brought to
death's door by the murderous treatment of the Leipzic
doctors and professors. He was denounced on every pos-
sible occasion, and punished sometimes by fines and some-
times by imprisonment. His homoeopathic medicine chest
was confiscated by command of the Dean of the University,
and was buried by the beadle in the burial ground of
St. Paul's Church.
Notwithstanding this he studied diligently, and according
to the testimony of his contemporaries, was a man of great
medical knowledge (on which account he was much valued
by Hahnemann), but he was nevertheless twice rejected by
the professors in his examinations. He went to Giessen,
from which, however, he was turned away, and had no
better fortune at Marburg. Having returned to Leipzic he
practised there with great success, but was often involved
in judicial processes, the excitement of which gradually
shattered his health. The greatest distress was brought
upon him by the issue of a criminal investigation in which
he was involved in the year 1831, on account of his treat-
ment of a woman who was suffering from a very violent
pleurisy. The woman did not, however, die under his treat-
ment, but only after she had been treated for nine days
by Professor and Hofrath Clarus, who himself denounced
Hornburg, and insisted on the investigation being dragged
on through two years. The anxiety he went through
during this time had a very injurious effect on his bodily
health. He was attacked with chronic disease of the lungs,
which, in the spring of 1833, was followed by influenza.
In the summer his condition had improved considerably ;
he then received his sentence of two months' imprisonment
for unlicensed practice, and for preventing the employment
An unexpected rebuff. 231
of scientific treatment in a case which terminated fatally.
He was three days after this attacked by repeated haemop-
tysis, and was buried some months later. A great number of
the inhabitants of Leipzic escorted his body to the grave.*
In the year 1843, the homoeopath, Dr. Baumgarten, of
Magdeburg, undertook the treatment of a servant maid,
seventeen years old, named Christiana Knoll. She had
been ill for fourteen days and was in a hopeless condition.
She suffered from exudative inflammation of the pleura
and pericardium. Her pallid appearance, the blueish grey
colour of her lips and nose, the shortness of her breath, the
immobility of the thorax and the abdominal respiration,
finally, her total lack of appetite led Baumgarten to form
an unfavourable prognosis. Three days later the fatal
result followed. A judicial post-mortem examination was
instituted, and it was found that the patient had died
from exudative inflammation of the pleura and pericardium.
The municipal physician declared that death apparently
resulted from want of proper treatment. Remedies against
inflammation, such as blood-letting, saltpetre, mercury,
tartar emetic, should have been employed. The Medical
College of the province of Saxony when asked for their
opinion held that such illnesses were fatal even under
judicious treatment. With regard to the question of
medical treatment they could say nothing more than that
they, and with them all those doctors who from time
immemorial practised the recognised ordinary methods
of treatment, would have treated the patient differently and
according to the method laid down by the medical men
who made the post-mortem examination. But, as they
knew the State allowed homoeopathic treatment, they could
not enter upon a criticism of it.
The scientific Faculty of Medicine of Berlin did not
agree with this judgment :
Because the experience of centuries had shown that acute inflam-
mation of the pleura, the lungs, the heart and the pericardium could
only be removed by a certain indispensable mode of treatment.
* Allg. horn. Zeitimg, Vol. IV., p. 75, and Archiv f. d. horn. Hcilk.
232 TJie poivcr of the State on the
The treatment pursued for centuries was blood-letting, mercury, tar-
tar emetic, saltpetre, emetics and aperients. Homoeopathic treatment
could not replace this efficacious mode of treatment. If our medi-
cal examining bodies are obliged very properly to reject every young
doctor who holds therapeutic views like those of Dr. Baumgarten,*
the tolerance shown by the Medical College in this unfortunate case
cannot be justified. If only for the sake of example, it would be wise
to call upon Dr. Baumgarten to justify himself from the charges
brought against him by the medical men who made the autopsy.
Dr. Baumgarten was also called upon by the Royal
Government in Magdeburg to justify his practice, which he
very soon did and in a most satisfactory manner.f
These few examples, to which many might be added,
must suffice to show how the allopaths used the power
of the State under their control in this important contest.
The question of the harmfulness of the allopathic, or as
they called it, " rational " " anti-inflammatory " treatment of
that day has been finally decided, and that too by the
" rational " physicians of to-day, against the " rational "
treatment of that time. It is now a matter of history that
the allopathic treatment attacked by the homoeopaths has
been condemned by the modern representatives of allo-
pathy. With regard to this weighty question, history teaches
us as follows : —
* The conduct of the German Examining Bodies in rejecting candi-
dates suspected of homoeopathic proclivities has been paralleled in
more than one instance by our own Medical Faculties. The Faculty
of the University of Edinburgh in 185 1 rejected Mr. A. C. Pope,
because he would not bind himself never to practise homoeopathically.
The Faculty of St. Andrews made a futile request to Dr. Hale to
return the diploma he had recently acquired by examination, because
it (the Faculty consisted of one inan, Dr. Day) had discoveixd that he
was practising homoeopathically. The Faculty of Aberdeen refused to
allow Mr. Harvey to complete his examinations until he should make
a declaration that " he had not practised, and did not entertain any in-
tention of practising professionally on other principles than those taught
and sanctioned in this and other legally recognised schools of medicine."
As Mr. Harvey believed in the truth of Hahnemann's therapeutic rule,
he refused to make any such declaration, so the Faculty refused to com-
plete his examinations for its degree. The Medical Act, 1S58, fortunately
deprived British examining bodies of the power to practise such iniquities
in the future. See Brit. Jour. 0/ Horn., IX., 513, 609, XVI., 529.— [Ed.]
t Attg. horn. Ztg., Vol. XXIV., p. 321.
side of the AllopatJis. 233
That medical school whose treatment was in most cases
Tnore dangerous than the disease, and which did so much mis-
chief among all classes of citizens, was then armed with the
power of the State, it enjoyed unbounded confidence and
was supported by the State in its campaign against the
hated homoeopathy. The State lent its authority and its
arm to those against whom it ought to have shielded the
public and oppressed that party which effected much
more favourable results.
An idea can be formed of the character of the personal
intercourse between allopaths and homoeopaths from the
preceding. Trinks wrote in 1830, Die HouwopatJiie, Send-
scJireiben an Hiif eland (Dresden, 1830), which discusses
Hufeland's expressed opinion on homoeopathy :
Hufeland had declared : " Liberty of thought, freedom
for science is our principal palladium ; no kind of despot-
ism — no autocracy, no forcing of conscience."
Trinks remarks on this (p. 6, &c.)
But what penalties did not the allopaths attempt to enforce against
homoeopathy, its founder and its adherents ? They had then, and
still have, to bear the despotism of the medical caste spirit, the iron
pressure of the most abominable intolerance. I will give you a sketch
of this sad state of affairs, which you can never witness, because you
live far from the arena first entered by homoeopathy. The founder of
homoeopathy, a venerable old man, then living at Leipzic, was ridi-
culed and scorned by physicians, lampooned in satirical poems and
assailed by every calumny that could throw discredit on his personal
character. His disciples and audience, all who approached him to
become better acquainted with the system of treatment discovered
by him, met with the same fate, the most undeserved contempt ; they
were, as it were, excluded from the caste of doctors as the Pariahs
by the Hindoos. Even this did not suffice, they were persecuted in
every possible way, and hmdered in the prosecution of their career.
At last the intrigues to drive away the founder of homoeopathy were
crowned with success, and a universal shout of joy for their victory
burst from his enemies. Hahnemann's oldest admirer and disciple,
Stapf, of Naumburg, met with the same fate. He, too, was scorned
and ridiculed in every possible way like his master, and lived for
many years as one under a ban among his professional brethren.
Moritz Miiller, of Leipzic, respected by all alike as a man and a phy-
234 Persecuting fury of tiie old school.
sician, suftered a like fate, after having publicly spoken in favour of
homceopathy. Many doctors who had previously been friendly with
him now avoided his society, and broke off all connexion with him,
not to mention other unpleasantnesses which he had to suffer. I my-
self have experienced the oppression of this medical despotism in the
highest degree. For two years I have been exposed to all manner of
persecutions which could be devised by refined malice, slander, and
malignant envy.
It is certainly difficult in the midst of these persecutions to preserve
one's faith in mankind ; it is still more difficult not to refuse one's
esteem to a clique who, in their blind hatred, do not hesitate to assail
the reputation of honourable and upright men, and who leave nothing
untried to destroy what is man's most dearly cherished possession.
And all this befel the founder of homoeopathy and its adherents for
the simple reason that they treated diseases on different principles,
and because they cured patients who had been left uncured by the
practitioners of the allopathic school.
Amidst all these unpleasantnesses heaped upon us, we find comfort
in the consciousness that we are suffering and striving for a cause
which is a blessing to humanity, and which will extend its beneficent
influence still further when these persecutions have ceased and the
practice of this mode of treatment has been freed from the fetters
which the despotism of intolerance has laid upon it ; and, then too, the
time will have come when the outside world will no longer look upon
homceopathy as a dangerous chimera, and its adherents as dangerous
day dreamers, when it will recognise that humanity must bless us
for it.
I would not on any account possess the reputation of the opponents
of homoeopathy, the reputation of having caused the most ruthless
persecutions of their fellow-creatures, because they thought and acted
differently from the teachings of Galenic dogmatism.
History, which is always a just and impartial judge, will some day
write the story of those who sinned so grievously against tfie new sys-
tem, against ,its founder, its adherents and its friends. This epoch
will form a chapter in the history of medicine similar to that formed
in the world's history by the religious fanaticism of Louis XIV.
Innumerable proofs of the persecuting fury of the allo-
paths are to be found hi homoeopathic writings — we call it
" persecuting fury," for what other term can describe the
conduct of those who, because they were incensed at the
spread of homoeopathy sought to throw infamous imputa-
tions on the personal character of the homoeopaths, and
even attacked their families in their blind fanaticism ?
Bulky volumes might be written on these unworthy allo-
pathic attacks.
1
TJie cJiolera approaches. 235
But everywhere the very significant fact is patent that the
violence of the strife was in proportion to the spread of
homoeopathy. So that after the cholera epidemic, in which
the adherents of Hahnemann obtained such immensely
superior results to those of the rational school, it attained
a height which has never been surpassed to the present
day. We must transport ourselves to that time to under-
stand the actual condition of affairs.
In July, 1 83 1, the fear is expressed in Hufeland's Journal
that cholera, which had reached our borders through the
Russo-Polish war, might cross them, and doctors rummaged
their armoury for weapons with which to attack this mur-
derous enemy — " stronger remedies than those hitherto
used." Such were aurum muriaticum, oxygen gas, char-
coal, quinine, as "cholera very closely resembles intermit-
tent fever;" then, too, there were the absorbents — "to absorb
the poison out of the primce vice]' " the absorbents are
coming into favour." 01. cajeputi, oil to be taken inter-
nally, &c. People read with terror that " in the corpses
of those who died of cholera, vessels gorged with blood
were to be found in the right ventricle of the heart and the
vena cava, also in the lungs, the liver, &c." We say they
read " with terror," for where blood was thus found con-
gested in the corpses, on scientific principles the patients
must be bled during life. But " science " could surely
hardly go so far as to bleed in cases of cholera. In
the same place it was said : " The blood is black and
as thick as tar, contains little serum, and at last becomes
like pap. Icy coldness of the whole body, even of the
tongue, supervenes : " it was rather to be expected that
blood should be added than taken away.
Doubt did not last long on this point, for soon after the
notices from Russia appeared, we read : "A vein is at once and
without any delay to be opened, and as much blood taken
from the patient as seems suitable to his condition." " This
remedy was considered to be indicated in nearly all cases."
236 To meet the cholera, the allopaths
As an internal remedy calomel, combined with opium, was
to be administered. A second article appeared " from the
pen of an intelligent physician," Blood-letting, leeches,
cupping and mustard plasters are the chief remedies
recommended, and blood-letting is literally the first and the
last remedy mentioned in this article.
In the following number, further suggestions as to the
remedies for cholera are made. The first is " emetics," and
Hufeland says, " the proposal is worthy of consideration."
Let us put ourselves in Hahnemann's position, witnessing
all these preparations. A Dr. Mayer (an allopath) of
Berlin thus expresses himself: —
In spite of the many opponents of Hahnemann's preventive of
scarlet fever I find that not only men such as Berndt, Diisterweg
Formey, Bloch, Schenk, etc.,* uphold it, but I have (though this may
not be very important in the eyes of others) myself experienced the
benefit of it on various occasions in my practice of ten years. Dr.
Riittel found lately in the case of an epidemic of scarlet fever that
belladonna in the proportion of four grains to an ounce of water,
where the danger was still distant, and the remedy had been taken
for twelve to fourteen days, was a perfect prophylactic. But where
the infection was close at hand and even in the house, scarlet fever
broke out while the medicine was being^ taken, but in a much milder
form.
Though I cannot explain to myself the favourable influence of
belladonna in scarlet fever, I entertain the hope that it may prove a
preventive in the case of cholera by allaying the irrication of the
plexus Solaris present in that disease.
" Heaven preserve me from my friends," may well have
been the exclamation of Hahnemann if he saw this pro-
posal.
Others recommended opium, the prohibition of all drink,
" which was a dreadful measure considering the unbearable
thirst present" — zinc, bismuth, musk with camphor, ipe-
cacuanha, valerian, sal volatile, hartshorn, natron carbon.,
* All allopaths, to whom the names of Hufeland and Prof. Masius,
of Rostock, and others should be added. Comp. Hufeland's_/£'///7?<i/,
1812, St, 5, p. 120 ; 1814, St. 5, p. 44 ; 1815, St. I, p. 123 ; 1820, St. 2,
p. 3 — 24, where the successful results obtained by many allopaths are
■collected ; 1820, St. 2, p. 3 — 14 ; 1823, St, 4, p. 3 — 17 ; 1831, St. 2, p.
108 ; 1832, St. 3, p. 109 ; 1S35, ^t- 6, p. 24.
notJihicr do but meditate on bloody
237
menth. piperit., arnica, Colombo, cascarilla with naphtha
and opium, tinct. aromatica, calam. arom., cold douches and
always leeches and emetics, and cinchona " on account of
its resemblance to intermittent fever."
While these preparations were being made the cholera
had already crossed the borders of our fatherland, and the
doctors commenced business. The Professors undertook
to lead, the allopathic doctors obeyed as usual. Let us
then see what was taught by one such leader, Professor Dr.
Moritz Hasper, of the Leipzic Faculty of Medicine, in
Hufeland's Journal, Sept., 1831. After admitting that in
no disease have remedies so opposite been proposed and
used, he writes : —
It is clear that in almost all countries cholera patients but very
rarely recover without the aid of medicine [he adduces the testi-
mony of seven doctors for this. Then follows a scientiiic account of
the pathology of cholera]. The thick black condition of the blood
in all the venous system, the congestion of blood in almost all the
internal organs — the brain, lungs, liver ; further the suppression of
cutaneous perspiration, and the stoppage of the flow of bile, show
that the flow of blood from the outer parts of the body has been
forced to the inner organs, and has disturbed the functions of these
organs. By the clogging of the blood in the heart its action is
paralysed, by the engorgement of black blood in the brain, the symp-
toms of stupor, deafness, giddiness, buzzing in the ears and dilata-
tion of the pupils observed during the disease are to be explained ;
for Brodie and Bichat have proved by observation and experiment
that such a condition of the blood hinders the functions of the brain
like a narcotic poison. These stagnations of the blood always cor-
respond to the violence of the symptoms. The stagnation of the
blood in the lungs explains the feeling of anxiety and the shortness of
breath. Where suffocation is the cause of death, blood is always
found accumulated in the lungs ; so, too, the inhaling of charcoal
fumes produces similar symptoms, and like the gases in mines brings
about a rapidly fatal result If we go a step farther and compare
the action of other poisons on our organism we shall obtain a great
deal of light on the subject of cholera.
The experiments of Fontana with snake poison, of
Majendic and Delille with upas poison are given in detail,
the experiments of Brodie and others are mentioned in
order to show "that most poisons and contagia first pass
through the blood and from thence produce disturbances in
238 " Here's the smell of blood stills
the nervous system." After further statements on the af-
finities of certain contagia for special organs, as for example
cholera poison for the mucous membrane of the stomach
and bowels, he declares cholera to be a disease communi-
cable through the air, by human beings and by fomites,
which produces decomposition of the blood, " of which the
cruor and fibrine or the black carbonaceous blood accumu-
lates in the internal organs, injures the nervous system,
l^roduces cramps, «&:c., and also secretions from the mucous
membrane of the stomach and bowels, and thence diarrhoea
and vomiting."
The method of cure to be pursued is clearly indicated :
I. — Removal of the congestion of the internal organs, and
2. — The morbid matter accumulated in the bowels is to be re-
moved or rendered innocuous.
The first indication is fulfilled by practising, at the commencement
of the disease before the pulse at the wrist has ceased beating, copious
bleedings, applying irritants to the skin and giving stimulating reme-
dies. The second indication is fulfilled by giving calomel, castor oil,
emetics, absorbents and acids.
The conclusion is " that as a general principle blood-
letting, together with the external and internal application
of stimulating remedies, form the first and principal reme-
dies,"
A long list of remedies " against individual symptoms "
is then recommended, to satisfy the requirements of
■" science."
F. Hoffmann, Vater, Sauvages and others are quoted as
vouchers for the usefulness of bleeding ; about sixty authors
and several great medical societies of that time are adduced
in support of these scientific therapeutics. They all agree
that blood-letting at the beginning is the most sovereign
remedy.
We will not detain the reader with a detailed account of
the medical treatment of cholera ; it is a highly unexhi-
larating subject, which however requires to be touched upon
to make the situation clear. We will only quote just a few
sentences as specimens from this " rational " treatise.
This case is one of those where, with Lichtenstadt, we cannot refrain
from observing that, with repeated bleeding, the patient might, per-
haps, have recovered
" SiicJi a)i enmity luitJi blood of vten." 239
In this woman (case 26 — she died), hardly a teacupfull of thick,
viscid clotted blood could be drawn. Why was not another vein
opened ?
Herr von Loder of Moscow rejects bleeding in this disease : —
{a) Because it is not of an inflammatory nature.
(/-') Because blood-letting is weakening.
One can hardly believe that such reasons should be regarded as
sufficient by so respected a man. Do we not bleed in cases of con-
gestion of certain important organs, in asphyxia, &c., states where
there is no inflammation ?
Still more remarkable is the second ground alleged — viz. : that
bleeding weakens the vital force. On the contrary, bleeding may even
have a strengthening effect, as is shown, not only in cases of inflam-
mation of the more important organs where the whole body is as it
were paralysed, in inflammation of the heart, inflammation of the lungs,
croup, &c., but also generally in the case in cholera, and this is con-
firmed by the opinions of the best practitioners who have observed
and treated cholera, as also by the testimony of the patients after the
bleeding has been performed.
Hasper states: "That nearly all medical men who have
had opportunities of observing cholera, or what is more im-
portant, have taken the trouble to compare the results of
different methods of treatment, will agree with us in this."
And here he is undoubtedly right. More than 300 cholera
pamphlets appeared at that dreadful time, and a great many
of them were by professors. No pamphlet by a professor
is known which protests against bleeding in cholera. " If,"
says Professor Hasper, "the mass of blood is diminished,
the heart is in a condition to contract again, oxydisation or
decarbonisation of the blood, and this is still more im-
portant, can be resumed, so that arterial, oxydised blood
can be conducted to other organs." This was scientific, and
no homoeopathic scoffer with his " unscientific impudence,"
as they called it, could attack the position.
Small bleedings do not appear to be of any use, and this is the
reason why many practitioners, who, for fear of weakening the patient,
only ventured to draw 6, 8 or 10 ounces, brought bleeding into discredit,
and declared it to be useless. A large opening must be made in the
vein, in order that the blood may flow out in a free stream, if the
patient is to be really relieved.
" Bleed freely " is repeated in at least ten places in this
truly scientific pamphlet, which is adorned with all the
240 " Drunk with innocent blood"
medical learning of the time. " Leeches," " bleeding," the
words meet the reader on every page ; even the applica-
tion of a red-hot iron to the stomach is recommended.
What were the results ? According to Professor Hasper
they were everywhere favourable where the bleeding was
sufficiently copious. But as this advice was almost every-
where followed by the allopaths, the v.-hole result ought to
have been a favourable one, and this hardly agrees with the
fact that, according to Hufeland's Journal and others, more
than half the cholera patients died.
Hasper gives the following statistics: 1,294 cholera
patients who had no medical aid all died; of 14,651 cases
which had the advantage of medical treatment only 6| per
cent. died.
Of other 1,507 cholera patients, who remained without
medical treatment, 1,255 died. This last collection were
more fortunate than the former 1,294 who perished root
and branch without exception. From this then it is evident
that the homoeopaths with their " nothings," could see onl}-
corpses as a result of their treatment of cholera.
An account with authentic proofs by lOO doctors declared
that blood-letting, i.e., copious blood-letting, is the best
means of cutting short and curing cholera. Scott said that
" the occurrence of syncope during bleeding in cholera is a
favourable sign." " Collapse is not the result of loss of
blood, but it is, on the contrary, put an end to by it ; it is
apt to occur if a small quantity of blood only is drawn."
And such stuff was believed. It must be so — it was
proved scientifically. On p. 38, it is asserted that the
" black blood (as it is found in cholera) acts like a narcotic
poison." Therefore the larger the quantity of the narcotic
poison removed, the freer must the body be from it. And
the addle-headed homoeopaths could not see that.
Corbyn is one of the first who used bleeding in cases of cholera
with favourable results. Of no patients he only lost two old decrepit
- persons. Annesley did not lose one among fifty patients, because he
practised bleeding at an early stage.
Annesley himself gives us information which hardly
Bleeding the specific for Cholera. 241
agrees with these statistics of Hasper.* He says that
the treatment of cholera hitherto pursued filled him with
horror, and therefore he resolved to follow the indications
of nature. He then gives the results of his treatment of
thirteen cholera patients. In the first case the patient had
been bled three times without any improvement before he
was placed in Annesley's hands. Annesley opened his
veins a fourth time, but no blood came and the patient
died. In the second case again bleeding was followed by
death. In this way twelve patients were treated, and all
twelve were dissected, for they all died. The thirteenth
patient, an officer, would not consent to be bled. Annesley
declined all responsibility for the patient, and he got better
in spite of science and the indications of nature. And
Annesley ? He calmly continued to bleed, and had plenty
of opportunities of performing post-mortems. Hasper
continues : —
Boyd lost only two patients out of twenty-eight when he bled freely.
Burrel only lost two patients out of eighty-eight, who were all copiously
bled ; Craw, with the same treatment, only lost one out of 100.
Dempster confirms this treatment by similar results. Gravier says
that bleeding may have a favourable result even when all the signs
of approaching death have appeared, when the limbs are cold and the
oppression is great At a later period Gravier recommends only
leeches. Colledge states that all died who were not bled, and all
recovered who were.
And so on through many pages. Incidentally less favour-
able results appear, but even these are made to bear out the
case for bleeding. The sources from which he derived his
information are unfortunately not given by the Professor.
As, therefore, these accounts are too one-sided for us to be
able to have any confidence in the statements when con-
tradicted by well-authenticated facts, we must turn to
another author. We choose Kriiger-Hansen ; he did not
like Hahnemann, but was also no friend of " rational "
medicine. He wrote a book Die Homoopathie imd Allopatlne
atif der Wage, and in it is described the ordinary treatment
* On the Asiatic Cholera, from Observations and Autopsies, trans-
lated by G. Himly, 1831. Rosenberg, Fortschritte tend Leistungen der
Honwopatliie, Leipzic, 1843, p. 221.
16
342 Allopathic critics of Allopathic
of cholera to which he was strongly opposed. The following
description is taken chiefly from this book: —
Really it is the turn of the homoeopaths to laugh when we consider
that the allopaths sought the seat of the disease now in the spinal
cord, now in the nervous system, in the blood, the skin, the bile, or the
bowels. One looked upon it as an intermittent fever, others regarded
it as a kind of typhus, epilepsy, colic, dysentery, intestinal exanthem, &ic.
Some thought that parasites, called cholcrills^ were the cause of the
epidemic ; Hahnemann was of this opinion. Rothamel gave the most
exact definition : Cholera is a composite disease often of dynamic,
generally of asthenic, seldom of hypersthenic and hardly ever of an
active, nature.* Those who thought the disease was caused by a poison
proceeded energetically to destroy it, or at least remove it from the
body. For this purpose, patients were made to inhale suffocating
chlorine, were bathed in lime water, were dosed with emetics, &c. Those
who sought for the source of the poison in the blood, or who thought
that the bowels were inflamed, bled, and this was the almost universal
treatment. Mercury, too, was largely used. Others treated only
symptomatically ; if the body was cold and stiff, frictions, vapour
baths, hot drinks and hot water bottles were employed ; wrapping
up the patient in horse dung and the warin skins of newly flayed
animals was even recommended ; if the patient was attacked with
sickness, mercury was administered to cause stools ; if the patient was
purging, but not vomiting, emetics were given ; if the patient had
cramps, so-called anti-spasmodics of all sorts mixed together were
administered in the hope that some one might avail. Corporations
of physicians boldly recommended bleeding, emetics, mercury, and
diaphoretics. There were cases in which young and robust persons
took six to eight powders of 25 to 40 grains of ipecacuanha, each one
strengthened with two to six grains of sulphate of zinc, to begin with.
Many doctors carried about emetics with them, and administered
them to all who complained of incipient symptoms of cholera. Most
doctors advised bleeding under given conditions. These conditions
were very frequently present. In all this misery the allopathic doctors
disputed among themsehes in no very gentle manner.
Sachs, of Konigsberg, looked upon the 300 cholera
pamphlets that had appeared as so unimportant that the
few valuable ones could all be carried about conveniently in
the pocket of a practitioner. He himself wrote a work 400
pages long on the subject, which contained the following
musings: —
Med. Convcrsat. Biatf, 1S31, No. 41. Die AliOopathic, 1834, No.
treatment of Cholera. 243
It will hardly be necessary to inform the intelligent practitioner that
our recommendation of opium by no means excludes the use of
moderate local bleeding where this appears necessary, even if only
symptomatically, and to tide over some temporary difficulty.
In what follows we at once perceive in Professor Sachs,
the scientific teacher : —
The highly fatal collison which is produced by this nervous fever
(cholera), between agility and atony, whereby both mutually intensify
one another and aggravate the whole condition ; this collision is often
rapidly allayed by the decisive action of opium, which increases the in-
tensive energy of the blood, and the steadiness and mutual harmonious
limitation of the organic functions is restored, so that each one is
set to rights in its own action and can be of unimpeded service to the
others.
Professor Kiescr, of Jena, thus prefaced a pamphlet of
his disciple, Von Rein, on Oriental Cholera : —
The pan-epidemic of Cholera has written with ineffaceable characters
in the history of medicine the empirical character of contemporary
medicine, and its utter irrationality. The Turk instinctively treats
this disease more successfully than does the European, with his
pretentions to wisdom. In this monograph on the cholera, the first
that has appeared of a scientific character, the various questions
that demand solution are solved in the most satisfactory manner
for the first time a scientific theory of treatment has been advanced,
based on a scientific knowledge of the nature of the disease, worked
out by the sick bed, and approved by the most successful practical
results After maturely weighing the investigations, observations and
practical results laid down in this pamphlet, we can even affirm
with certainty that now that the nature of cholera and the appropriate
plan of treatment to be pursued are no longer doubtful, it is likely to
be exceeded in fatality by many other diseases.
We read on eagerly after such promises. Kieser is known
to us from the Allgemeiner Anaeiger der DeutscJien as an
energetic advocate of bleeding, but subsequently in his
System of Medicine he gives utterance to the often-quoted
saying, " In the present condition of medical practice, both
in Germany and the neighbouring countries, every patient
should be warned to shun the doctor as he would the most
virulent poison." So in the year 1825, in Hufeland's
Journal,^' he considers it wrong to " draw blood by pounds
in all pulmonary diseases, and to let the patient die
'^- Vol. LX., St. 2, p. 40.
244 Scientific reasons for
from loss of blood," as the blind anti-phlogistic party do.
Kieser seems, then, to have come to his senses in the
course of years, and we, therefore, expect to find in
him an opponent of the horrible allopathic treatment.
What, then, does Kieser advise ? The treatment of cho-
lera must be that of inflammatory, gastric, nervous fever.
TJie principal remedy is blood-letting, proportioned to the
strength of the patient and the intensity of the disease ;
in cases, then, of the most intense form of cholera, and
where the patient was previously robust, blood-letting,
from four to five pounds, is desirable ; and even before
the disease is fully developed such a mode of proceeding
is useful. Reason : "If after venesection to the extent
of four to eight ounces, where the violence of the disease
required four pounds, the patient, nevertheless, dies, it is
wrong to look upon bleeding as having failed in its ef-
fect, or even as having been injurious. We could almost
think that all sound judgment had deserted doctors [we
hear the same assertions now made by professors on similar
occasions], for if experience teaches us that a pound of
blood can be drawn without injury from children of one
to three years old affected with tracheitis and encephalitis,
how can one hesitate to take several pounds from a cholera
patient who was previously robust, when this does not
imply nearly so much loss of blood to him as the one
pound to the two years old child ? We can hardly under-
stand why practitioners do not once for all try bleeding
experimentally on a large scale, as they have so many
other remedies."
The fault then, according to Kieser, consisted in the fact
that bleedings to the extent of one to two pounds of blood
were too small, in this he agrees with other professors,
Hasper for example.
This was rational medicine! And Kieser (died 1862)
was "an authority of the first rank." He contributed
largely to the development of physiology, particularly that
of plants, to the science of the microscope, and to biology.
Hundreds of doctors swore by his authority. His treat-
ment of cholera has not yet, however, been fully described.
Bleeding in Cholera. 245
After blood-letting calomel is to be administered with
magnesia, three to ten grains every hour, then follow cold
baths for five to ten minutes, not douches as others recom-
mended. Then an emetic may be administered, or the
patient can again be bled, made to drink cold water and cold
compresses may be applied to the shaved head. To get rid
of the rest of the inflammation, six drachms of saltpetre or
more in 24 hours, combined with liq. minder, when the stage
of inflammation passes into the nervous stage. In cases
where blood would not flow from the vein that had been
opened Rein opened all the veins that he could see. In
Hasper's article in Hufeland's Journal p. 59, it is stated :
" Rein at once laid bare and opened to the extent of half-
an-inch all the veins of the cholera patients which he could
see on their bodies ; but in spite of everything two hours
were required in the case of each patient to squeeze out
from four, six or eight veins two pounds of blood." Often
even this was not possible. He then tried arteriotomy, but
only a few ounces of blood were to be obtained from the
temporal and radial arteries. Kieser asserts that Rein in
his private practice " by pursuing this scientific treatment,"
out of thirty cases of the most severe kind of cholera did
not lose one. We ask in astonishment, whether all these
counsels and assertions are to be regarded as ironical —
but alas! no, it is bitter, "rational" earnest.
It interests us especially to notice what weapons the
allopaths in Austria used against this devastating disease.
Here the consummation wished for by so many allopaths
had been attained. The practice of homoeopathy had been
forbidden since 18 19, in consequence of an imperial edict.
The prohibition was not carried out very strictly, but it was
the occasion of endless persecutions by the allopaths and
apothecaries.
According to the Medic. Jahrbiicher des osterreich. Staates
(vol. XII., p. i), vomiting and diarrhoea are simply the
healing efforts of nature " to get rid of substances deposited
246 Results of the ordinmy treatment
in large quantity on the inner surface of the stomach and
bowels, which the animal economy can no longer digest
and assimilate." But if the vomiting was very stubborn it
does not appear to have been considered as a" healing effort,"
for in this case opium, effervescent powders, River's drink,aq.
lauroc, black coffee, ice, blisters, and theriac plasters were
employed. In Hungary, morphia and pyroligneous acid
were largely used. At the last period of the epidemic,
the Austrian doctors, wishing to change passive into active
diarrhoea, administered calomel in doses of half a grain
every two hours, mixed with sugar or with magnesia and
opium. " The extremely favourable effect of bleedings,
local and general, when indicated, is admitted by all
physicians. In the paralytic stage of the disease it is not
only of no use, but increases the collapse and hastens the
end." Kriiger-Hansen remarks on this : " the doctors should
have kept such confessions in their own bosoms, and not
exposed themselves to the ridicule of the homceopaths ! "
Wawruch gives us an example of the disastrous results of
the allopathic treatment in Vienna. He relates that 109
children were attacked by the disease in the lying-in hos-
pital at Vienna at the time of the cholera epidemic, of
whom 107 died ; that is to say only two escaped with their
lives (Kriiger-Hansen).
Professor Bischoff treated seven patients for cholera in
the hospital of the Joseph Academy at Vienna in December,
1831, with the most diverse remedies, six of them died ; the
seventh, who had just recovered from inflammation of the
lungs, from the effects of the treatment of which he was still
suffering, refused all remedies when attacked with cholera,
he drank nothing but lemonade, and recovered.
In September, 1832, 121 Vienna and 83 foreign doc-
tors assembled in Vienna on the occasion of the meet-
ing of the Natiirforschervcrsanniilung. The treatment of
cholera was discussed. Brodowicz, Bischoff and Wawruch
spoke in favour of bleeding repeated four or five times
during the attack of cholera ; according to Obersteiner
and Wirer, bleeding ought only to be employed in the
" reaction stage." Bittner thought that the bleeding ought
of Cholera in A Ji stria. 247
to be limited, and Szots quoted the favourable results of
the treatment in Transylvania, where no bleedin^^, either
general or local, had been practised. Finally Sterz and
Herrmann spoke of the treatment of cholera by emetics.
" It transpired," says Kruger-Hansen, " that in the university
towns, where the medical teachers resided, the results of the
treatment of cholera were much more unfavourable than in
any other place, even in the country where there were no
doctors." Hasper, the representative of" rational medicine,"
asserts the contrary.
What, then, were the results obtained by the homoeopaths,
who were very much over-worked at this time, when the
cholera was raging. They themselves assert distinctly the
superiority of their results over those obtained by " rational
medicine." Their statistics are more favourable throughout
than those of the allopaths, certainly with the exception of
those of Hasper.
The allopaths proved scientifically the impossibility of
better results being obtained by the homceopaths. If the
latter asserted the contrary they could be proved to have
lied by science. Those who recovered had simply not been
suffering from cholera at all.
Hufeland calls cholera "this scandalum medicorum," in
1 832, in his Journal, the April number, p. 4. He relates that
no hindrance was put in the way of the homoeopaths by the
Prussian Government, a special hospital was even opened
for them under the supervision of an " allopathic inspector."
But unfortunately this object was not completely attained. This was
partly because, on account of the well-known rapidity of the dangerous
symptoms of this disease, it was not possible always to summon the
medical inspector quickly enough, partly because it was not alwaj's
possible for him, however quickly he came, to convince himself of
the existence of symptoms which had previously been there, but
which had already disappeared. What hindered the working of it
was however chiefly the fact that most patients had a repugnance to
being taken to a hospital, and preferred to remain in their own dwell-
ings, where it was impossible for the inspector to perform his part.
We must therefore receive the greater part of the experience ob-
tained on the good faith of the homoeopaths themselves. And it is
undeniable that the proportion of those cured to those who died, was
extremely favourable. Results still more favourable to the homoeo-
pathic method were reported to us from other places.
248 Allopathic testimony to success of
Hasper was probably thinking of those 1,294 fatal cases
when he wrote : — " Those cases where the homceopathic
method was employed proved most rapidly fatal."
Now-a-days no rational professor would venture on the
assertion that the allopathic results were more favourable,
and we can certainly say without fear of contradiction that
the homoeopaths were more successful than their opponents
in the treatment of this disease.* We might gather this
even from the renewed vehemence of the allopathic attacks.
* I may be permitted to add a couple of testimonies from the camp
of its opponents to the superiority of homoeopathy to the " rational "
system in the treatment of cholera. The late Sir William Wilde, the
well-known allopathic oculist of Dublin, in his work entitled Austria
and, its Institutions^ says (p. 275) : " Upon comparing the report of
the treatment of cholera in the homceopathic hospital [testified to by
two allopathic medical inspectors appointed by Government] with that
of the treatment of the same disease in the other hospitals of Vienna
during the same period [the epidemic of 1836], it appeared that
while two-thirds of the cases treated by Dr. Fleischmann [the physician
of the homceopathic hospital] recovered, two-thirds of those treated
by the ordinary methods in the other hospitals died. This very ex-
traordinary result led Count Kolowrat (Minister of the Interior) to
repeal the law prohibiting the practice of homoeopathy."'
When the cholera epidemic visited London in 1854, the Board of
Management of the London Homceopathic Hospital, then located in
Golden Square, which happened to be the centre of the most severely
affected part of the metropolis, cleared out the hospital for the recep-
tion of cholera patients only. The medical Inspector appointed by
the Board of Health, Dr. Macloughlin, was rec^uested to put the
London Homoeopathic Hospital on the list of institutions for the treat-
ment of cholera, which he was to inspect and report on. This he
willingly did, after thoroughly inspecting the arrangements. He also
paid a daily visit of inspection to the hospital during the whole of the
time it was engaged in receiving cases of cholera. The Board of Health
had appointed a committee of medical men, presided over by Dr.
Paris, the President of the College of Physicians, to collect the statis-
tics of the treatment of cholera in London and to report to Parliament
on the results of the various methods pursued in all the difterent in-
stitutions. When the report of this Treatment Committee appeared, it
was observed that the returns of the London Homceopathic Hos-
pital were altogether ignored. Some stir was made in the House of
Commons by Lord R. Grosvenor — now Lord Ebury — about this
omission, and this led to a separate Parliamentary paper being issued
Honuvopathic treatment of Cholera. 249
All the evidence points to the fact that the spread of
homoeopathy increased rapidly during and after the cholera;
the self-reliance and confidence of the homoeopaths grew,
and the irritation of their opponents reached the highest
pitch.
At the end of July, cholera broke out at Raab, in Hun-
gary. According to authentic statistics, 640 died out of
1,501 patients who were treated allopathically.* The re-
sults of the homoeopathic treatment of Dr. Bakody, who
was settled in Raab, were much more favourable. So much
so, that the inhabitants made an appeal through the news-
papers for more homoeopathic doctors to wage war against
this dreaded foe ? The Protomedicus of Hungary, Dr.
Lenhoscek did not consider this appeal suitable for publica-
tion, and in his capacity of censor refused to allow it to be
printed, appending in his own hand the words " Pro typis
non est qualificatum," so that the manuscript was returned
to the sender, Franz von Parragh, " episcopal exactor" and
advocate. After cholera had ceased at Raab, Bakody in-
formed his friend Dr. Ant. Schmit, Physician to the Duke
of Lucca, of his mode of treatment and the results ob-
tained, and he, contrary to Bakody's wish, sent them for in-
sertion to the Allgemeiner Aiweiger der Deittschen, which
accepted the article.f It did not contain any expression in
the least offensive to any physician, although Bakody had
been subjected to the most severe attacks on the part of
the allopaths of Raab.
containing the omitted returns of the London Homoeopathic Hospital.
From these returns it appeared that the number of cases treated in
the Homoeopathic Hospital was sixty-one, of whom ten died, giving a
mortahty of i6'4 per cent. From the other Parhamentary paper,
issued under the editorship of the Treatment Committee, it appeared
that the average mortahty under the mode of treatment pursued in
the other metropohtan hospitals was 5 1 "8 per cent. The Government
Inspector, Dr. Macloughlin, though himself belonging to the domi-
nant sect, testified most handsomely to the severity of the cases
treated in the London Homoeopathic Hospital, and to the astonishing
success of the treatment. — [Ed.]
* Rcchtferti^itn^ des Dr. von Bakody, &^c., won Mor. Miiller, Leipzig,
1832.
t In No. 321 of 1 83 1.
250 AUopatJdc floivcTS of rhetoric.
Thereupon the County Physicus, Dr. Joseph v, Balogh,
and the Town Physicus, Dr. Ant. Karpff published a re-
joinder, in which it was asserted that the homoeopathic
statistics were false, that all the cholera patients treated
by Bakody had died, and that the patients who had
recovered had never had cholera. This article was em-
bellished with the following flowers of rhetoric by these
two gentlemen : —
The Allgemeiiier Anzeiger der DciitscJien omitted them,
but Mor. Muller has happily rescued them from oblivion —
"Lying shameless scribbling" — "Facts misrepresented in
the most pitiful way" — "Attacks of two medical incroy-
ables (Bakody and Schmit) on an art accredited by the
experience of a thousand years" — "The whole homoeo-
pathic clique." " Bakody is so unfortunate as to have
become the butt of many non-professionals by reason of
his want of savoir /aire, his unprepossessing exterior (! ! !)
and his want of success in his treatment." "Medical
forgers." " The word conscientious is out of place in
the homoeopathic jargon ; " " The knight Don Quixote ; "
" Besides the eight cholera patients who were carried to
the grave, Bokody neither saw nor treated any other
cholera cases, else the homoeopathic fanatics would have
crowed still louder;" "Bakody took good care neither
to hand in his reports to the town magistrate nor to
make them known by his proselytes ; " " medical juggler."
This was the language used by the allopaths, Dr. Jos. von
Balogh, the County Physicus, and Dr. Anton Karpff, the
Town Physicus. Bakody rejoined in a most dignified
manner, and produced 112 legally attested certificates
relating to 1 54 cholera patients treated by him, of whom
only six died. As his witnesses there appeared among
others: a cathedral dignitary, who gave evidence in the
name of the Bishop of Raab, respecting five members of the
bishop's household who had been cured of cholera ; further
an evangelical preacher, a reformed preacher, a member of
the bench of magistrates, three pastors, a count, a notary,
an episcopal treasurer, a consistory counsellor, a member of
the council, various merchants, mechanics, &c. Their tes-
Uses of the CensorsJiip. 251
timonies, together with expressions of gratitude to Bakody,
are printed by Muller in the work alluded to.
One very favourite weapon of the opponents of homoeo-
pathy was the censorship of the press, especially in Hun-
gary, but also in other countries.
Gricsselich* writes on the subject : —
Dr. Kiesselbach of Hanau wished an account of the homoeo-
pathic treatment of croup to be inserted in a Kassel paper; the censor
vetoed it, and the Kassel paper kept silence on the subject of croup
and homoeopathy. Hahnemann sent his treatment of cholera to the
PreussiscJie Slants Zeitiing, but it could not be inserted Ijccause the
Berlin censor, Prof Kluge, would not allow it.
In 1 83 1 a doctor in Cothen published an attack on Hahnemann in
the Cbthener Zeitung on account of his treatment of cholera, to which
Hahnemann wished to respond in the same paper, but was refused
permission because the censor was a friend of the doctor's. Hahne-
mann then had his rejoinder printed in Magdeburg, where no objection
was raised. In Leipzic Hofrath Dr. Clarus wielded the censor's shears,
of which fact we can obtain evidence in Stapf's ArcJiiv^ and Schweikert's
Zcitttng. The cholera is raging at Raab in Hungary ; the public having
witnessed Bakody's cures wishes to summon homoeopaths thither.
But the notice in the paper is refused insertion by the Protomedicus
Lenhoscek as pro typis non qiialificatiini.
Considering the use made of the censorship we could almost think
that there was something dangerous to the State in homoeopathy ; for
as far as is known the censorship is only intended to keep peace in
the States, but not to hinder doctors from curing, nor patients from
being cured.
Kriiger-Hansent relates also that his pamphlets against
blood-letting, &c., were sent back from the Austrian states
to Leipzic with the observation : " the censor has not
allowed them to pass."
Austria-Hungary was a pattern place for the allopaths.
Read the article in the Allgemeiner Anz. der Deutschen (year
1 833) P- 965). Not only was license given "to all base and
* Skizzcn aits dcr Mappc cities rciscndcn Hoinoppaflicti, Karlsruhe,
1S32, p. 128.
■*■ Brillc?ilosc Rcflexio/icfi, p. 19.
252 Uncontradicted calnninies
infamous attacks on the homoeopaths," but such were even
encouraged, and " the oppressed and attacked party was
not only not allowed to plead its own cause, but was not
even allowed to defend itself, and all attempts to do so
were carefully suppressed." " Thus the medical censorship
(wielded by the above-mentioned Dr. Lcnhoscek) struck
out the following true and beautiful passage from Hufe-
land's article on homoeopathy,* which appeared in a Hun-
garian paper. ' No kind of despotism, no autocracy, no
suppression of opinion ; government itself has no right to
interfere in scientific matters, either in preventing research,
or in favouring exclusively one opinion ; for both kinds of
interference have done harm, as experience shows.' Not
only were articles suppressed that directly concerned
homceopathy, but even such as were likely to encourage
ideas favourable to the principles of homoeopathy. To
prove this I may refer to two very modest treatises, one on
simplicity in medicine and another on the imperfection of the
present matei'-ia inedica, which, were rejected in the following
terms." The remarks in Latin of the censor. Dr. Lenhoscek,
are given at length, they are to the effect that nothing ought
to be printed against the principles of scientific medicine,
cultivated as it has been for so many centuries. Homoeo-
paths might publish their observations, but they must not
attack allopathy.
The permission here accorded was, however, only an empty consola-
tion, as the editors of the only medical journal published in Hungary,
were forbidden to accept homoeopathic articles. But all this might
have been more easily borne, as it was to be hoped that the advan-
tages of the new system would become more and more known by
deeds, if not by writings ; but this was not all. The adherents of
homoeopathy were exposed to all possible insults and calumnies with-
out being able to make any protest.
We are then told that a writer, Dr. Hanak, supported by
the allopathic professor. Dr. Sch., and Dr. T., published a
series of abusive articles in Die Bienc, which do not leave the
reader one moment in doubt as to the sentiments of these
combatants. Here are some specimens : — " Among doctors
there are not wanting Icaruses who, forgetting the waxen
* Hufeland's/<?«r«(^!;/, Feb., 1830.
grozv like rolling snoivhalls. 253
composition of their wings, fly stupidly towards the sun, and
falling into the sea of oblivion, have not even the good fortune
of the son of Daedalus of rendering themselves immortal by
their fall. Among these we must reckon all those who boast
of their universal remedies and universal methods of heal-
ing, from Dr. Sangrado to the latest unlucky charlatans of
medicine — the homoeopaths." " We must, indeed, anticipate
that the homoeopathic folly, like every other work of deceit
and darkness, must of itself fall to the ground ; but the
friends of light perceive with pleasure that sensible doctors
are already raising their voices against it." The most sensible
of all ought therefore to be Simon, who, as is well known,
proved Hahnemann to be " a mere ignoramus both as a
scholar and a physician." "We cannot, therefore, understand
how a true Magyar, even if he is sick in body, as long as he
is mentally sound, can give himself up to such quackery."
" In what respect is a homoeopathic doctor different from
and better than a bird of darkness who seeks to gather
honey from the cells of his honest colleagues." The whole
article seems to be made up of such phrases.
This article was received with great applause by the opponents of
homoeopathy. [Would even now be received with pleasure as we
shall hereafter see.] They found in it the expression of their own
hatred and ill-will towards this new and aggravating system. The un-
instructed public looked on it as a powerful exposition of the worthless-
ness of homoeopathy ; and, in order to obtain the desired result more
completely, Dr. Hanak resolved to print this article separately, and, with
the addition of a few extracts from Simon's book to offer it at a cheap
price to the public, A homoeopathic doctor ventured to say something
against this abusive and ignorant treatise, and wished to print his re-
marks in the Modezeitting^ in default of any other German journal.
The article had to be submitted to the medical censorship. After
many weeks it was returned to him with the following remark — " This
article is not fitted for insertion in the Modczciiicng\ on account both of
its form and its subject, and will not therefore be allowed to appear
in the Modezeittifig. Ofen. July 12, 1830, M. von Lenhoscek, Royal
Counsellor and Protomedicus of the Kingdom — Mp."
But all this seems mere child's play, compared with what
Dr. Kovats says. He wrote Antiorgaiion ac Organorosta^
Pesth, 1830. In this work homoeopathy is termed "a system
of jugglery and of deception, quackery, a foolish, bungling
254 Cahnnniarc niidacter.
science, an occupation suitable for idle cobblers." Hahne-
mann was " a wretched vagabond, a wandering, ignorant
barber, a blind Paracelsist, a liar, a worthless tempter, a
fool, a false, coarse, low fox," and so forth. Hahnemann's
adherents are all '' madmen who ought to be locked up."
Those who allow themselves to be treated homceopathically
are also "fools." He terms a homoeopathic doctor, Dr. Paul
von Balogh, of Pesth (who must not be confounded with
Balogh the County physicus), " a pander to Hahnemann,
a deceiver, a 'shameless liar, an ungrateful fellow who takes
upon himself to contemn the teaching of the medical
faculty, a charlatan, an ignorant, foolish, low fellow, who
can have learnt nothing or else he would have found it
impossible to accept the teaching of homoeopathy."
The homoeopaths were unable to defend themselves on
account of the censorship. In Hungary, Surgeon Rochel,
Professor Schuster,* of Pesth, and Dr. Lippich treated
homoeopathy in the same strain. Repeatedly, and in vari-
ous newspapers, the homoeopaths attempted to publish
rejoinders. Every time they were rejected, however, by the
medical censor, with the declaration that Hahnemann's
method of treatment is forbidden in the Austrian States.
It is no wonder [says \\\q. Allgem. An:;ciger dcr Deidsc/icfi] that in
Hungary the most distorted, absurd and laughable ideas prevail on the
subject of homceopathy, and that homoeopathy makes but little progress
with the public, generally so responsive to all that is good and true, for
even learned men ha\e an unconquerable aversion to it. Every day
most of the allopathic doctors come to their patients with the good news
that homoeopathy is at last, thanks be to heaven, on the verge of ex-
piring ; that his Majesty has just strictly forbidden homceopathy by a
rescript ; that this was necessary since homoeopathy did so much mis-
chief, that its poisonous remedies either kill slowly, or cause miserably
diseased life, that they destroy female beauty and make it instantly
iippear many years older, &c. [The same ideas founded on the same
reasoning are to be met with even now.] The student of medicine in
the colleges hears nothmg but jeers and scoffs, or condemnation of
homoeopathy. Who is to set them right or awake in them a desire
for reading homoeopathic treatises? Is it a wonder if among the nu-
merous medical students at Pesth there are so few who have any wish
to make themselves acquainted with the new system } But notwith-
* Author of the anonymous Hahnemajiniana^ Berlin, 1830.
align id adhaerebit. 255
standing- all this despotism the light of truth will yet conquer in
H ungary.
In the year 1837 the prohibition of the practice of
hmoeopathy was removed by an imperial mandate, and for
ten years there has been a hospital and a professorship of
homoeopathy held by Professor v. Bakody, the son of the
Bakody who was so much persecuted.
In 1843 the readers of Hungarian journals were again
entertained with an attack on homoeopathy, to which the
homoeopaths thus responded : — *
Our opponent has wished to persuade his readers that no stumbling
block has been laid in the way of homoeopathy by the old school,
that we have been allowed to pursue our own way freely. Even now
there is a capital in the Austrian monarchy in which a homoeopathic
book may not even be announced in a journal, nay, the bookseller
may not even expose it in his window. There, as here, anything may
be printed against homoeopathy, but nothing in its favour.
This is the place to describe the medical standpoint of
the medical advisers of the Austrian Emperor, in whom
he so implicitly confided. It was above all others owing to
Andreas Stifft, later his Excellency von Stifft, a vehement
opponent of homoeopathy that the practice of Hahnemann's
mode of treatment was forbidden. Griesselichj relates the
following amusing anecdote : " A Dr. Lobel appeared at
Stifft's house to hand him a work which he had dedicated
to him. The servant confused his name with that of a
Dr. Lowe, a homoeopath, who had come to Vienna from
Prague. Dr. Lobel had to wait a long time. At last Stifft
appeared and encountered this non-homoeopath with the
words, ' You are a homoeopath — a fool ; go ! go ! I will
have nothing to do with fools ! ' Exeunt both through
opposite doors."
His Excellency von Stifft was the Emperor's physician
in ordinary. As everyone knows Francis II. was then
reigning, who was called Francis I. after the extinction of
the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
His father was Leopold II., with the history of whose ill-
* Allg. horn. Zeittmg, Vol. XXIV., p. 26S.
t Skizzcn^ &c.
256 Death of Francis I.
ness Hahnemann's opposition to the blood-letting four times
repeated, is connected. Francis had lost his wives and his
youthful grandson, who is known to the world's history
(Due de Reichstadt), under the " rational " system of bleed-
ing. The Emperor was 67 years old, and was considerably
bowed down by the weight of years,* when an inflam-
matory fever, at first declared harmless by his physicians
(Stifft and Gunther), attacked him in 1835. Blood was
drawn from him. The subsidence of the symptoms, which
usually followed temporarily, was declared favourable ; but
as was also usually the case, the fever increased afterwards,
and he was bled a second time. The symptoms became
now more urgent, and both the doctors declared at mid-
day, February 28th, that they could not save the patient.
A wish was expressed for a further consultation, and three
archiducal physicians in ordinary appeared at the sick bed.
These approved of the treatment hitherto pursued, and
declared that there was still some hope if a favourable crisis,,
a profuse perspiration, should take place. To bring this
about they bled him twice more, after which the fever in-
creased, the strength was proportionately diminished, the
breathing became difficult, and within twenty-four hours
the action of the heart stopped.
When the noble-minded patient dismissed, for the last
time, the doctors who looked upon his blood as poison, he
gave each of them his hand, thanked them for their ex-
ertions, and assured them of his love and favour, adding,,
generously, that he knew how much they loved him, and
that they had done and would do all they could to save his
life.
The report of the doctors upon the post-mortem exam-
ination was as follows : —
The patient died of inflammation of the lungs, the heart and the
large blood vessels. The medical treatment was the only correct one,
but the frequently repeated bleedings had not been sufficient to restrain
within limits the increasing inflammation, and a more energetic treat-
ment was precluded by the general condition of the patient, and would
have incurred the danger of causing instantaneous death.
* Comp. Kriiger-Hansen, Brillailose Rcflexio7ien^ 1835, p. 21,
GoetJie oti Hoincvopathy. 257
The tragic fate which the Austrian Imperial Family
experienced, through their " rational " advisers, reminds us
of the like fate which befel other intellectually distinguished
men through rational treatment. How, for instance, did
Goethe fare in this respect ? He makes the following
remarks on homoeopathy: — *
Both [he is speaking of Count Paar and Antony Prokesch, adju-
tants of Prince Schwarzenberg] conversant with Hahnemann's system,
on which this great prince had set his hopes, made me thoroughly
acquainted with it, and it seemed to me that anyone who pays attention
to his health and observes a suitable diet, unconsciously approximates
to this method.
Hofrath Dr. Pitschaft quotes this opinion about homoeo-
pathy, and adds, " how truly and delicately he expresses
himself in reference to the prince."
Goethe's opinion cannot be said to be more opposed
to the homoeopaths than that of Jean Paul was in their
favour. He says: " Hahnemann, that rare combination of
philosophy and learning, whose system must eventually
bring about the ruin of the ordinary receipt-crammed
heads, but is still little accepted by practitioners, and rather
shunned than investigated."!
It almost seems to us as if Jean Paul had penetrated
deeper into the matter than Goethe with his diplomatic
utterance, and it would have been to the interest of the latter
to make himself more intimately acquainted with Hahne-
mann. The account of his illness confirms this. Hufeland's
remarks^ (from 1783 to 1790, he enjoyed intercourse with
Goethe, both as doctor and friend) are well known : —
I have never met with a man who was so largely gifted by heaven,
both bodily and mentally ; he was, indeed, a model of the most
perfect man. It was not only the power that to such an extra-
ordinary degree animated both his body and soul which extorted
admiration, but still more the splendid balance of his qualities, both
physical and intellectual, and the beautiful harmony of body and mind,
so that neither lived at the cost of the other or disturbed its action.
* Vol. XXXII. of his Works, p. 184. Hufeland's >«r«^r/, Vol.
LXXVII., St. 3, p. 4.
t Zerstr. Bliiitcr, Vol. II., p. 392, Stapf, Lc. I., p. i.
:J: Huielaind's Journal, 1833, St. i, p. 31.
17
258 God lie's maladies and
In December, 1830, Goethe was attacked by haemorrhage
from the lungs, in consequence — as his doctor, Vogel,
thought — of grief at losinc;' his son. He recovered from
this, though, in his last years the weaknesses of old age,
especially stiffness of the limbs, failure of memory for recent
occurrences, occasional inability to understand clearly and
quickly what was presented, and, besides these symptoms,
deafness, became noticeable in him.
His former great activityof thought, as also the agihtyof his muscular
movements, diminished perceptibly from year to year, while his usual
difficulty in forming a decision increased.
The above mentioned haemorrhage filled " a large and
deep washing basin half full," and, at the same time, V'ogel
bled the old man to the amount of two pounds.
Goethe ate a great deal, and even when he complained of want of
appetite he often ate much more than other younger healthy persons.
He never owned to faults of diet, however often he may have been
guilty of them. His want of self-restraint in eating, naturally enough
often caused indigestion. This was remedied by daily pills of as-
safoetida, rhubarb and jalap and clysters. Occasionally, too, some
spoonfuls of tincture of rhubarb and some Epsom salts were neces-
sary. As his friend Schiller liked the exhalation from rotten apples,
so Goethe liked the close air of a room. He could with the greatest
difficulty be induced to open a window, that fresh air might be let
into his bedroom and study.
Goethe had, owing to his great productive tendency, at all periods
(if his life made much blood. Formerly his blood-making was in
favourable proportion to his blood-consumption. In the latter years
of his life, however, owing to his complete abandonment of bodily
exercise, while he continued to eat abundantly, he became very full-
l:)looded, and this state urgently required copious artificial blood-letting
by venesection from time to time.
We have already mentioned that his doctor allowed him
to take aperients every day, and " he drank besides Kreuz-
brunnen mineral water every day, taking every }-car over
400 bottles."
Hufeland remarks in a postscript: —
Productivity, both mental and physical, was Goethe's main charac-
teristic ; and in the latter it was shown by rich nutrition, extremely
rapid sanguinification and reproduction, curative crises in illness, and
a fulness of blood. Therefore, in his old age, hemorrhagic crises and
the necessity for bleeding.
their rational treatment. 259
Wc will not take upon ourselves to pass judgment on
the treatment of Goethe's last illness, in spite of the
numerous medicines he was obliged to swallow. The
report of his illness is of very great interest on account of
the information as to Goethe's habits of life and views that
it contains. But to say that the daily administered aperients,
the unremitting use of such a strong mineral water, and the
repeated " copious " bleedings (and we know what that
meant in those blood-thirsty days,) must have injured the
valuable life of this man, can hardly appear an exaggeration
now-a-days.
A physician like Hahnemann, who did not live far from
Weimar, and who was such an advocate for fresh air, would
certainly, if consulted, have energetically insisted upon its
necessity for Goethe. A doctor, by taking a firm stand and
by persistent sensible persuasion, can conquer any prejudice.
That Raphael, Mirabeau, Lord Byron, Gessner, &c., were
severely injured by bleeding, that Louis XIIL was bled
forty-seven times in one year by his physician Bou-
vard, besides taking 215 purgatives and emetics and 312
clysters ; that several members of the family of Louis XIV.
were killed by bleeding, even according to the testimony
of the allopaths of that day, and that Louis XV. did not
fare much better in common with very many other re-
markable men, all this we will ngt enter into here ; but we
are interested in Cavour's fate.*
After a stormy sitting of Parliament on 29th May, 1861,
in Turin, Cavour was seized with slight febrile rigor, to
which in the following night " violent pains in the bowels "
and vomiting were added. Blood was drawn " which re-
lieved the patient." On the following morning, the 30th
May, he was bled a second time, and again in the evening
of the same day, at five o'clock, a third time. That is three
bleedings in twenty-four hours ! Violent fever succeeded,
* Related at length at the end of Count Cavotir's Life and Labours^
by (iuiscppc Massari, Jena, 1874.
26o Cavoiir''s scientific pJiysicians.
the patient was " very weak and suffering." He passed a
good night! Friday, the 3 ist, the fever disappeared, so that
Cavour was able to hold a Council which assembled round
his bedside for two hours. In the evening he became very
feverish. Quinine did no good. On the ist of June he was
again bled twice — a quiet night followed. On the following
day, June 2nd, he was pale and weak, his left hand and
fore-arm cold as marble (the natural consequence of the
enormous loss of blood). On attempting to leave his bed
the wound in the vein re-opened, and the profuse bleeding
could not be stopped till a surgeon was called in. Some
hours later violent fever, shortness of breath, confusion of
ideas. The night was very bad, and the next morning his
excitement increased, his breathing became shorter, and
severe thirst set in (results of the loss of blood). Cavour
begged that a vein might be opened, this alone, he thought,
could save him. The physican was quickl}' summoned,
he consented, and a surgeon was sent for who made a
new incision but no blood flowed ; by pressing the vein
he succeeded in drawing off two or three ounces of thick
blood. The incisions of the veins made on the first day
were not healed. The consulting ph}-sicians prescribed
a solution of sulphate of quinine. Cavour begged it
might be administered in the form of a pill, because he
knew that the taste of the quinine would cause him to
vomit. The doctors refused, they thought a solution better.
He took the medicine with great repugnance, vomiting
followed, and was renewed each time he attempted to
take the drug, which he would only do at the persuasion
of the friends who surrounded him. In the following night
high fever and delirium. Ice compresses on the head and
mustard plasters on the legs. The next night he was
very bad again. Next morning cupping glasses were
applied to the nape, and again blisters on the legs. But
the blisters would not rise and the painful application of
the cupping glasses was not felt by the patient. Victor
Emmanuel, who visited his Minister just before his death,
proposed to the doctors to open a vein in his neck. The
doctors promised to take the proposal into consideration ;
Homoeopaths unscientific impostors. 261
but death prevented them. Cavour died suffering from un-
quenchable thirst.*
Before we leave the subject of the contest about the coarse
views of " science " and about blood-letting, we should add
that the opponents who attacked the homoeopaths in the
most violent manner on account of their neglect of blood-
letting, almost all expressly stated that anxiety for the public
weal made them take the pen in hand, because every year
thousands were sacrificed to the bloodless treatment, the
" imposture " and " quackery " of homoeopathy. When the
homoeopaths asserted that by their mode of treatment they
obtained better results, that was " a lie," " the homoeo-
paths did not themselves believe it." If patients affected
with serious diseases recovered, their diseases were only
" slight," and the homoeopaths had made a false diagnosis,
a trivial indisposition was exaggerated by the " impostors "
into a severe malady, in order to throw dust in people's
eyes. But if, for instance, a case of pneumonia died, in
spite of homoeopathic treatment, it was certain that " ener-
getic treatment," blood-letting, &c., in short, " scientific "
therapeutics would have saved the patient. Homoeopathic
literature abounds with authentic instances of the incredible
persecution they were subjected to in consequence of their
rejection of bleeding, emetics, &c.
I will give one other example of how the allopaths in
their periodical literature took every opportunity of acri-
moniously accusing their opponents of repudiating " scien-
tific " treatment.
The following evidently highly-coloured versions of
certain cases, taken from Walther's Journal f. Chirnrgie,
were given in Schmidt's Jahrbiicher : -f-
* The case of the Princess Charlotte is a good pendant to the above.
" The princess was very well — indeed, in the opinion of the physicians,
she was ' too well.' For some time past they had kept down her ' abun-
dance of humours ' by repeated bleedings and the meagerest possible
fare And so the unhappy princess, after a hard struggle of 52 hours,
bore a dead boy, on the 5th November, 18 17, and 5 hours afterwards
was herself a corpse.'' — Aleiii. of Karolinc Bauer, II., 260. — [Ed.J
t Vol. VI., 1835, PP- M6 and 153.
263 Fatal rcsnlts of not bleeding:
A healthy, robust, blooming servant girl, about twenty years old, was
seized with simple rheumatic bilious fever and placed herself under
the care of a qualified physician, and after a few weeks died in great
agony and delirious. The patient had throughout got no purgatives,
neither had she been bled ; the physician had contented himself with
the administration of some of the new-fangled remedies. At the post-
mortem the viscera, especially the stomach, were found gangrenous in
places ; the mesentery and intestines showed signs of intense inflam-
mation ; the walls of the small intestine were thickened and studded
Avith elevations which, on section, were seen to contain a quantity of
corroded villous intestinal membrane and partially inclosed orange-
coloured biliary matter which had caused ulceration. The large intes-
tine was full of impacted faeces. A considerable quantity of blood
had escaped into the pleural cavity and the lungs were intensely
inflamed.
A case of apoplexy, which had passed from homoeopathic
into allopathic hands, is then described: —
In spite of a rational physician having been called in, and the best
known remedies for sanguineous apoplexy having been administered
the patient could not be saved, and died, in spite of everything pos-
sible being done (venesection. Sec), in three days, leaving a widow and
numerous small children.
The author has seen similar cases in the time when Brown's plan of
treatment was the rage ; where patients suffering from fever, to whom
a sensible physician would have administered emetics and laxatives
for the excess of bile, were treated by the benighted Brownian, who
dreaded the supervention of asthenia, with cinchona and camphor,
and perished miserably, suffering from terrible colic, distortion of the
features, aberration of the mind, obviously from internal inflammation,
cursing and abusing the physician, Sic.
He must have been an intrepid fellow to leave this
earthly scene cursing and abusing, and the Brownian was
certainly wrong in thinking he had to do with asthenia.
Such outbreaks of partizan animosity were readily ad-
mitted into the most serious allopathic journals (Ph. von
Walter, the editor, was, as is well-known, the preceptor of
Schonlein and Johannes Miiller), and Schmidt's fa l/rbnc/ier
considered them suitable for a still wider circle of readers.
If the allopaths expressed themselves with such virulence
in scientific journals, we may imagine what animosity thc}^
displayed in their intercourse with the public.
A temperate opponent. 263
OberhofratJi Kopp o?i HoniaopatJiy.
Kopp wrote a work entitled : Experiences gained and
observations made during a tnal of Houia:opathy at the sick
bed, by Dr. J. H. Kopp, Oberhofrath, President of the
Wetterau Society of Natural Science, &c., Frankfort-on-
the-Main, 1832, Hufeland thus speaks of Kopp : — *
When a physician hke Kopp, who is recognised by the whole
medical public as one of their most estimable, thoughtful and expe-
rienced physicians, distinguished also by his powers of practical obser-
vation, expresses an opinion on this new and important subject, he
deserves our full attention. It has long been our wish that such a man
should devote his attention to an impartial examination of homceopathy.
But a rare combination of qualities is required for such a purpose. The
greatest love of truth and impartiality, no prejudice against the matter
in hand, but rather the hope and the wish to find in it something good
and helpful to medicine, readiness to accept all that is good and
useful, even if presented in the strangest form, and, as in the case of
homoeopathy, in the most repulsive manner, a complete knowledge of,
and long experience in medicine as it has been practised up till now,
and likewise a complete study and a long and extensive experience in
homceopathy ; and, finally, what is required to crown the whole, a calm,
benevolent mind, and a spirit ennobled and raised above the vulgar
herd by true and wide culture. Happily, these qualities are all united
in Kopp.
Hufeland quotes some sentences from him which accord
with his own ideas, and speaks particularly of his views on
the subject of bleeding without criticising them. Kopp
held similar views respecting homceopath}' to those of
Hufeland.
Hufeland was never violently attacked by the allopaths
on this account. He was the head, so to speak, of the
family of physicians, and was respected and honoured by
the allopaths to an extent to which the history of medicine
in Germany offers no parallel. Among foreigners only
Boerhaave can be compared with him in this respect. If
Hufeland was attacked he always replied in a mild but firm
and dignified tone, confining his remarks to the matter in
hand. We will only recall the case of Roschlaub, Professor
* Hufeland"s/w/';7w/, 1833, st. n, p. 73-
264 Kopps moderation pleases
of Medicine at Landshut, and his excitement theory. Hufe-
land opposed him ; Roschlaub became violent ; Hufeland
never lost his calm though decided tone. So the contest
lasted between these two men, through a whole decade, to
the year 1 806. Five years later Roschlaub, who was an en-
ergetic, self-reliant man, publicly owned his faults towards
Hufeland,* and publicly apologized to him ; a rare occur-
rence that does honour to both men, as a writer justly
remarks. A proof of how thoroughly Hufeland deserved
this respect is furnished by his article in the 2nd part of the
32nd volume of h\s J ojwnal, "An account rendered to the
public of my attitude towards Brownism." In spite of all
the personal attacks on him on the part of Brown's
adherents, he had never defended himself personally,
although by reason of this forbearance he was frequently
misunderstood and misrepresented, of which even Sprengel
gives an example in his History of Medicine. Hufeland
had kept silence in order not to embitter the strife unneces-
sarily, " I was only concerned on behalf of the truth." With
regard to his zeal for medical science, he says, " Not only
with my understanding, but with my whole being have
I embraced this science ; it has become my life."
Kopp was also highly respected, but he was not Hufe-
land ; the allopaths, Simon and Sachs, attacked him some
time after the homoeopaths had entered the lists against
him. Kopp was thus exposed to a cross fire, and was on
thoroughly bad terms with both parties. In spite, however,
of the violence of the attacks no one omitted to express
his respect for Kopp's learning, his practical skill, and
honest, zealous endeavours after truth — with the exception,
indeed, of Simon, who, when Sachs called him " estimable "
added a point of interrogation. Nothing was sacred to
Simon ; no, weapon was too bad for him to use against
homoeopathy and against his enemies — Kriiger- Hansen for
example. Kopp says : —
Even though I wilHngly accept the results of experience in the new
doctrine that commend themselves to me, j-et I condemn the system.
* Hufeland's>//;7/^/, 181 1, Vol. XXXII., st. i, p. 3.
neither side. His views. 265
Judging- from its present course, homoeopathy, in the hands of homcco-
pathists themselves will, after a few years, take an entirely different
shape. — ( Preface).
The treatment of diseases according to " general indications," as it
is called, has done harm. The practitioner, who is acquainted with
the specific powers of medicines and understands how to employ
them in disease, practises medicine most successfully (p. 5).
Undoubtedly burnt sponge has an elective affinity for the throat,
phosphoric acid acts specially on the sexual organs, sabina and ergot
on the uterus, copaiba on the urethra, squills and cantharides on the
urinary passages, boletus laricis on the capillaries of the skin, iodine
on the glands, hepar sulphuris on the trachea. Each drug acts speci-
fically on one or more organs ; that is, it acts more powerfully and
strikingly, specially or exclusively on one or more organs (p. 6).
If we regard homoeopathy fi'om this point of view — that its work
is to investigate the specific cjuahties of medicines — it must be attrac-
tive to every physician. It is not the theory advanced by Hahnemann
— his so-called system — but the experiences and experimental investi-
gations on which it is founded which form the essential part of
homoeopathy (p. 8).
In the form in which Hahnemann enunciated homoeopathy, it will
hardly be followed by any, even ultra-homoeopathic practitioners (p. 9).
Homoeopathy could hardly find a more general acceptance in its
present form among medical men — especially not in France and
England ; the older practitioners rarely occupy themselves with it
because it is so far removed from the common practice, because its
study is difficult and wearisome, and because they have been dis-
appointed with many former systems.
As a rule, however, all medical men who have not engaged in the
practice of homoeopathy are opposed to it, and its bitterest enemies
are those who do not sufficiently know it.
Everyone who wishes to judge homoeopathy should test it at the
sick bed Hahnemann's system may pass away, but his experiences,
if they are proved to be new and true, will remain for ever (p. 1 1).
The study of the specific remedies of homoeopathy may be of
advantage even to allopaths : observation of the effects of remedies
on healthy persons ; a closer and more thorough acquaintance with
medicinal substances, and especially their specific properties ; the
avoidance of haphazard mixtures and compounds ; attention directed
to diseases produced by medicines and their prevention ; simplicity
of prescriptions — the stamp of all good medical treatment ; care in the
choice of remedies ; knowledge of their sphere of action (p. 14).
One good feature of Hahnemann's system is undoubtedly the
proving of remedies on healthy persons in order to ascertain their
specific powers. This plan of ascertaining the powers of medicines
has great advantages, and Hahnemann has the inalienable merit of
having discovered and enlarged it (p. 35).
266 Kopps respect for HaJineuiamis
We cannot fail to recognise the extent of Hahnemann's talent if we-
consider how exhaustive were his investigations of specific remedies,
and with what difficulties he had to struggle in pursuing this path. His
observations of the effects of medicines on the disposition, the tem-
perature of the body, the sleep, with regard to thirst, &c., in respect to
the time of day or night, movement or rest, contact, the time before
or after eating, when in the open air or in the room, as to the dura-
tion of the action of medicines, iTcc, bear witness to the fertility of his
genius and to his power of discovering new and true points of view in
the realm of nature.
The proving of medicines on healthy persons alone does not suffice
to show the full range of their action : experience at the sick bed is also
a necessary factor for this purpose.
Hahnemann's materia medica in its present primiti\c condition
must be purged of false and doubtful statements.
Kopp then attacks in detail some paragraphs in Hahne-
mann's Org-anon, which were even then only accepted as true
by few individuals and are now regarded as true by none ;
blames Hahnemann because he presumes to usurp a dicta-
torship in medicine, and shows that cures are not always
effected homoeopathically, as Hahnemann says they arc.
Then examples are given of homoeopathic cures and failures.
In these cases it can be proved by the unsuccessful issue
that he frequently made a false selection of remedies. The
treatment is sometimes complicated by the employment of
blisters, an inconsistency which is much to be blamed.
Such accounts are only confusing. These half-and-half
treatments could only displease both sides.
A physician who denies the efficacy of minute doses may be asked
whether he has ever thoroughly gauged the sensitiveness of the human
organism in both its extremes.
It is true that homoeopathic doses do often effiict rapid and wonder-
ful cures and without any attendant suffi::rings ; but they frequently
also have no effect at all [certainly, if the wrong medicine is chosen].
If I were member of a jury that was to give a Aerdict on the effect
of the homoeopathic dilutions, I could honestly say nothing else but
this : They are generally efficacious, but there are cases where no
effect is observed from their administration (p. 114).
Kopp was not prepared to give up bleeding. He draws
attention to the fact that in adult females of all races blood
is lost periodically. " This is the weak side of homoeopath}"
— it neglects general and local bleeding by venesection and
great services to medicine. 267
the application of leeches, and thereby endangers the main-
tenance of the integrity of the organs and imperils health
and even life itself"
" A genuine allopathy and a moderate homceopathy more
nearly approach one another than is commonly supposed ;
on either hand lie the dangerous extremes." If the homoeo-
paths had accepted Kopp's views, bleeding would be still
in full swing.
Hahnemann's observations respecting specific drugs are one thing,
and the theory propounded by him is another. We should be wrong
to form our opinion of homoeopathy only on the latter. While there
is much that deserves attention and is valuable and interesting to the
physician in the former, one main cause of the number of virulent
opponents of homoeopathy is that medical men were repelled from
giving it a fair trial by the defects of the Hahnemannic theory, as
also by its novelty and by its being directly contrary to the ordinar)-
practice (p. 465).
Any unprejudiced person following critically Hahnemann's practical
career, from his first appearance as an author, as a teacher, as founder
and master of a special school, will not be able to deny his unflagging
spirit of research, his speculative originality, and the mighty intel-
lectual power of the man. He strove to carry out courageously his
bold plans with great talent, knowledge of mankind and sagacity, the
accumulated learning of years, and a rare persistency. We see in him
everywhere the experimental observer who was in his earlier days an
earnest and diligent worker in the field of chemistry. His services in
more accurately ascertaining the specific properties of drugs and the
great sensitiveness of the human organism, are undeniable (p. 471).
Simon {Pseudomessias, third part) speaks of Kopp as a
sensible practitioner and critic — " an excellent practitioner "
"of ripe age and experience" &c., &c.
Sachs* says of him : " Kopp is one of the best informed
and most justly respected German physicians, a man who
has brought to the most difficult of the arts a fine and
independent intellect," "he enjoys a very honourable
place among German physicians." Sachs angrily ex-
claims, p. 27i,"Herr Kopp, an estimable physician, a writer
of varied learning, a man of ripe experience and, as it has
always seemed, without any temptation to indulge in eccen-
tricities, far from prone to theorise, of a reflective mind
* Die Homoppathic und Hcrr Kopp^ Leipzig, 1834, p. 39.
268 Proving medicines on the healthy
and practical skill, not to be seduced into metaphysical
speculations, but confining himself to experimental science,
has undertaken an examination of homceopathy !" — incon-
ceivable ! For everything ever written by Hahnemann is,
whatever Kopp may say, according to the decided opinion of
these two allopaths, utter nonsense. Simon declared Hahne-
mann to be a "crass ignoramus," "his inability to seize an
idea and pursue it, is clearly evident from everything he has
written," (p. 5), and Sachs, for the second time, likens him
to the devil in whom there is as much truth as in Hahne-
mann. But Kopp was unreservedly blamed for administer-
ing homoeopathic drugs at the sick bed — such palpable
nonsense did not deserve trial.
Allopathic opinions on the proving of drugs on the JieaWiy
organism.
The opinions of Bischoff, Puchelt, Hufeland, Gmelin,
Riecke, Eschen mayor and Kopp on this subject have
already been mentioned.
Professor Heinroth expressed the following opinion {I.e.
p. 103) :—
Who has made us acquainted with all this, with the w hole apparatus
of the materia medica, based on so many thousand observations ? The
writer has often asked this question, and can only find this answer —
necessity, instinct and chance.
And in a note (p. 104) he says : — •
In this respect chance and fate are one. What happens to us is
nothing else but what is sent to us. Sapienti sat I
Page 105 : — Therefore it appears to us that most probably necessity,
instinct and chance are the discoverers of the materia medica, which
is transmitted by tradition and has grown gradually.
Page 107 : — It really appears ridiculous that Hahnemann should say
that he has ascertained the effects of medicines on healthy persons.
Page i 10 : — The idea of testing medicines on healthy persons is
repugnant to reason and repellant to common sense. The art of
such almost criminal experimenting had to be invented before one
could even think of such a thing. A healthily constituted person
denounced as criminal. 260-
v
can at the most make one trial out of curiosity as to how a medicine
tastes, but he will never try how it acts, for he is not ill ; and who
would wish to make himself ill by means of medicine ?
Heinroth still further developed his views.
Page 112 : — Once more — only sick persons and not healthy ones-
have made us acquainted with the curative properties of medicines ;
and it is just as impossible to discover these properties when in health
as it is only possible to gain this experience in a diseased condition.
Diseases and their remedies are correlatives in the same way as health
and food. Just as senseless as it would be to seek to discover the
effects of food on patients, is it to try to ascertain the effects of
medicines on healthy persons. INIedicines show their power only in
the diseased condition, as food does only in the healthy condition.
And what does Hufeland's Journal say about Heinroth :
" who can vie with him in intelligence ? " Schmidt's Jahr-
biicher calls this work " the classic work of Heinroth." F.
Groos wrote :* " Heinroth, this celebrated Leipzic scholar !"
" I remember having read in Hcinroth's notes to his trans-
lation of Georget's works that he declares that he has com-
pletely refuted Hahnemann's teachings." But we have
interrupted Heinroth.
Page 134: — " Human beings become mere experiment-
ing machines, pharmacometers to please the materia
medica." So it goes on through several pages, and it is
proved that the proving of remedies is a "crime" (p. 137).
" Every power in nature is to be learnt by the effect it
produces, and are we to learn the curative power before it
produces an effect? We again exclaim with Hahnemann —
Folly ! "
That Heinroth did not stand alone in the views he held
is clear from the criticism in Schmidt's Jahrbiicher. His
book was looked upon as one of the best and by many as
containing the most thorough and convincing refutation of
" the heretic Hahnemann," as Ferd. Jahn called him If
Hahnemann was extinguished by Heinroth " by the ir-
resistible force of loeic."
* Ueber das Jiotn. Hcilpriiicip^ I.e., p. 4.
t Almimgen ciner allgcm. Natiirgeschichtc dcr Krankheitcn,
Eisenach, 1828, p. 116.
2/0 Prophecies of t/ie speedy
Miickisch, I.e. 1826, p. 123, refers to the judgment of
Heinroth on " these senseless proving-experhnents of
Hahnemann's on healthy persons," and arrives finally at
the conclusion that such provings on the healthy " are con-
trary at once to nature and to reason."
Professor Sachs, Simon, Lesser, the anonymous author of
the Wonders of HomccopatJiy and others wrote in the same
strain, but on the other hand it is not to be denied that
many of Hahnemann's opponents recognised his services in
having sought to found a physiological materia niedica,
and of having given the first impulse towards it.
Allopathic viezvs on the duration of Houui'opatJiy and pro-
posals for its destruction.
As homoeopathy was " nonsense " it could not possibly
have a long existence, especially in view of the tremendous
obstacles which were placed in its way. If the allopaths
had been right in their judgment, it must necessarily follow
that the speedy downfall of homoeopathy was to be antici-
pated. But if progress were made in the spread of homoeo-
pathy this is a proof that the judgment of its opponents was
mistaken.
Professor Kieser prophesied in the year 1825 : — *
From what has been already stated it necessarily follows that both
Hahnemann's and Broussais' theories can only have an ephemeral
existence, and can receive recognition from the public only so long
as the present inflammatory epidemic character of diseases prevails,
and that both will lose their hold on the public as soon as a different
epidemic character of disease appears.
In 1825! the Obcrmcdicinalrath and ph}'sician-in-
ordinary Stieglitz, laments : " the monstrous system of
Hahnemann, which has spread especially in and around
Prague and Leipzic, is very deplorable."
* Hufcland's>//r/7., Vol. LX., St. 2, p. 36.
t Hufcland'syt'w;/., Vol. LX., St. i, p. 99.
extinction of honuvopatJiy. 271
Professor Hcinroth writes in the same year,* " Homojo-
pathy will receive its death blow from this axiom [the
effect of medicines and the reaction of the organism],
we have now accompanied it to its death bed." The
hospital director Miickisch wrote in 1826,! "Both systems,
the homoeopathic and the animal magnetic are mere
fashions, and will, therefore, soon be forgotten."
In 1825 an allopath writes in the Altgcnicin. Anacig. dcr
DciitscJien (p. 675):— "The author has seen in his forty
years' practice many systems of medicine and methods
of treatment pass like thunder clouds, and so, too, this
homoeopathic delusion will come to an end without its
being necessary to abuse it." The opponents seem soon to
have abandoned this last opinion.
Professor Sachs wrote in 1826 A last iverd on Ilahnc-
inann's System. Kraus, whom Professor Most| calls his re-
spected teacher, says in the same year :§ " Hahnemann has
bestowed an unsuitable name on a false doctrine, which will
perish before the knowledge of the word in its new meaning,
for this will be ridiculed centuries hence by men who will
compassionate the weaknesses of our age." " Hahnemann's
erroneous doctrine will have perished in a few years."
Nietschll prophesies : " It is just as easy to foresee that the
new theory will go out of fashion as soon as any other
novelty occupies the general attention." " Hence most
doctors are convinced that this dazzling monstrosity, with-
out any counter-measures will, perhaps, soon reach the term
of all perishable things." " Truth will gain the victory over
the follies of the day." " I think I may prophesy that very
soon nobody will any longer believe in homoeopathy."'
" Let us avoid all personalities in attacks on a system which
will soon cease to exist ! PI ad others who have formerly
attacked Herr Hahnemann gone to work with the same
humanity as Herr Plufcland, it would, perhaps, never have
* Z.f., p. i8g, note.
t Z.f., p. 169.
X Encyclopiidic dcr Median, \o\. I., p. 1042, Leipzig, 1836.
§ Krit. eiymolog. ined. Lexicon, Gottingen, 1826, 2nd edit., p. 403.
II Bcmerkungen iiber Homoopaihic, Hanau, 1826, pp. 10, 31, 44, T^.
-/-
Premature rejoicings over
been introduced into practical life and non-professionals
would have had one reason the less for abandoning their
good opinion of doctors and their art." " The already tot-
tering condition of homceopathy."
In 1S27 Elias* rejoices over "the decreasing adhesion"
of the public to homceopathy, and says that " this is the
most striking proof that homceopathy is a useless thing."
In 1828, Bernsteinf compares Hahnemann with Brous-
sais and Rasori, complains of the great spread of homoeo-
pathy in Warsaw, and promises its speedy downfall. In
1828, Dr. Wetzler wrote a book, entitled HaJinemanns
homccopatJiy at its last gasp. Augsburg. Fischer of Dresden
{l.c. 1829), as we showed at p. 198, prophesied the down-
fall of homoeopathy in Leipzic, and also mentioned the
reason why it cannot exist in Berlin, France, and Eng-
land. At p. 53, he says: "But my own understanding gives
me security that the State itself cannot long suffer such
foolish and unreasonable quacker}^" Obermedicinalrath
Wildburg wrote, in 1830, Some Instructive Words on the
HovioeopatJiic Healing Art (Leipzic, 1S30, preface), and
thus administered comfort to the allopaths : —
Remember how eagerly gymnastics were received in their time, and
with what zeal they were long pursued ; but how soon it was recog-
nised that this mode of promoting exercise among youth was in many
respects injurious I What a rage existed at one time for using mag-
netism in diseases ; but how soon it was dropped. It was just so with
the prophylactic against scarlet fever,t with the belief in miraculous
cures and cures by starvation. And is not the same to be expected
Avith regard to those Russian baths which have been received with so
much enthusiasm ? Calmly and quietly, therefore, may the allopaths
await the fate of homoeopathy.
Hufeland says in i83i,§ "The experiment is not yet com-
pleted." " Time will show."
Kleinert's Repei^toriiun contained, in 183 1, this encourag-
* Gurkejztno/iaie, p. 45.
t Hufeland's /tfz/r;/., Vol. LX\'II., St., 2, p. 85.
% In 1835, Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, among others, re-
ported favourable results from Hahnemann's remedy for scarlatina.
He had employed it since 1807 (Huf Journ. LXXX., St. 6, p. 21).
§ Die Hoiii6flpathiL\ Berlin, pp. 5 and 12.
iJie decease of HomceopatJiy. 273
ing news : " In Brunswick, homoeopathy seems to be near
its end."* The anonymous writer of Wonders of Hoinoeo-
patJiy (p. 4) prophesied in 1833 : —
Homoeopathy will live, and, purged from its dross, will prove to be
a valuable method of healing.
Page 20 : — I can foresee that when the inflammatory constitution of
diseases again prevails, the inisuse of homoeopathy will as surely come
to an end, as was the case with Brown's system (p. 26.)
Hahnemann bears considerable resemblance to the old heroes of
medicine. yEsculapius had no fixed abode, but wandered through the
land, accompanied by a goat, healing the sick who came to hiin ; and
Hippocrates, who often changed his abode, rode on a mule through
Greece and the neighbouring countries (p. 27).
The fame of Hippocrates was not so great during his lifetime, as we
see from his complaints in his letters to Democritus ; his fame arose
after his death from his writings, but in the case of our Hahnemann it
can easily be anticipated that his fame will be still less after his
death than during' his life.
Sachs, HouiccopatJiy and He?-}" Kopp (1834, p. 2), says : —
" What have I to do with homoeopathy which is non-
existent — is nothing." " Kopp predicts that it will be im-
perishable " (p. 272). " Homoeopathy has never appeared,
and does not exist " (p. 272.) Damerow saw in 1834 " that
homoeopathy was already attacked by decay."-|- Schmidt's
JahrbiichcrX in 1834: "Whether homoeopathy will defy
time and its opponents is very doubtful." Simon, in 1834
expressed the same hopes. §
Homoeopathy has already outlived its most brilliant period in
Austria, where it first gained some attention by its novelty ; the en-
thusiasm of the non-professional public for it there, as well as in
Saxony, Thuringia and other places, has sensibly cooled and is steadily
diminishing. Homoeopathy resembles cholera, which, while breaking
out in new regions, is almost forgotten in those places where it for-
merly prevailed.
All the allopathic medical men at that time prophesied
* Suppl. to Vols. IV. and V., p. 435.
t Med. Ztg. d. Ver.f.Heilk. in Pretisscn, 1834, No. 36. Kleinert,
Rcpertoriiein, &c.
X Vol. III., p. 269.
§ Antihom. Archiv, Vol. I., H. i, p. 20.
18
2/4 Houuvopathy is dead!
the speedy downfall of homccopathy, so that a homoeopathic
physician was able to write in 1834 : — *
The grave of homoeopathy has been dug for more than thirty [more
correctly twenty] years by more than 30,000 allopathic doctors ; they
are all standing round the freshly dug grave, and are waiting for the
cortege which shall commit the long looked-for corpse to their eager
hands, that they may bury it as soon as possible and show it the last
honours. Professor Sachs already prepared the funeral sermon in his
Schlussiuort some years ago, but see ! tlie grave still stands open, and
the corpse does not arrive.
The mourners, however, did not lose patience. Lesser j
soothed them thus : " Now the good man can dismiss his
cares, for homoeopathy has come to the end of its life in
Berlin." Augustin,^ in 1835, called homoeopathy, " This
fashionable method of'cure." Stieglitz§ advised them not to
return home yet, for the corpse would soon arrive : —
The educated classes who chiefly favour homoeopathy [others assert
with equal assurance that homoeopaths bid chiefly for the support of
the uneducated public] will not allow themselves to be permanently
deluded by such an imposture. ]Many who are now inclined to homoe-
opathy will soon recall to their minds what ordinary medicine has
done for themselves or their circle of acquaintances.
Stieglitz did not probably then suspect that a homoeo-
path. Dr. Weber, would, by and bye, succeed him in his
position as physician in ordinar)^ to the King of Hanover,
and that the king would express himself most gratei"ully
respecting his homoeopathic treatm^ent as compared with
the allopathic. The homoeopathic physician in ordinary
received an autograph letter in which the king expresses
his especial satisfaction with the results obtained by
homoeopathic treament, Vv'hich had a very dejDressing
effect on the allopaths.||
But of what use was it to talk ? The allopaths were
tired of waiting in the churchyard. Many of them began
to suffer from cold feet, and went hom.c with colds ; they
continued to bleed their patients and to write their long
* Die AUoopaihic^ No. 6. 7 Z.r., ]3. 42, note.
J L.c.^ p. 186. § Die Homoopaihic, 1865, p. 9.
II Allg. horn. Z/g., Vol. LVI., p. 161, and Vol. LVIII., p. 20.
The allopathic funeral unites, 275
prescriptions. Some, indeed, ascended a height, and called
out that they saw the corpse coming — certainly it is
coming now ! — -but they met with little attention. When
the Vienna school had found the key to the success of the
homoeopaths and thought to place themselves on a level
with them by means of nihilism, hope of a joyful funeral
feast again rose, and they began again to catch sight of the
corpse. " VVe hope still to see the whole illusive fabric
confounded and evaporate in a bad smell ;" such was, in
1853, the wish of a hot-headed allopath;* and Professor
Aug. Forsterf thus comforted his fellow-believers in 1857 :
" Outside of Germany this system has made but very little
way, and now there are hardly any traces of it to be found."
This was very consoling, but the complaints from France,
England, Spain, Italy, America, and other quarters of the
globe of the desperate tenacity of life shown by this tire-
some system were too loud for the words of the professor
to give the longed-for feeling of security. Soon the last
allopath had disappeared from the side of the grave. On
the return journey they shook their wise heads and groaned
forth : " iiiundiis vult decipi " — " the want of judgment of the
crowd " — " the world given over to folly " — and so forth.
In 1834 Schmidt's Jahrbiichey contained a quotation
(vol. III., p. 269) from another paper on the spread of
homoeopathy : —
While an anonymous writer who has just increased the number of
works on homoeopathy by a new one, describes homoeopathy as a
frightful abortion with a big body, goat's hoofs, crooked arms and long
lingers, fox's eyes, donkey's ears, and a hydrocephalic head, others
find the system uncommonly attractive. The number of its adherents
is increasing, and it has become quite the fashionable beauty — it is
spoken of by everyone. Whether, however, it will be able to defy
*• Cliarlatancrie dcr Horn., Weimar, 1853, p. 40.
t Gnindriss dcr Encycl. d. Mcdicin. Jena, 1857, p. 125. — Fielitz,
Die medic. Weltwcisen^ Sondershauscn, 1857, p. 26.
276 Homoeopathy still lives, and
time and its opponents, and, like Ninon de I'Enclos, be able to retain its
old admirers and attract new ones in its old age, is very doubtful, but
its spread is immense notwithstanding. Not much less than half of
the medical works that appear in Germany at the present time relate
to the subject of homoeopathy. Its literature is already so extensive
that even homoeopathists begin to complain that they have no time to
read all and study Avhat is good. Se\en periodicals are devoted to
homoeopathy— the first number has just appeared of an eighth, which
merely contains extracts from the others ; another one will shortly
see the light in Karlsruhe ; a tenth in Paris, an eleventh in North
America. The first dozen is therefore nearly complete. In Germany,
its native country, homoeopathy has spread rapidly. In Baden a few
years ago there was one single homoeopathic doctor ; since that
time more than 40 doctors have studied and are practising homoeo-
pathy. In Wirtemberg, about ten years ago, only one doctor practised
the new method. Now it appears to be gaining ground here, and
in Stuttgart there is a young homceopathic missionary. In Bavaria
there are only a few homceopathic doctors ; in Wiirzburg no single
apostle of the new faith has yet appeared. In Munich lectures have
been given for two years on homoeopathy ; and a homoeopathic
hospital is to be erected. In Austria the number of homoeopathic
doctors is increasing. In Saxony and in Thuringia it counts a great
many adherents, and its founder is still, in his old age, labouring with
youthful zeal. In Leipzic a homceopathic dispensary was opened last
year. In Sax-Meiningen the government last year issued an order
to the apothecaries to provide themselves with homoeopathic remedies.
In the two Hesses it has met with a cordial reception. In Prussia, too,
homoeopathy is making its way ; in Hamburg some doctors have
recently carried its banner, and for elexen years it has taken up its
abode in the capital of Brunswick. Several societies are labouring,
etc.
Further on the progress of the new doctrine in foreign
lands is considered, in France, Switzerland, and Italy. In
Italy it is dead (1834), according to this author: "It made
only an ephemeral appearance there :" —
In the Iberian Peninsula there appears to be not yet any notion of
homoeopathy ; and it has failed in gaining any approval from the
proud English. In Russia it was long kept down by the late Reh-
mann, Avho was at the head of the medical faculty there, and an
opponent of homoeopathy. Now, however, it is left more free, and
an Imperial rescript appeared in October of last year which allowed
qualified doctors to practise homoeopathy, ordered the establishment of
homoeopathic pharmacies in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and even
allowed doctors to dispense their own medicines themselves under
certain conditions. On the other side of the ocean, too, the new
displays astonishing vitality. 277
system has found its admirers. The medical facuky of New York has
•elected Hahnemann an Honorary member ; in Philadelphia a society
has been formed named after him, and lately a North American
homoeopathic journal was announced.
From these short notices we can see that homceopathy has spread
considerably in the last few years, and it may not be an exaggeration
when the number of homoeopathic doctors is given by its adherents
as 500. But notwithstanding this the attentive observer cannot but
notice that homoeopathy, spreading as quickly as it has done, is now
encountering a crisis in which the question of its very existence is
involved. Either it will issue from this crisis victorious and purified,
or it will tumble down and be buried under its own ruins, and this,
according to all appearance, is what will most probably happen."^-
Whiche\-er way the matter may be decided, something useful may be
gained for medicine, and even if homoeopathy should be destroyed and
be recognised as but a barren fruit-tree, yet a greater attention to diet,
a restraint on the abuse of drugs, greater simplicity of treatment, more
attentive observation of the specific effects of medicines, and a more
severe criticism with regard to medical experience, will be the happy
final result of the bitter contest.
* That was the account given by an old-school writer of the state
of homoeopathy in 1834. Things have altered somewhat since then.
Germany, including Austria-Hungary and Switzerland, has upwards
of 400 practitioners, four or five hospitals, and four journals. In Great
Britain there are upwards of 250 avowed, and a large but unknown
number of unavowed practitioners, three hospitals, and two monthly
periodicals. In France there are more than 150 practitioners, two
hospitals, and three monthly periodicals. In Russia there are about.
100 practitioners and one or two periodicals. In Belgium there are
twenty-seven practitioners and one monthly periodical. Italy has only
forty-one practitioners and one monthly periodical. Spain has a large
number of practitioners, two hospitals, and three or four monthly
periodicals. In the United States of North America there are between
7 and 8,000 practitioners, fifty-four hospitals, several State-supported
lunatic asylums, upwards of 100 societies (some of them numbering
many hundreds of members), twenty periodicals, besides nine annual
transactions of societies, and five annual reports of hospitals. The
neighbouring British province of Canada has a considerable number
of practitioners. Mexico has a good many, and a monthly periodical.
In South America most of the States are well provided with practi-
tioners, and several of them, as La Plata, Monte Video, Colombia,
have homoeopathic periodicals. Australia, New Zealand, Hindostan
and China, are all provided with homoeopathic practitioners, indeed
there is scarcely a corner of the world where the disciples of Hahne-
mann have not penetrated. — [Ed.]
2/8 HouHvopathy will not die
Another allopath is staggered by an incomprehensible fact
(1835):-*
It is certainly remarkable that a system resting on such an insecure
foundation should be so well received in spite of all opposition — that
it should even find reception and defenders among the educated
classes. No other system has made such an epoch, such rapid pro-
gress ! When did non-professionals ever evince so much interest in a
medical system? After hardly thirty years, homoeopathy has travelled
through all civilised countries both of the old and new world.
Cry for State help.
How could the allopaths protect themselves against the
spread of homoeopathy ? They had not spared their abuse
and calumnies, but no satisfactory result followed. The
State must help. Fischer (Dresden), in 1829, had clamoured
loudly for State help. Three years previously we learn
from Hufeland's Journal, that the action of the govern-
ment against the homoeopaths was required. In Austria, in
1819, the celebrated guardian of the health of the Emperor
Francis I., his Excellency v. Stifft, obtained an imperial
edict against the practice of homoeopathy. In 1831, Pro-
fessor Dr. C. H. Schultz completed his Honwobiotik, and
dedicated it to the minister von Stein zum Altenstein, and
on p. 13 he advised the government "to forbid entirely the
practice of homoeopathy." In 1834, Dr. Burmann, the Court
physician and physicus in Hanover, wrote :t "Homoeopathy
— the unscientific audacity of which defies every canon of
reason — should not be suffered by any State."
Professor Sachs ::|: " Hahnemann has called us ' prejudiced
people, who go about unpunished, and do the greatest
injury to the State by robbing it of its citizens.' Supposing
Hahnemann were right? Supposing homoeopathy were not
destitute of wholesome truth? It would not be absolutely
* Simon's Antihom. Archiv, I., 3, p. 36.
t Henke's Zcitschrift f. d. Staatsarziieikiuidc, 1S34, VII. Kleinert,
Repertoriwn der ges. incd. Journalistik.
X Die Ho?!!, itjid Ha-r Kopp, Leipzig, 1S34, p. 6 — 36.
tvitJiout the help of the State. 279
impossible. If a military professor were to teach that fort-
resses should be attacked with sugar-plums or soap-bubbles ;
if a teacher of mathematics were to assert that two and two
make five, and that a part is greater than the whole ; what
would the State do? It would, certainly, send him about
his business. Hahnemann makes similar assertions ; no
good can, therefore, come from him ; what should the State
do? Doctors take an oath to the State to act, according
to the laws of science, ' on a scientific basis.' The homoeo-
paths contemn science ; they have broken their contract
with the State, and, therefore, have no rights as regards
the State." Thus writes with incisive logic this " talented
author."
Dr. Fischer, of Erfurt,* holds the following opinions : —
One bright side of homoeopathy is the excellence of its
narcotic tinctures, as compared with allopathic extracts ;
another good point is its discovery of specific remedies and
their use in diseases ; an indirect advantage is the great
simplification of medical treatment. But the State ought
to forbid homoeopathy in cases of syphilis, ophthalmia, and
intermittent fevers. Dispensing their medicines ought to be
forbidden to doctors. In the Wiirtenibergischer Landbotc^
a physician says, " that it is the duty of the authorities to
forbid any one to practise who gives himself out as a
homoeopath."
In Bavaria the allopaths at last obtained so much, that|
(the medical committees through the country having been
consulted) the use of homoeopathy in medico-judicial cases
was forbidden. As a sign that there were exceptions
among the allopaths, we notice that one doctor wrote
against this proceeding, and he was, according to his own
statement, far from being a friend of homoeopathy. He
says : —
* Med. Zeit. dcs Ver.f. Hcilk. in Prctisscji, No. 55, 1S33. Klcinert,
Repertoriuni, &c.
t 1834, No. 125. — Die All'6opatliit\ 1834, No. 17.
X By ministerial ordinance of the 231x1 Dec, 1835, according to
others, of 4th January, 1836.
28o If the State zvill only help
This order is an attack on the personal rig^hts of the patient and
on the most sacred rights of science. Science is a republic, and every
scientist is a representative citizen thereof. Here there is no dictator-
ship, least of all in medicine and the natural sciences. Distant as
we still are from the truth and from the limit of scientific knowledge,
we see in the rise of new systems and theories a striving- of the human
spirit of investigation after truth and the light of knowledge. Op-
ponents of homoeopathy who rejoice at these measures should re-
member that they are acquiescing in the infringement of a right which
all medical men should defend with every intellectual weapon at
their command. Such a proceeding is a triumph for homoeopathy
a defeat of their opponents, because it is evident, from the fact of
their invoking physical force, that they are unable to figdit and defeat
it with reason.*
In the same way Dr. Stachelroth, district physician of
Ottvveiler,t although no adherent of homoeopathy, looks
upon it as hardly possible that the homoeopathic system,
" which is valued and practised by so many excellent men,"
rests entirely on a delusion, and he defends the trustworthi-
ness of the homoeopathic method.
Such views however, are but rarely met with. The majority
were in favour of State help, and the State exerted itself with
sufficient energy.
The allopathic opinions were very frankly expressed in
a pamphlet: The Road to the Grave of Homeopathy .' ^
Tiie author has preferred to barricade himself behind
" anonymity," and thence to dedicate his work " to the
public and to governments." Part I. the author begins : —
Homoeopathy had hardly come to life, it did not breathe, its organ
was still powerless to announce its existence by a cry — the dumb and
naked creature was shunned and hated by all as an abortion. When
the doctors were called upon by the father to view and to judge of his
little daughter they found that its organs from the larynx to the lungs
were well formed, but it was in truth a monster ; a big trunk, feet like
a goat, crooked arms and long fingers, eyes like a fox, ears like a
donkey, and much water in the head.
It was abandoned, and not visited. Weeks grew to months,
months to years, years to decades, and see ! homoeopathy appears as
a maiden of thirty years — that despised and neglected abortion is now
■^ Annalen do- Staatsarz!iciku)idL\ 1836, 19. — Kleinert, Tvir/^?/-/.
t Henke's ZcitscJi.f. Staatsai-znciku)idL\ 1835, ^°- — Kleinert, I.e.
X Quedlinburg und Leipzig, 1834.
Jioiiuvopatlis may be burnt like witcJies. 281
surrounded and flattered by stalwart young- men, she shows herself
to the world and displays her true flesh and blood even to those who,
not taken by her charms, looked upon her as nothing but carrion.
This vermin will not disappear so long as it finds nourishment.
Page 26 : — Prince ! Minister ! learn with astonishment what that
homoeopathy which you have suffered and which flourishes in your
land really is Is it not a disgrace to any public paper even to
mention homoeopathy ?
Page 29 : How ought government to treat, not homoeopathy, but
homoeopathic doctors ? It would be disgraceful to the State if only the
theologian and the jurist should enjoy a fixed salar)?, protection,
respect, while the physician, who must expend more rather than less
time, money and mental labour to arrive at his position, should be
treated like a pedlar and neglected.
So it goes on to p. 32, where the grave is dug: —
(i) Let the public be taught what its opinion of homoeopathy ought
to be ; (2) let the truth be told respecting the assertions of homoeo-
paths about the pretended progress of homoeopathy in foreign countries,
which are mere lies and false statements. Let the loudly-trumpeted
homoeopathic miraculous cures be exposed when that can be done ;
let the concealed hirelings be unmasked ; for it is well known that in
Dresden many people have been bribed to insert reports of marvellous
cures in the Drcsdcncr A7iseigcr. (3) Let the position of homoeopathy
in relation to medical police and the law be explained.
Page 23 : Homoeopathy is dead, its ghost only haunts us.
Page 38 : So long as the invention of an eccentric doctor is allowed
to circulate in the land, order ceases to prevail.
Schmidt's JaJirbilchcr (II. p. 372) declares its agree-
ment witli the tenor of this pamphlet, though the fact
of its being anonymous does not seem to please it. In
1 841 Medicinalrath Dr. Sander* energetically demands
State help for the suppression of homoeopathy.
We are surprised at the horrible stupidity of our ancestors, who
piously burnt with solemn legal forms women afflicted with hysterical
convulsions as witches possessed by the devil, but will not a later age
smile at our boasted enlightenment, at our weakness, who dare not
suppress a manifest imposture in a practical science, a life-destroying
mode of treatment, a palpable superstition? Many have already
been sacrificed to this system, and until time disabuses the public
and the physicians there will be many more victims. If this method
is recognized as deception and error, why are not forcible steps taken
against it ?
* Hitzig's Annalcjt der Crlminalrcchtspflt\s^e, Vol. XVII., H. 3, p.
350.— .4//^--. horn. Zcitg., Vol. XXII., p. 198.
283 Causes of the rapid
This treatise speaks of the case of a woman suffering"
from mental illusions, who did not improve under homoeo-
pathic treatment. " I can," so Sander had declared in his
report to the authorities in which he at the same time
demands the prosecution of the homoeopathic practitioner,
" I can however, as a doctor, give the assurance that un-
der the true appropriate treatment with blood-letting, with
cooling, derivative, opening, alterative and soothing medi-
cines, the disease was quite curable." We must mention
that the patient subsequently enjoyed the benefit of " ra-
tional" treatment, but this time, as it happened, without
the desired result. " Let us," the Medicinalrath further ex-
claims, " let us leave their sinister nocturnal habits to these
obscure night creatures — but as soon as homoeopathy ap-
pears in the light of day and in practice, it ceases to be
harmless mysticism ; it becomes quacker}-, which must
not be ridiculed, but seriously combated and suppressed."
" There is a true science of medicine — founded on scien-
tific principles, and derived from the experience of a
thousand years."
The desire for the support of the police in their combat
with the homoeopaths was most prominent at the time of
the cholera and soon after.
The reasons for the spread of homoeopathy were the same
as those of to-day. Foolish, simple, silly people " were
attracted by the homoeopathic snare." Some asserted that
the homoeopathic public was chiefly formed of uneducated
people ; others declared that the educated public contri-
buted the larger contingent of adherents ; one controver-
salist thought that clergymen and schoolmasters were " the
pillars of homoeopathy ; " another was convinced that the
higher ranks of the military and lawyers were attracted b)'
the " delusion." It was agreed that Hahnemann had been
very adroit in appealing to the non-medical public (this he
only did after the medical profession had rejected him).
But there were men who looked deeper.
spread of Hahnananns system. 283
The espousal of the cause of homoeopathy by the
Allgevieiiier Anrjeiger dcr Deutschen contributed largely to
the spread of the new doctrine, and this paper was very
unfavourably regarded by the allopaths. They termed the
editor the Sancho Panza of the Don Quixote Hahnemann,
and made many other jests at his expense, which are to
be found in the ]Vo7iders of HoviceopatJiy, 1833. It was
a deadly crime to admit articles favourable to homoeo-
pathy into its columns ; and it was no atonement that its
opponents too were allowed to hold forth in the language
peculiar to them. Thus Dr. A. H. Nicolai in the same paper
of 1832, p. 4254, was allowed to call the founder of homoeo-
pathy " weak minded or insane, most probably the former,
as is usual in old age."
What could induce the editor, Dr. Hennicke, publicly to
espouse such nonsense ? He was, in other respects, as no
one could deny, an intelligent man. But that too was to
be explained. Kraus was acquainted with the circumstances
and revealed them :* " I cannot believe the report which
has just been spread that Hahnemann is indebted to a cer-
tain secret alliance for many of these deplorable articles
in favour of his system and for their spread. I cannot
think that sensible men would willingly engage in such
stupid cheatery— for such secret alliances are nothing else
— which is more abominable and criminal than highway
robbery and arson." " Attention should be called to an
attempted stroke of policy to gain the support of the mob
by summoning the police against themselves, and thus
posing as martyrs."
Besides State help — the favourite resource up to the
present time — other proposals were made. Prof Toltenyi,
of Vienna, declared in the Hungarian medical paper Orvosi
Jar of July 6th, 1845, that the best way to overthrow
homoeopathy was by means of publicity. He owns that
he had formerly expressed the contrary opinion, and had
been opposed to publicity. " My readers will be astonished
at hearing me express this opinion. I willingly own my
*- L.C., p. 405-
284 Publicity zvill surely kill it.
fault in having opposed publicity. I had not then learnt
by experience." " So long as the homcjuopaths pose before
the public as persecuted individuals, as victims of a good
cause (as they say), so long they will find proselytes among
doctors and protectors among the non-professionals."
In the professor's opinion homoeopathy is everywhere
losing ground — only in Austria does it flourish — because
there it is persecuted.
The homoeopaths in Hungary are still greater braggarts than those
in Austria. The Etna which has been kindled in other states has
opened a new crater here. For heaven's sake, my dear compatriots,
let them alone. Only do not get involved in any scientific discussions
with them, for you know that they have always protested against
reason. Take care not to enter into any practical trials of curing
diseases with them, for on this field they will certainly wriggle away
from you. But publicity is the most effectual weapon. Let the ho-
moeopaths, then, open their hospitals and mount their rostra ; the hun-
dreds of ears that will hear them, the hundreds of eyes that will follow
them with attention will soon overthrow them. If history does not
deceive us, and if experience deserves respect, then the result of this
publicity must be the same as it has been in England, France and
Germany.
In those countries homoeopathy had been destroyed,
the author thinks.*
This very sensible proposal met with no applause
among the allopaths, and this was fortunate for them ! for
if they had allowed the homoeopaths free scope, the beauty
and the dominant position of their own therapeutics would
soon have come to an end. It was only possible by means
of State help to defend their mode of treatment against
homoeopathy.
But even this mighty aid seemed not enough for some of
them. Calumnies, and the most violent personal attacks
on Hahnemann and the homoeopaths were called in to
help. The most remarkable achievements in this line arc
* AUg. horn. Ztg., Vol. XXXIV., Xos. 10 and 11.
Let us try abuse and calumny. 285
found in the Wonders of HonmopatJiy of 1833 ; The ivay to
the Grave of HovioeopatJiy ;'^ Lesser, o.c., and many others,
Simon was a shining example to all. In conjunction with
others who held his views, he published, besides the works
already mentioned, a special periodical for combating
homoeopathy — the Anti-homoopathische Archiv."
The frolicksome manner in which the allopaths here dis-
ported themselves is shown by the following examples : —
Hahnemann is thus described by an allopath-f- who professes
to have met him several times (such epithets as " shameless
deceiver," " swindler," " charlatan," &c., we will pass by, as
they are things of course) :
Page 46. — "Hahnemann's language bears the stamp of
ignorance."
Page 52. — "I do not know how the idea has arisen that
Hahneman possesses acumen and learning. He has cer-
tainly not revealed either in his writings." Repeated
mention is made of Hahnemann's " stupidity " (p. 44, 47,
SZ. 113.
Page 46. — " When he examines a patient the deceiver
pretends to take notes for the sake of appearance."
Page 50. — A story is related that on one occasion an-
other allopath, with whom Hahnemann was not acquainted,
went to him as a pretended patient. Hahnemann examined
him a long time — a whole hour — and entered the state-
ments of the " patient " in his journal, and finally demanded
a large fee. " When the strange doctor discovered himself
and called Hahnemann a monstrous quack, he behaved
like a madman." This was in 1835, and Hahnemann was
eighty years old.
" At the first visit it cost me much trouble to keep serious,
and not to laugh in the face of the old impostor, every time
he opened his mouth."
The allopaths knew very well that they might say what
they liked without fear of contradiction. At p. 53, a state-
ment of Hahnemann's is mentioned that he did not read
* Both works were characteristically published anonymously.
t Vol. I., H. 2.
286 HaJLiieniaiin a sJiamclcss huuibng.
the attacks on him. If Hahnemann had wished to read
and answer all the hostile pamphlets that appeared even
only up to the year 1840, he would be still at work. But
his reticence encouraged this class of combatants.
All impartial writers of that time and the personal
accounts of men still living who knew Hahnemann, arc
unanimous that he was amiable and courteous in personal
intercourse.
Page 49. — •" If the most modest objections are made,
he becomes wild, stamps with his feet, behaves, in short,
like a lunatic."
Page 44. — A story is told which manifestly bears the
stamp of invention. " The Russian princess N. met Hahne-
mann while walking with her little boy, of about seven
years, and in passing the child did not take off his cap
to the great man. The shameless humbug vehemently re-
proached the princess the next day, spoke so bitterly about
naughtiness and bad bringing-up that the lady was seized
with an attack of convulsions, which frequently recurred
when she got home. Although the old rascal was the
cause of it all, he would not visit the princess in spite
of the most urgent entreaties. This conduct nearly cost
the great man his life, for the highly exasperated husband
of this lady \\as very near running him through with his
sword."
After a long discourse on the excellence of bleeding, we
are told on p. 71: "A doctor who has ever seen the
wonderful effect of a big bleeding, I mean to the extent
of twenty ounces and upwards, could never entertain the
foolish and cruel notion of neglecting it and waiting till an
attack of bleeding at the nose should come on This is
my advice, to banish doctors from the country as soon
as bleeding, emetics, and purgatives arc pronounced un-
necessary."
We should not certainly be expecting too much if we
cherished the hope that some, at least, among the allopaths
would raise their voices against this method of carrying on
the warfare. But there was silence all round! Silence?
Joy reigned in Israel, and care was tak'cn to circulate this
His imscrupulons avarice. 287
allopathic periodical as much as possible. The most severe
criticism of this ArcJiiv is found in Schmidt's JaJirbilcJier^'
"The exterior of the AntiJiouidopatJiisdic Archiv is attrac-
tive."
In order to annihilate Hahnemann morally, certain letters,
said to be by him, are published in this periodical, whose
sole object seems to be to propagate personal attacks on
Hahnemann and his adherents. No evidence is given of
the genuineness of a single one of these letters, though
Simon gives it to be understood that the originals could be
seen at his house in Hamburg. A man such as Simon,
against whom so many intentional untruths and the com-
plete loss of all self-control can be proved, deprives himself
of the right to be believed, and the whole contents of this
periodical serve only to shew the height which was reached
by party hatred, and can, for that very reason, never be
used as a proof against Hahnemann or against homoeo-
pathy. Almost all the " facts" alleged, in so far as they
can now be investigated, can be proved to be malicious
inventions.
A certain class of his opponents dwelt, with special
pleasure, on " Hahnemann's avarice." They, at last, even
dared to make the statement that Hahnemann had only
been induced to propagate his s}-stem by love of gain,
and that he himself knew it to be a swindle by which he
could make money.
To prove this, an extract was made from \\\& Dorfrjcitung,
the object of which was to entertain the readers at the
expense of truth. Hahnemann is said to have given his
fiancee a ring, in 1835, which cost 500 thalers, and to
have given to her in addition 40,000 thalers, and 32,000 to
each of his children. As this subject was pursued with
much zeal by his adversaries, we must discuss the repulsive
theme.
* Vol. VIII., p. 242.
288 HaJincinaniCs cJieniical mistake.
According- to Hahnemann's will,* he possessed, in the
year 1835 — being then in his 8ist year — a fortune of 60,000
thalers (;^9,ooo), and two small houses in Kothen, which
represented a value of about 10,000 thalers {£1,^00). He had
saved this sum, after a long life of hard toil, by dint of great
economy, and by denying himself all expensive pleasures.
An allopathic "rational" practitioner would have been
sorely dissatisfied with Hahnemann's income. And how
many benefits did Hahnemann confer on the sick ! And
what good was ever done at the sick bed by the " rational "
professor of that time ?
" Alkali pncunC
Hahnemann thus denominated a substance which he
thought he had discovered (in 1800) in borax. In order to
understand this mistake we must transport ourselves to that
period. We must repeat what we have once already stated :
If a substance is placed before a chemist, now-a-days, for
investigation, he asks himself of what known substances is
this body composed? Then the question was, generally:
What new substance, hitherto unknown, does it contain?
From the faulty modes of investigation, the absence of
a definite method of analysis, and — what was worse — the
impurity of the re-agents, which were shamefully adulterated
in that day, many mistakes arose.
Professor Klaproth — who was then the first, or one of the
first chemists of Germany — discovered a new and hitherto
unknown substance, " diamond spar " : it was a mistake.t
Proust discovered " sal mirabile perlatum," a salt of pearl
(Monro 1.67), in the urine; it was supposed to be a com-
bination of soda with a new acid (pearl acid) ; it was
subsequently ascertained to be the already known phos-
phate of soda.
* Given literally in Fliegciidc Blatter iibcr Homoopatliie, 1878, No.
15 and 16.
t CrelFs Annalcn, 1789, I., p. 7, 'ind ib., 1795, II., p. 534.
Mistakes have been made before noiv. 289
Other chemists — among them von Ruprecht, Professor of
Chemistry — discovered new metals : borbonium in baryta,
parthenum in chalk, austrum in magnesia ; also the sedative
salt (boracic acid) was supposed to have been reduced to a
metal ; on examination, these discoveries were found to
be iron, probably derived from impure Hessian crucibles,
Klaproth, who, together with Karsten, HermbstLidt, and
others, detected these errors, warned the public against
these discoveries in the Intelligenzblatt of the Janaer Litem-
turzeitiing oi 1790, No. 146.*
Borax had long been an object of special attention to
chemists. Prof. Fuchs wrote, in 1784, a monograph f upon
it, with a historical account of the views as to its composi-
tion ; which, in 1784, were still uncertain and contradictory.
" We know very little about borax, and are not yet agreed
as to its composition, for one says it contains this substance,
and another that," says Fuchs in his preface. The cele-
brated De la Metherie,! in 1791, thus speaks of boracic
acid : " The constituents of this acid are atmospheric air,
inflammable gas, caloric and water. But it is probable that
it contains the other gases also." In 1796 § it was still
thought " that boracic acid was composed of phosphoric
acid."
In 1799 Crell states|i that borax is composed of soda
and boracic acid, but thinks {ib. p. 323) that the acid in
borax " is intimately mixed with some unknown earths
or a kind of phlogiston." In order to ascertain this, he
instituted sixty-seven experiments, which he describes in
detail, but without coming to any conclusion from them ;
he, however, maintains that borax contains something
peculiar besides.
Crell's y4««(^/^« IT published, in iSco, an article of four
* Crell's A7ina,.e?i, 1791, I., 5 and 119.
f Versiich "^einer natiirlichen Geschichte des Borax unci seiner Be-
standiheiie, Jena, 1784.
X Ucbcr die reinen Ltiffarien, translated by Hahnemann, II., p. 2'J2>'
§ Crell's Annalen, 1796, II., 453.
II ^^n 1799, H-, 320.
tiSoo, r., p. 392—395-
19
290 One man may steal a horse,
pages entitled : Pmicmlangensah, endeckt von Herrn Dr.
Savincl HaJinemann, in which the latter describes the
properties of a " new kind of fixed alkali, called ' alkali
pneum,' from its property of swelling out to twenty times
its size when heated to redness." This article was also
copied into other periodicals.
Hahnemann had worked zealously as an amateur in the
field of chemistry for twenty years, and with the most
valuable results for chemistry and for the welfare of man-
kind. He never obtained any assistance from the State,
or any other source, and was not even able to fit up a
proper laboratory, such as the apothecaries possessed.
Disinterested love of research and of science had made him
go to great expense for a laboratory, costly re-agents, &c.
Thinking he had made a very valuable discovery, he
handed over his alkali pneum to an agent in Leipzic who
sold it for a friedrichsd'or the ounce. In those days there
were no patents whereby chemists now-a-days secure re-
muneration for their discoveries, and make the consumer,
and eventually the patient, pay so heavily (as in the case
of salicylic acid).
Professors Klaproth, Karsten and Hermbstadt analysed
the new alkali, and found that it was borax ! Instead
of communicating their results to Hahnemann who had
given proofs enough that he was striving after the same
objects as themselves, and asking him for an explanation,
they published their discovery in the Jenaer Litratnrzcitimg,
and called Hahnemann to account. Prof Trommsdorff,
who owned an apothecary's shop, hastened to communi-
cate this incident to a larger public in the ReicJisanzeiger,
the name then borne by the Allgemein. Anzeiger der
Dciitschcn, and called Hahnemann's proceeding, " unex-
ampled impudence." Crell,* however, lamented Hahne-
mann's " great mistake."
The latter at once explained the matter in several
journals, among others'in Prof. A. N. Scherer's Journal der
Chemie (1801, p. 665). " I am incapable of wilfully dcceiv-
* Index to the vol. for 1800.
another must not look over a hedge. 291
ing, I may, however, like other men be unintentionally
mistaken. I am in the same boat with Klaproth and his
' diamond spar,' and with Proust and his ' pearl salt' I had'
before me some crude (probably Chinese) borax (supplied
by J. N. Nahrmann, of Hamburg). A solution of potash
dropped into a filtered ley of borax, not yet crystallizable,
precipitated a large floury saline sediment. As authors
assure us that pure borax is rendered uncrystallizable by
the addition of potash is it wonderful that I took the
precipitate for some new peculiar substance ? The re-
agents also displayed different phenomena from those of
ordinary borax" as Hahnemann had already stated in Crell
(loc. cit.). Hahnemann now gives in three pages a detailed
account of the course and cause of his mistake, and finally
states that he had already given back what money he had
received.
Prof A. N. Scherer addsf/.^.j: —
Why did Professor Trommsdorff (the only person who has dared
to throw any doubt on Hahnemann's integrity), not await this defence
before making (in the Reichsanzeiger) such an exceedingly ill-natured
and intolerant attack on Hahnemann 1 Everyone who, like myself,
knows him, will acknowledge that Herr Hahnemann is an upright
and truth-loving man. It is incredible that he would consciously sell
borax as a new substance, that could not be expected from him ! Such
charlatanry cannot be attributed to Hahnemann! What well-merited
aspersions would he not have anticipated .^
.... Our foreign colleagues will, from this proceeding, receive new
confirmation of their assertion that savants are nowhere as malicious
in their treatment of each other as in Germany .... Is no one
capable of making mistakes ? or has Professor Trommsdorff himself
never made a mistake ? Let him recall to mind his celebrated denial
of the existence of oxj^gen in oxide of mercury.
At all events, Hahnemann has more readily acknowledged his error
than did Herr Trommsdorff in the case alluded to. In Hahnemann's
case it was unintentional error, in Trommsdorff it was wilful, for he
admitted that he had combated Lavoisier's system before he had
begun to study it.
Lastly, he says that Klaproth's " diamond spar " was a
mistake similar to Hahnemann's.
Six years later Hahnemann wrote in \\-\q Allgein. Anzeig.
tier Deutscheii, 1806, p. 2297, "If I once made an error in
292 Doctors never take fees from
chemistry — for to err is human — I was the first to acknow-
ledge it as soon as I was better informed."
This story of the pneum has been misrepresented, even
to this day, by the adversaries of Hahnemann, in order to
demonstrate to the public that he was a vulgar impostor,
and hence to draw the inference that homoeopathy is an
imposture of a similar character. Does such an un-
scrupulous method of carrying on the contest redound to
their honour ?
The letter to the father of the epileptic patient.
In order to brand Hahnemann as a charlatan, a letter
which he wrote in Brunswick to the father of an epileptic, on
June I, 1796, was widely circulated, and it was published,
twelve years later, in the Allgenieiner Anzeig. d. Deittschen, in
1808, by the ex-Ducal physician in ordinary. Dr. Brlickmann.
Hahneman had an epileptic under treatment, and demanded
an unusually high fee in a letter addressed to the father of
the patient, from which Brilckmann and his other oppo-
nents sought to prove that he was a "charlatan." It was
only after 1830 that this letter, published by Brlickmann,
evidently from personal motives, was seized upon by
Hahnemann's opponents to use as a weapon against him.
This letter does not prove that Hahnemann acted like a
charlatan ; that he, for the sake of making money, promised
results which he himself knew to be impossible. In many
places of his medical writings, in Hufeland's Journal (1796)
— Apothekerlexicon, &c. — he maintains the possibility of
curing epilepsy. He employed in those days especially
belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium, conium, &c. ; these
medicines had only been introduced into the materia medica
a short time before by Storck. The use of these " heroic
vegetable substances" was not general. Most doctors
avoided them on account of the violent toxical symptoms
which they produced in the ordinary doses and in their
uncertain preparations, Hahnemann had, likewise, admin-
tmaired patients — oh, no ! 293
istered these narcotics in the ordinary doses, and obtained
bad results.* But he did not on that account abandon
them, he diminished the dose, as we have already seen, and
was thereby enabled to make extensive use of them ; while
his colleagues either did not know these remedies, or ab-
stained from their use on account of their poisonous effects.
Moreover, he administered his properly-prepared remedies
singly, and not in complex prescriptions. Hahnemann was
thus already in advance of his colleagues.
Page 787, /. c. — Briickmann writes : " Dr. Hahnemann
gave to our patient, for several months, little pills about the
size of a large pin's head, and only very few of them;" his
practice thus agreeing with his statements as to the proper
size of the dose of the narcotics, e.g., in his Apotliekerlexicon.
Therefore, when Hahnemann promised good results from
his treatment of epilepsy, it is clear that it was his firm
conviction that he would obtain them.
The reason for 'dxQ personal attack of Briickmann is very
obvious. " Hahnemann blames and belittles his colleagues
simply from love of gain," Hahnemann gave many and
sufficient proofs, up to 1796 — and still more up to 1808 —
that he was convinced that physicians did a great deal of
harm. They rejoined by ascribing to him bad motives
from their hatred of his behaviour. Hahnemann, by his
fearless conduct on all occasions, served humanity. He
had access to the Duke of Brunswick, and may, very
probably, have freely expressed his views to him, and have
succeeded in arousing his attention. This fact would not
render the position of Briickmann, the physician in ordinary,
more comfortable.
Page 785, /. c — Briickmann says : " Hahnemann has
little practical knowledge."
Page 788. — " Several physicians afterwards attended
patients who had been treated and w^Z-treated by Hahne-
mann, and restored them to health." Doctors of that day
against Hahnemann !
Page 788. — " Hahnemann did not act well by his patients
* Hufeland's >«/'«., 1798, Vol. V., St. i.
294 -^ " worthy man " not necessarily
from a moral point of view. I might mention a certain
young lady from Hanover, and others."
The adversaries of homoeopathy called Briickmann a
" worthy man," in order to gain credit for his calumnies.
A man who does not hesitate to publish such wretched
scandals in one of the most widely-read papers of the day
in order to depreciate a personal opponent cannot be called
" a worthy man ; " we have seen how high Hahnemann's
moral standard was both for himself and others. If op-
ponents appeal to the judgment of a third person who calls
Briickmann " a worthy old man," the fact must not be sup-
pressed that this third person* thus expresses himself con-
cerning Hahnemann (p. 973) : " I only know Dr. Hahne-
mann through his learned and useful works, and I respect
and admire this man for his God-like intelligence, even if
all his observations on the mode of action of the remedies
he describes, may not be entirely confirmed." Briickmann
had scoffedf at the proving of drugs on healthy subjects,
and concerning Hahnemann's Fragmenta de viribus medica-
mejiiornm, the incompleteness of which had been admitted
by Hahnemann himself, he expresses the following opinion :
— " If all medical men were to make such experiments on
themselves, I am afraid that they would soon be crippled
both in mind and body." The third person already men-
tioned writes : — " The letter here quoted is certainly a rather
remarkable composition, but we should rather look to the
good and useful things this man, to whom medicine owes so
much, has done." Further, " it is very much to be desired that
the public should be spared the recital of such matters — •
they are an abomination to it." A man to whom such con-
temptuous advice could be given as is here given to Doctor
Briickmann, cannot really be held to be a " worthy old man,"
and this epithet appears to be only an empty formula, and
the only real means of judging his character is furnished
by his article. Twelve years after the event he retails the
scandal in order to injure an opponent, and that, too, in
* " H. of the department Ocker."
t L.c, p. 792 and 793.
a man of tuorth. 295
one of the most widely read journals in Germany. That
sufficiently indicates his character! He called Hahne-
mann a " charlatan."
Hahnemann replied : — *
His character is known in Brunswick, and his article reveals in
every line a mind revelling in the blacker sides of noble humanity.
He artfully kept back this calumny twelve years, until the witnesses
who could have proved its falsehood were dead, and until the clear-
sighted Duke of Brunswick, who would have punished such an action
towards me whom he loved, was dead. A scandal of this kind (I
cannot understand how the editor of a paper like the A7izeiger der
Deiitschen, which is generally kept so free from personalities and ras-
cally abuse of men of unstained character, could have allowed its pages
to be soiled with it) deserves no refutation.
Envy prompted this libel, and in the concoction of the calumny, men-
dacity and weakness of intellect strive for the mastery. It was envy
respecting several cures of a remarkable nature which I was suc-
cessful in accomplishing in Brunswick, which incited him to make the
malicious private insinuations with which he persecuted me for many
years. Envy was the spark which, smouldering for twelve years within
his breast (for up to this time I get patients from his district), broke
out at last into a fire, by the light of which the world was to read the
important secret that I had not succeeded in the treatment of such
and such a case.
It was Brlickmann, too, who first used against him
publicly his mistake as to the alkali pneum. " Was this
simply love of gain, or was there any other reason ?" This
turn of expression was calculated to have its effect upon
the uninstructed public. Brlickmann must have known, or
at least he should have ascertained, how matters really
stood before writing publicly in this manner. The period
when the mistake occurred was only eight years distant.
" Another part," Hahnemann replies, " consists of old accu-
sations which were long ago refuted, but are now raked up
by him (he has never read, or he ignores the refutation),
and mixed up with ignorant statements and misrepresen-
tations. The remainder are simple untruths which could
have had their birth only in his own mind."
Bruckmann had called him a dealer in secret nostrums,
and had scoffed at his frequent change of residence, and
lb., No. 97, p. 1025.
296 Did Hahnemann deny the
had thus again gossiped about his private affairs in a
widely-read journal. Hahnemann answers : —
When I then aroused his envy I was not in a position to lay the
principles of my new and efficacious system of treatment before the
world ; they had not arrived at a sufficiently advanced stage. But
when I had sufficiently matured them I gave them to the world in a
book, which neither he, nor the like of him, could ever have appreci-
ated, encased, as they are, in old-world prejudices ; hinc ilia: lacrimcE.'
I submitted my mode of treatment to a more intelligent public. A
dealer in secret nostrums does the exact contrary.
Whether I ought to have gone on vegetating, rooted like a polypus
to my native rock, and never have dwelt occasionally in freedom in
different countries in order to attain a wider culture (as the most dis-
tinguished men of all ages have done), is a matter on which I can
hardly suffer myself to be dictated to by Briickmann and his friends.
" Hahnemann Denies the Healing Pozver of Nature."
From a passage in the Organon Hahnemann is accused
of denying the healing power of nature. His opponents
have repeated this reproach so frequently, that in the end
even the homoeopaths themselves have been confused, and
in their writings and even at a meeting of the Central
Society in Magdeburg in 1830, they declared " that they did
not agree with Hahnemann in rejecting the vis medicatrix
naturae."
In order to understand the passage of the Organon
quoted below, we must endeavour to realise the situation of
that day. His enemies had cast upon him the following
reproach among others : Your method of treatment is in
direct contradiction to our great teacher — Nature. Open
your eyes ! A rush of blood to the head, a congestive head-
ache, is healed by nature by a wholesome bleeding from the
nose. We copy nature and draw blood when congestion is
present. You fly in nature's face and reject bleeding. In
a case of ophthalmia you see an eruption make its ap-
pearance in the contiguous parts of the face and the inflam-
mation is thereby diminished. We follow this hint of
nature and excite an artificial eruption or inflammation by
Vis inedicatrix Natnrce? 297
means of blisters, moxas, cauteries, setons, &c. Have you
never seen the original malady relieved by metastases ?
have you never seen a skin eruption disappear on the super-
vention of diarrhoea ? At variance with nature you try to
fulfil her requirements!
Hahnemann was often assailed with such reproaches by
his earlier opponents, and the passage cited by later oppo-
nents from the fourth edition of the Organon, was an an-
swer to these attacks, as is clearly shown by the text.
They (the allopaths) allege that their multifarious evacuant processes
are a helpful mode of treatment by derivatio7i, wherein they follow
the example of nature's efforts to assist the diseased organism, which
resolves fever by perspiration and diuresis, pleurisy by epistaxis, sweat
and mucous expectoration — other diseases by vomiting, diarrhoea,
and bleeding from the anus, articular pains by ulcers on the legs, in-
flammation of the throat by salivation, &c., or removes them by metas-
tases and abscesses, which it develops in parts at a distance from the
disease. Hence they thought the best thing to do was to imitate
nature .... In this imitation of the self-aiding power of nature they
endeavoured to excite by force new symptoms in the tissues that are
least diseased .... in order to admit of a gradual lysis by the
curative powers of nature. [And in a note] : It is only slighter acute
diseases that are wont, when the natural period of their course has
expired, to terminate quietly in resolution, as it is called, with or
without the employment of not very powerful allopathic remedies
.... But in severe acute and in chronic diseases, crude nature and
the old school are equally powerless.*
Here, it will be observed, he is only speaking of the
derivative method ; the meaning is, in this connexion, that
by means of ulcers and metastases, &c., severe acute and
chronic diseases cannot be cured by an imitation of the,
in this case, crude operation of nature.
The old-school merely followed the example of crude instinctive
nature in her efforts, which are barely successful even in the slighter
cases of acute diseases.!
He remarks in a note : —
The pitiable and. highly imperfect efforts of the vital force to relieve
itself in acute diseases, is a spectacle that should excite our compas-
sion and command the aid of all the powers of our rational mind.
* Organon, Dudgeon's translation, p. 24, 25.
t Loc. cit., p. 27.
298 Proof that Hahnemann
He tries to show that the self-help of nature, to which his
opponents appeal in order to justify their bleedings, pur-
gatives, setons, &c., is not worthy of imitation. That
our interpretation of his meaning is the true one is shown
by other passages, and at all times he gives full credit to
the healing power of nature.
In his Essay on a new Principle &c.,* 1796, he main-
tains that nature, unassisted, will triumph over most acute
diseases if the obstacles to recovery are removed.
In the year 1797 he says : — f
I do not now allude to cures effected by dietetic rules alone without
drugs, which if simple are not to be despised, and which are very
successful in many cases.
.... If it be necessary to make considerable changes in diet and
regimen, the ingenuous physician will do well to mark what effect such
changes will have on the disease before he prescribes the mildest
medicine.
In his criticism of Brown In Hufeland's JonrnalX which
we have already quoted, we read : —
That kind nature and youth will, assisted by such appropriate
regimen and even by itself, cure diseases having far other producing
causes than deficiency and excess of irritability, is the common ex-
perience of every impartial observer ; but Brown must deny this in
order to support his scholastic system. But without reckoning this
divine power, &c.
In 1 801 he thus criticises Brown.§
According to him we must not trust anything to the powers of
nature; we must never rest with our medicines, we must always either
stimulate or debilitate. What a calumniation of nature, what a dan-
gerous insinuation for the ordinary half-instructed practitioner, already
too officious ! What a ministration to his pride to be deemed the
lord and master of nature !
In yEscidapins in the Balance, 1805, he again draws atten-
tion to the healing power of nature : — 1|
It were easy to run through a catalogue of similar acute diseases,
and show that the restoration of persons who, in the same disease
were treated on wholly opposite principles, could not be called cure
but spontaneous recovery.
* Lesser Writings, p. -yy]. f Lesser Writifigs, p. 363.
X Lesser Writings, p. 413. § Lesser Writings, p. 618.
II Lesser Writings, p. 472.
acknowledged NaUire^s healing poiver. 299
In 1808 Hahnemann writes: — *
Do not the poor, who take no medicine at all, often recover much
sooner from the same kind of disease than the well-to-do patient, who
has his shelves filled with large bottles of medicines ?
In 1 83 1 he, in Allopathy, says : — -f-
If they call this an efficacious sort of method, how can they reconcile
this with the fact that of all that die in a year, a sixth part of the
whole number dies under them of inflammatory affections, as the r
own statistics prove ! Not a twelfth of them would have died had
they not fallen into such blood-thirsty hands — if they had but been
left to nature, and kept away from that old pernicious art.
Griesselich,$ who visited Hahnemann in 1832 in Cothen,
says: " Hahnemann has often been reproached for his con-
tempt for the healing power of nature. I myself was led
into this error by something in the Organon In con-
versing with Hahnemann I have never perceived anything
tending to the denial of this healing power. It appears
that the reformer must have given occasion to misunder-
standings," Negligent perusal and ignorance of his works
are the causes of these misunderstandings.
A follower of Hahnemann's, Dr. Kammerer, of Ulm,
wrote a small book in 1834 : Die Homdopathik heilt ohne
B Intent zieJmiigen (Leipzig, 1834). Hahnemann wrote the
preface, and in it he declares that he fully concurs with its
contents. What role does the healing power of nature play
in it? (p. i) : "Blood-letting implies an undervaluing and
slighting of the great healing power of nature." At p. 6
the course of inflammatory diseases, pneumonia, &c., is
described, where they are left to nature and generally re-
cover. " Venesection weakens the organism and interferes
with the healing power of nature." Page 16 : — " The benefit
cent power of nature." PAGE 17 : — "The proper healing
power of nature often effects wonderful and rapid cures."
" The severest illnesses often get rapidly well of them-
selves." " Even in chronic diseases the marvellous healing
* Lesser Writings, p. 553.
t Lesser Writings, p. 830. He is speaking of blood-letting in cases
of fever, especially pneumonia.
X Stcizzen aus der Mappe eines reisenden Homoopaihen, 1S32, p. 35.
300 Did Hahnemann steal his
power of nature is seen." Page i8: — "Another power —
a medicinal power cannot possibly be more beneficial than
the inherent recuperative power." PAGE 21: — "Diseases
are cured as rapidly, or more so, by the proper healing
power of nature than by the best remedies." In this work
of eighty pages, on almost every page the healing power of
nature is lauded. Finally he says : " Let leading medical
men pay more attention to the requirements of nature."
Hahnemann thus concludes his preface : " Our dear Kam-
merer, of Ulm, whose sensible treatise I have now great
pleasure in introducing to the public."
" HaJuiemann Stole Jus Doctrine from other Authors''
We have already said that Hahnemann referred in 1805
to the testimony of older authors as supporting his prin-
ciple of cure, mentioning among others, that of Hippo-
crates in the passage from Trepi towcov.
In 1806 Ploucquet* entered the field, and quoted a
passage from Thorn. Erasti Dispiitat. (III. 226), in which
this sentence occurs : " cum dicit Paracelsus, simil. similibus
curari, non insanit, non stulte loquitur, sed recte sentit
et philosophice pronunciat." Ploucquet adds no remark
of his own — he seems to imply that he discovered this
passage incidentally while reading this author.
In 1808 an opponent of Hahnemann quotes this remark
of Ploucquet's in the AUgemein. Anzeig. d. Deutschen, No.
78, in order to contest the priority of Hahnemann for his
doctrine.
In 1829, a Dr. Mannsfeld wrote in Henke's Zeitsch. filr
Staatsarzneikiinde\ mentioning Hahnemann's sim. simil. as
a " repetition of the Paracelsian paradox."
In 1 83 1 Professor Schultz, of Berlin, entered the arena,
and wrote the Hovwobiotik. In this it is asserted that Hahne-
* Hufeland's Journ.^ St. i, p. 170.
t Kleinert, Repert. der ges. deutsch. vied. u. chir. Journalistik, I., p.
143-
system from Paracelsus? 30 1
mann borrowed his homoeopathy from Paracelsus. Schultz
distinctly asserts that the principle of similars, the denial of
nature's healing powers, and the rejection of the principle
contraria cojitrariis, and of the use of mixtures and of
large doses, are found in Paracelsus, as is also dynamism.
Consequently, Hahnemann borrowed his system from
Paracelsus. Notwithstanding this, he has totally mis-
understood the latter. " Homoeopathy is the principle of
Paracelsus misunderstood, falsely represented, and dressed
out in an unscientific garb" (p. 108).
In the ArcJiiv f. d. Jiom. Heilk* Rummel has taken
the useless trouble to refute this nonsense instead of laugh-
ing at it. It would have been a useful undertaking if the
professor had shown that Paracelsus mentions in such
and such a place that certain remedies show their
healing power on the homoeopathic principle. Schultz
would thereby have excited great interest, and have earned
the gratitude of all homoeopaths, who would not have
grudged him the innocent pleasure of accusing Hahne-
mann of plagiarism. He, however, observes profound
silence respecting this point, and quotes instead two vague
expressions which Rademacher interprets in quite a
different way, and Rademacher is certainly one of the men
most thoroughly acquainted with Paracelsus's writings. In
the whole book — 263 pages long — however much we may
search, we can find no further proof of the allegation respect-
ing Paracelsus's principle ; instead of this, the reader meets
with vague expressions, such as the following in p. 192.
Hence the essential principles of potentiation, of self-attraction and
self-repulsion, and of the direct development of a new repulsion
from the substance formed by attraction— which is the organization of
these powers to a living system — cannot be understood.
None the less this article served the opponents of
homoeopathy as a proof of the statement that Hahnemann
had not himself discovered his therapeutic principle, but
had stolen it from others. Simon took up the idea
eagerly.
* Vol. II., H. I, p. 196.
302 Paracelsus taught 7iot Homoeopathy,
Unfortunately Rademacher, who understood the merits
of Paracelsus and his teaching better than any one else,
and who had rendered it accessible to medical men, ex-
pressed the following opinion :* " He rejected the principle
contraria conirariis — but that he substituted for it the
principle : sames are cured by sames (so R. translates here
and on p. 115 the similia similibus) has indeed been re-
cently asserted, but it is quite untrue. Paracelsus says : —
A physician who is faithful to nature says : this is morbus terebin-
thinus, this is morbus sileris montani, this is morbus helleborinus, etc.;
and not : this is branchus, this is rheuma, this is coryza, this is
catarrhus. These names are not founded upon the basis of the
medicine ; for same should be compared to its nominal same.
Paracelsus asserted that every diseased organ has its
remedy in external nature. These remedies he calls
(parodying the doctrine of signatures) the external organs,
and he thence constructs the apparent paradox " same
must be driven out by same." Thus, says Paracelsus, herbs
are also members. This is a heart, that a liver, this a
spleen, &c., which means that such and such a herb acts
on the heart, the liver, &c.
The (allopathic) historian H. Damerow contests the state-
ment that Hahnemann borrowed from Paracelsus.-|- By the
homoeopaths, however, Paracelsus was frequently said to be
a forerunner of Hahnemann^ He is indeed to be looked
upon as such, but not with regard to the 'similia siuiilibus,
but rather, in so far as he, in opposition to the followers of
Galen — did not attack the supposed inatej'ies viorbi, and
the pathological appearances discovered in the dead body,
but used specific remedies without having attained the ex-
perimental and individualising standpoint occupied by
Hahnemann.
In any case the ferment produced by Hahnemann
was the principle cause why the man who had been mis-
judged for three centuries was rescued from the heap . of
* Third edit., Berlin, 1848, I., p. 87.
t Jahrbiicherf. ivissenschaftl. Kritik, 1S32, p. 274.
X Trm\is, Ha/memanti's Verdienste um die Hcilkunst^ Leipzig, 1843,
also Oesterr. Zeitsch.f. Horn., 1848, p. 478.
but something quite different. 303
abuse and calumny with which he had been covered.
A hundred years after his death Guido Patin resented the
fact that the booksellers sold the works of the " o-reat
rascal " (Rademacher), and A. F. Hecker {I.e. p. 6^) desig-
nates him, in 18 19, "an extremely rude, ignorant, immoral
and selfish man."
J. G. Zimmermann, who treated Frederick the Great
in his last illness, writes thus of him :
He even assured his disciples that he would seek advice from the
devil if God would not help him. He lived like a pig, looked like
a cartel', and found his greatest pleasure in consorting with the
lowest and most abandoned characters. He was drunk during the
greater part of his famous life, and all his works seem to have been
written when he was tipsy.
H. Conring, professor in Helmstadt, called him a '' Mon-
stnun Jiominis, in perniciem onnis inelioris doctrincc naium."*
Paracelsus was partly to blame for this want of recog-
nition on the part of his colleagues, because he attacked
them too severely, and contemned both anatomy and the
ordinary knowledge possessed by doctors. But his greatest
crime was that he ventured to oppose the learned big-wigs,
and such behaviour has never been left unavenged by them ;
just as doctors generally have always persecuted with pecu-
liar animosity those who dared to disparage the customs
they held sacred and to introduce revolutionary novelties.
They only differed from the religious parties in that they
lacked an inquisition. Had the allopaths had power to
send their enemies to the stake, Hahnemann and his
adherents would have been burnt. The reader will, by-and-
bye, have an opportunity of judging what the allopaths of
to-day would like to do if they had the power.
Hippocrates was accused by his contemporaries of
burning the library attached to the Temple of Health at
Cnidos, in order that he might enjoy a monopoly of the
knowledge it contained, and he was called by his rivals
(TKOTocpayov (dung-catcr), because he so carefully took note of
the character of the excrements.
* Comp. F. Alook, Theophrastus Paracelsus., Wiirzburg, 1876, 4,
p. 3, also M. B. Lessing, Paracelsus., &c., Berlin, 1839, p. 247.
304 Harvcy^s discoveiy ?iow said
Galen, who guided the ideas of medical men and their
treatment for many centuries, was persecuted so passion-
ately by the doctors of his time that he was obliged to
leave Rome.
Harvey (died 1657) met with the most violent oppo-
sition when he made known his discovery of the cir-
culation of the blood. He was declared to be insane,
so that the public lost all confidence in him, and his
practice fell off. Thirty years later Professor Riolan in
Paris called him a charlatan. " Malo cum Galeno errare,
quam cum Harveyo esse circulator" (circulator signifies
also charlatan). And yet the proofs were so clear that
it was only necessary to look in order to be convinced,
and long and careful study and numerous experiments,
such as were essential in order to judge of homoeopathy,
were not required. When Harvey's teaching became
gradually recognised, writers arose who proved that he
had not the priority of the discovery.
Blumenbach's Medic. Bibliothek thus describes the way
of the world : — *
Many persons thought it a serious risk to trust their health to a
man who went so far as to dare to state that God caused the blood to
circulate in our bodies in a different way from that described by the great
Galen ! Pretended refutations were hailed upon him from all quarters
of Europe — each one more bulky and more contemptuous than the
last. And when this was found of no avail, and the correctness of the
matter had to be acknowledged, another lot raised their voices and
demanded how people could possibly look upon it as a new discovery.
Had not King Solomon, in Ecclesiastes (Chap, xii., v. 6), spoken most
clearly of the silver cord and the golden fountain, of the pitcher at
the fountain and the wheel at the cistern, and was not the circulus
sanguinis major described there to the life? Others wished to
force this honour not on the wise Solomon, but on the sage Plato ;
others on their father Hippocrates ; others on the estimable Bishop
Nemesius ; others ascribed the discovery to a Spanish farrier, de la
Reyna ; others to various other persons, to anyone but the true
discoverer !
Even after the lapse of two centuries, at the beginning of
the year 1840, an American professor could not be quiet, he
* Vol. III., No. I, p. 365, Gottingen, 17SS.
to be a mere plagiarism. 305
attempted to snatch the laurels from Harvey's head and to
place them on that of an American. On this side of the
Atlantic an Italian joins in the fray (1846), and tirades
" against the impudence of that Englishman Harvey, who
by forged papers which were circulated through Italy,
robbed Cesalpino of the honours due to him ; and in the
life of this English pirate we read that he left Italy in the
year 1606." The Italian Andreas Cesalpinus was the dis-
coverer of the circulation for all who wish to believe it.*
Our Hahnemann fared no better. The passages from
old authors, which he himself had quoted in corrobora-
tion of his views, were sharply criticised by his opponents
and pronounced irrelevant ; Kurt Sprengel declares that
the passage from Hippocrates, Trepl t6izwv, is detached from
its context and is rather to be understood in the sense of
contraria contrariis.\ Professor Sachs caused this passage
to be translated in his ScJilusszuort (1826, p. ZZ) by a philo-
logist, as he says, and quotes the whole passage in full,
which is only given in brief by Hahnemann, and comes to
the conclusion that Hahnemann did not believe in his own
interpretation. Others for whom Simon acted as spokes-
man,t considered this a new proof that Hahnemann was an
impostor. This passage was also discussed in the AUge.
Anzeig. der Deutscheii, but was interpreted in the sense
Hahnemann gives it (1822, p. 261 7j.
In 1846, an article appeared in the periodical Jamis
(vol. i., p. 'j'^'J^, Hippocrates a Homceopath, which begins
thus : " Dr. Landsberg has just made the equally inter-
esting and striking discovery that homoeopathy is not a
discovery of Hahnemann's, but is contained in its essence
in the works which have come down to us under the name
of Hippocrates. We must call this discovery striking, be-
cause on one hand Hippocrates has been studied so many
thousand times without the discovery which is so clearly
* Sc&Janus^ Zeitschrift f. Geschichte der Med. II., p. 547.
t Kurt Sprengel, Uebcr Homoopathie, eingeleitet von Schragge,
Magdeburg, 1833.
X Ceist der Honi. Pscudomessias.
20
306 Hahnemann stole all Ids
expressed ever having been made. Knowledge is often
ascribed to Hippocrates which he did not possess ; and
here a fact so important, in a historico-medical point of
view, has been overlooked — a fact which is not only the
result of inferences which are often only too deceptive,
but which is stated as a manifest apophthegm. And yet,
on the side both of the allopaths and the homoeopaths,
as Herr Landsberg justly remarks [the article by Dr.
Landsberg is taken from the well-known Journal of von
Walther and von Ammon, Vol. 3, and these introductory
remarks appear to come from Professor Henschel], a great
deal of trouble has been taken," &c. We eagerly look for
this celebrated, newly-discovered passage. Prof. v. Walther,
the King of Saxony's physician in ordinary, von Ammon
and Prof. Henschel regard it as convincing; and the histor-
ian, Prof Haesar, mentions it in the same volume (p. 872),
and has nothing to say against it ; he can only add,
with a sigh, " So the inspiring hope grows of being able to
trace the earliest germs of homceopathy to the gods and
demi-gods of India." And what is the celebrated passage
which nobody as yet knew ? ■n-epl t^tw^ tS>v kut ^vOpwirov, &c.,
the identical one that Hahnemann had quoted forty-one
years before, and the interpretation of which, in his sense^
was held to be a proof that he was an impostor !
In the Janus the passage was quoted more fully, and
furnished with notes : —
Another way, Hippocrates says, of practising medicine is the fol-
lowing : " By using just that which produces the disease — a cure is
effected by the disease itself" Here some examples of strangury, of
cough, and of fever are given, and it is stated that they may sometimes
be cured by the same things that produced them — homceopathically —
and sometimes by the contrary — allopathically ; — and again, as a phar-
macodynamic illustration, the instance is given of the free use of
warm water, both for drinks and baths, because by means of the
heat they bring to the body, the fever heat is expelled. In the
same way gastric vomiting is removed by the use of an emetic, which
produces vomiting in healthy persons. Hippocrates, however, adds
and thus, to a certain extent, as the author remarks, recognizes
homceopathy as a method, that there are cases which are better suited
for allopathic treatment (inreuavTioKn), others better suited for homoeo-
pathic treatment {Tolffiv hixoioKxi), &.Q. At the end of this di\ision —
ideas from Hippocrates. 307
from which only extracts have been given — Hippocrates further speaks
about the size of the dose, and remarks in this connexion that we
ought not to employ powerful medicines needlessly and seek to weaken
them by quantitative relations, but strong remedies ought to be used
for severe maladies, and weaker remedies for the less severe. Hahne-
mann, indeed, has only made use of this maxim in order to caricature it,
/.*., to surround his teaching" with a nimbus which corresponds to the
principle of ;;^^/■;7(://^J■ vidt decipi. So much is, however, certain that
he had already met with the idea of his dilution-theory, as well as
with the 'iixoia. sr t^/ioia, and that, in fact, no part of his teaching is
peculiar to himself except that which was developed at a later period —
the psora theory.
But as Hahnemann's psora theory is rejected by his
adherents, Hippocrates remains the father of the actual
homoeopathy, so that all the harm it has done and all the
annoyance it has caused the allopaths ought to be visited
on the head of Hippocrates. All their abusive epithets,
therefore, hit Hippocrates and not Hahnemann.
One thing is, however, difficult to understand ; all those
who accuse the founder of homoeopathy of plagiarism call
it a false doctrine. Why, then, is it necessary to ascribe
this false doctrine to another man ? Is not a great incon-
sequence involved here, the point of which is directed
against the combatants themselves ?
One further remark on this subject. We own, indeed,
that to represent Hahnemann as a man who has no ideas
of his own, and who, in his cunning or folly, has stolen
from others that which has been for more than seventy
years considered as in the main true, and which has been
practically tested by thousands of physicians, is well
adapted to the purpose of disparaging him. It makes
Hahnemann and his adherents appear as charlatans and
fools. Therefore, this manoeuvre has been continued up to
a recent date with the aid of the whole allopathic press.
If, however, there is a want of agreement in this not
unimportant matter, there is a danger incurred that in the
end the public will not believe in it in spite of the most
decided assurances. We think then that we arc advising
the allopaths to their own interest when we recommend
them to arrive at a final decision as to who the culprit
was — whether Hippocrates or Paracelsus. Or is it, perhaps
3o8 Galen and Alberti Jioinceopathists.
H. Alberti, as Koppe will have it. To be sure, the man
whose work is quoted is not H. but M. Alberti, and he
says something quite different, as Sorge* showed. But an
allopathic combatant desirous of obtaining his end is not
put out by such trifles. Leupoldtf again says of Galen,
that he was not disinclined to the principle of siinilia
similibns. So that Galen might very well be represented
as the one whom Hahnemann robbed.
Trials of HoviaopatJiy by its Opponents.
Hahnemann's course of development shows that he did
not arrive at his discoveries on paper, but that he followed
the path of induction. He undoubtedly sought to support
his discoveries by theories, but expressly asserted that he
* Zcitsch. des Berli?icr Ver. Jiom. Ao'zfe, I., p. j^. ]Michael Alberti
or (Latinized) Albertus enjoys in indexes and biographies the reputation
of having written an enormous number of works on every conceivable
subject connected with medicine. But when we come to examine these
works, many of which are sure to be found in every good medical
library, we find them to consist mostly of inaugural theses written by
medical candidates for the medical degree in Halle, during the period
when M. Albertus held the office of dean. The work Koppe mani-
festly alludes to, though it is evident from his mistakes he only knows
it at second or third hand, is a dissertation by one Frederick Adrian la
Bruguiere of Stargard in Pomerania, written in 1734, and entitled Dc
ciiratione per similia. Several authors besides Koppe have been led
by the title of this work to credit Alberti with the discoveiy of the
homoeopathic method, but Sorge who has had an opportunity of
seeing and reading the dissertation shows that it has nothing to do
with Hahnemann's homoeopathy. The author only says that the cura-
tive efforts of nature to free herself of disease by means of crises and
evacuations, should be assisted by the administration of such medicines
as cause or promote such crises and evacuations, thus sweating is to
be forwarded by diaphoretics, vomiting by emetics, haemoptysis and
epistaxis by blood-letting, diarrhoea by purgatives, for these processes
being all efforts of nature to throw off something morbid and injurious
to the organism, the doctor as the servant of nature should help her
to do this in the way she shows she wishes to do it. — [Ed.]
t Gesc/u'chfe der Mcdkifi, 1863, p. 145.
Machfs iiacJi !
309
wished to be judged only by results. He constantly calls
the results of his experiments " unheard of," " incredible."
" Repeat my experiments, but repeat them accurately," is
his well-known phrase. " If the results are not exactly as
homoeopathy teaches, then homceopathy is lost."*
As was shown, Hahnemann very soon began to use medi-
cines in a way peculiar to himself At first he advocated
" energetic treatment," and preferred to use " strong " medi-
cines. We notice that he was especially careful with the
narcotic herbs, gradually increasing the strength of the
doses till the desired effect was obtained. Then he left
off the medicine in order to watch carefully the result and
the duration of the effects of the medicine. In the course
of many years he arrived at giving a single dose and care-
fully watching the effect on the body ; only after the effect
had passed away did he repeat the dose.
What physician has ever studied this difficult question so
carefully as the great observer Hahnemann ? None of his
opponents have seriously followed him on this important
path of investigation ; medical literature makes mention
of no physician who sought to solve in this indispen-
sable manner this important problem with such zealous
care and such calm and faithful observation. By such
studies, extending over years, was Hahnemann led step by
step out of the ordinary routine to the vast and beneficent
field of his system of therapeutics. The allopaths — to give
one example only from this department of medicine — ad-
minister mercury like the homoeopaths in certain kinds of
catarrh of the bowels. The size of their dose is about a
grain of calomel. Has any professor or doctor carefully
noted down the cases with all the attendant circumstances,
(they have as yet been vainly sought for in allopathic
writings) in which calomel has been of use, and has he then,
in one such case, prescribed a ten times " weaker " dose,
which he is certain was prepared according to Hahnemann's
directions ? Has he carefully observed the effect of it ?
Has he, in case of a non-result, given a stronger dose to the
* Reinc Arz7ieimittcllehre^ 2nd edit., 1825, p. i.
310 TJiey all witJi one consent
patient in question, and found curative effects which did
not result from the "weaker" dose? Has he continued
such observations, which are, moreover, to the real interest
of the patient, through many years, and noted them down
with the most careful attention to all objective and sub-
jective phenomena ?
This was the mode gradually adopted by Hahnemann in
his treatment. None of his opponents have imitated him.
Even his finished results, which were attained with so
much labour, have been treated with contempt, and that in
spite of his earnest and repeated entreaties, and pills and
mixtures have been more used than ever. " What would
my opponents have risked," so Hahnemann says,* " if they
had followed my directions from the first and begun with
the use of these small doses? Could anything worse befall
them than that they should do no good? Such small doses
could not hurt ! "
Most of his opponents did not even make superficial
trials, and the few who did experiment seemed to have
carried out their superficial experiments with a precon-
ceived purpose.
Bischofff says that duty will not allow homoeopathy to
be tested in cases of inflammation of the lungs.
Heinroth, who lived in Leipzic at the same time as
Hahnemann, and had therefore an opportunity of observ-
ing him, writes (/.r., p. 5.) : " Hahnemann has given many
proofs that he is as thoroughly convinced of the truth of
his doctrine as that he is a man of firm character." How-
ever, Heinroth would make no trials of homoeopathy :
" False notions lead to false results."
Neither did Elias (p. 18) : " Facts against homoeopathy are
very much wanted."
Sachs, in his Scidnsswort, and Fischer say nothing about
trials.
SimonJ agrees with Muckisch that Hahnemann's appeal
* CIn-072. I\}-a7ikJi., Vol. I., p. iv. Preface.
t L.c, p. 127.
X Pseudomessias, p. 300.
began to make excuse. 311
to them to make a trial of homoeopathy is a " wretched
proposition," because valuable time would be lost. " We
cannot be expected to test every palpable absurdity — life
is too noble for that."*
Sachs (^HovKjeopatJiy and Herr Kopp, p. 56) attacks
Kopp's remark : " The facts may be true, while the theory
founded on them is false." This does not apply to homoeo-
pathy (p. 57) " because there is no such thing."
Stieglitz {I.e., p. 163) : " Hahnemann's utter untrust-
worthiness acquits us of any obligation to give his system
a practical trial."
Prof. Munk :— t
I should consider it contrary to my conscience to treat my patients
according to a method which, from the moment of its first appearance
until now, has been regarded by the whole scientific world as useless
and injurious. Besides this the further testing of homoeopathy at the
sick bed is quite superfluous, because this test has often enough
been employed, and that cjuite impartially and objectively.
All subsequentcontroversialists express themselves exactly
or nearly in the same way. Hufeland, Groos, Kopp made
trials which resulted favourably to homoeopathy. Others,
such as Lesser and Friedheim, made trials of the system,
and arrived at the conclusion that bleeding is necessary in
diseases in which everyone now knows that it is injurious.
Eigenbrodt, a young military doctor, who was still studying,
and therefore without practical experience, by desire of the
Hessian Government, witnessed the treatment of patients
in the Vienna Homoeopathic Hospitals, and stated, as his
opinion, that homoeopathy was of no use, and sought to
prove it. The homoeopathic physician of one of the hos-
pitals in question^ showed the course of the cases treated
during Eigenbrodt's attendance was not as stated by him,
and that Eigenbrodt's accounts were coloured by a fore-
gone conclusion.
* Geist der Horn.., P- 77-
t Die Hombopathie, Bern, 1868, p. 106.
X Caspar, Parallelen swischat Horn. ti. Allop., Vienna and Olmiitz,
1856.
3x2 T} ials of Jiomoeopathy secji
The folloiving Public Trials of Homoeopathy were
7indertake7i : —
In 1 82 1 Stapf treated some patients suffering from chronic
diseases in the BerHn Charite. The patients recovered, and
the trials were broken off. Sachs * says : " The results
are said to have been very unfavourable ; the silence of the
commission can be looked upon as a proof of their utter
worthlessness." As if the commission would not have an-
nounced the results to the whole world if they had been
unfavourable.
In the same year trials were made by Wislicenus in the
Garrison Hospital at Berlin, under the control of military
surgeons. The results were favourable. " The military
doctors took away the journal of the cases kept by Wisli-
cenus under their superintendence, in order to read it at
their leisure. In spite of his urgent entreaties, they forgot
to bring it back again. "f Lesser| says that the journal
was kept by a military surgeon appointed for the purpose
and delivered to the commission. " To give an account
of these experiments was not the business of the highest
functionaries. Some day I shall make them known."
Lesser's book is full of spite against the homoeopaths,
so that even Schmidt's Jahrbiicher expressed its dissatis-
faction with it. The reader would not have been re-
ferred to some future time, and would not have had to
wait in vain to this day if there had been anything un-
favourable to homoeopathy in this trial.
In the year 1829 — 30, the Leipzic homoeopath, Dr. Herr-
mann, in Russia (at Tultschin and St. Petersburg), treated
some hospital patients at the request of the Russian War
Minister. At Tultschin 165 patients were treated thus, 6
of them died ; at St. Petersburg 409 patients came under
homoeopathic treatment, 16 of them died. This is the
account of the homoeopaths.§ The allopaths say : At Tult-
schin, out of 128 patients who were treated by the homoeo-
* Schluss7U0}-t, p. 67. t Rosenberg, Lc, p., 21.
% L.C., p. 305, note. § Rosenberg, I.e., p. 12.
through different spectacles. 313
pathic physician 5 died, notwithstanding that he had ob-
tained all possible advantages for his patients, but among
those treated allopathically not one died out of 457 patients.
At St. Petersburg, according to the allopathic account, 31
patients died out of 431 treated homoeopathically.* The
Russians were just as much attached to the " scientific"
mode of treatment as the German and other professors.
In cholera, too, so Hasper tells us, the homoeopathic results
were " very unfavourable as compared with the treatment
by bleeding." The great mass of patients in these experi-
ments were suffering from inflammation of the lungs, gastric
and nervous fever. According to the allopaths, the homoeo-
pathic doctor laid great stress on fresh air, cleanliness, and
diet.
In Vienna (1828) trials of homoeopathic treatment were
instituted by the staff physician Dr. Marenzeller. The ho-
moeopaths give favourable accounts (Rosenberg, /.c.), and
publish the 37 cases. The allopaths are silent on the sub-
ject. The judgment of the allopathic commission was to the
effect that these trials were not in favour of, but that at the
same time they were not against homoeopathy. But the trial
was stopped sooner than had originally been determined.
The allopaths assert that the Emperor declared that his
soldiers were too dear to him for him to abandon them any
longer to the murderous homoeopathic treatment (Rosen-
berg, /.(?.). Simonf is still more minutely acquainted with
the details : —
The homoeopath sent his patients, when they were dying, into the
allopathic division of the hospital, and so lessened his number of
deaths. This story came to the ears of the Confessor of his Majesty
the Emperor, either through having seen the records of the homoeo-
pathic department, or simply by crediting the current reports. So
much is certain, that the Emperor, after an interview with him,
gave commands to put an end to the homoeopathic experiments.
[Simon goes on true to his principle of personally attacking his op-
ponents :] With regard to Marenzeller, he is a man without scien-
tific training, and even without ordinary cultivation. He cannot write
two lines of German correctly He maintained that women should
be delivered on all fours like beasts.
* See Antihomoop. Arc/iiv, 1834, Vol. I., H. 2.
t Antihomoop. ArcMv, 1834, Vol. I., H. 2., p. 125.
314 Homoeopathy too successful,
Simon offers no proofs for this assertion. We will only
mention that Dr. Marenzeller, body-physician of the Arch-
duke John of Austria, was a highly cultivated man, who
was quite abreast of the science of his day, and enjoyed
a great reputation with the intellectual classes, who
constituted the bulk of his practice, and for that reason
attracted the whole fury of the opponents of homoeopathy.
Marenzeller, born in 1765, was originally, when he occu-
pied the post of Privatdocent, lecturer on anatomy and
surgical operations in the general hospital of Vienna. In
1788 he went through the Turkish campaign as regimental
surgeon, and was nominated staff physician to the Italian
hospitals in 181 3.* He was the first in the Austrian
States Avho openly espoused Hahnemann's system — to do
this no little courage was required. In 1854 he died
in Vienna, aged 89 years, and was in full medical activity
up to a year before his death. With regard to the un-
justifiable attacks of the allopathic opponents, it is not
superfluous to quote a letter of King Frederick William
IV. to Marenzeller, dated Charlottenburg, January 3rd,
1842:—
I am grateful to you for the confidence with which you, in your
letter of October 14th, recommend the homoeopathic method to my
protection, and I attach no small value to the recommendation of this
important subject by a man who, like you, has practised homoeo-
pathy with success through a whole generation. I shall willingly
continue, as I have begun, to give the system every help that might
aid in its development. I have already sanctioned the erection of a
homoeopathic hospital, and have pi'omised the necessary funds from
the State Treasury, and I intend to permit homoeopathic practitioners
to dispense medicines themselves under certain conditions, and nego-
ciations are still going on on this point.f
Stieglitz;]: says in 1835, of the trials of Marenzeller : —
What hindered the publication of these trials is veiled in obscurity.
[Any impartial reader can easily understand it.] Only this is clear,
that, in consequence of these trials, the practice of homoeopathy was
forbidden in the Austrian States.
* Allg. horn. Zeitg. Vol. XLIX., p. 54.
t AUg. Leips. Zeitg., No. 21, 1842, p. 299. Allg. horn. Zeitg., Vol.
XXL, p. 224 (see below about the hospital here alluded to).
X L.C., p. 191.
imist be suppressed. 315
It is well known that nine years previously, in 18 19, the
practice of homoeopathy was forbidden in the Austrian
States, and that at the instigation of the same Dr. Stifft,
who was President of the Commission at these trials, the
same Stifft, who was so great an advocate of "scientific"
bleeding. The wording of the prohibition was as follows: —
In consequence of the decision of the Court of Chancery, his
Majesty orders that the practice of Dr. Hahnemann's system of ho-
moeopathy is to be universally and strictly forbidden.*
Stieglitzf also quotes the account by Miihry, in Casper's
WochenscJirift {ox 1835, on the homoeopathic experiments
made by Andral and Bailly in the Pitie. According to
this account no single individual had been cured in five
months. This is too much even for the " great critic "
Stieglitz. He thinks some at least must have been cured
by the healing power of nature.J Munk§ says of these
experiments: " Andral treated 130-140 patients according
to homoeopathic principles, and in the presence of homoeo-
paths, but without any result."
In 1 828 trials were instituted at Naples. The homoeopaths||
ascribe the victory to themselves, and date from that time
the spread of homoeopathy in Italy. The allopaths^ state
that homoeopathy was defeated. The result was this : of sixty
patients, fifty-two were perfectly cured and six improved —
two died. These trials caused great excitement in Naples.
The allopaths had spread the report that there were numbers
of dead and dying in the homoeopathic establishment, so that
the King of Naples sent the Crown Prince to make investi-
gations. He found none either dead or dying. He there-
* Governmental decree of 2nd November, 1819, No. 49665. AUg.
Jiom. Zcitg., Vol. XX., p. 271.
t Z.c, p. 196.
X For a masterly exposure of Andral's pretended homoeopathic
experiments, see Brit. Jour, of Horn.., Vol. II., p. 119.
§ L.c, p. 53.
II Rosenberg, I.e. ; also AUg. horn. Zcitg., Vol. XXIII., p. 18 ; also
Vol. XXXIII., p. 310.
1 Munk, /.f., p. 107.
3i6 Trials of homceopathy alloived
upon exclaimed : " Then those whom I see here must have
risen from the dead."*
Prof. Ronchi, of Naples, accused Hahnemann of being
mad,-|- and in the beginning of the year 1830 the allopaths
declared homceopathy in Naples to be dead. As a matter
■of fact it is spreading there up to the present time.
Further trials were instituted by the homoeopaths, Tes-
sier in Paris and Charge in Marseilles. According to the
allopaths, the results were unfavourable, while the homoeo-
paths asserted the contrary with regard to the first. In
the case of Charge the trial related to the homoeopathic
treatment of cholera in the beginning of 1850. One ward
for patients was assigned to him in the Hotel Dieu in
Marseilles, and according to previous agreement, patients
were sent to him by the allopaths. The allopathic hospital
doctors sent him (as was to be expected) the most hopeless
cases.J The trial lasted three days. Patients were treated
for seventeen days in the Hotel Dieu at Lyons by a ho-
moeopath. Dr. Gueyard (when?) and, according to Munk,§
the result was unfavourable. Nothing on this subject is
mentioned in homoeopathic literature. In 1835 some cases
of itch were treated homoeopathically in Stuttgart — fiasco
of the homoeopaths.
At the time of the cholera in 1831, the Leipzic homoeo-
paths petitioned the town council to hand over to them one
of the cholera hospitals which were to be established, in
order that they might treat patients gratuitously in it. An
answer was given through the municipal physician Clarus,
that their petition would be granted under the following
conditions: — "The patients to be received shall be ex-
amined by Clarus before admission, and the entrance certi-
ficate be signed by him. The homoeopathic medicines
are to be taken from an ordinary apothecary's shop." The
homoeopaths replied that Clarus and other allopaths were
free to visit the hospital at any time, but that the question
* AUg. horn. Zcitg., Vol. XXXI 1 1., p. 305.
t Kleinert, Repertoj-iuni der gcs. iiied. J., 1833, VII., 141.
X Allg. hom. Zettg., LI., p. 63.
§ L.c, p. 108.
tinder the inanagemeni of its enemies. 317
of the admission of patients ought not to lie with Clarus
(who was known as a fanatical opponent), because otherwise
no patient would be admitted into the hospital unless he
were half dead. The medicines should be prepared and
administered under proper control, but they could not agree
to the dispensing of the medicines by the apothecaries.
The town council, influenced by Clarus, would not consent
to this. *
The homoeopathic physician. Dr. Stern, practised in
Miskoltz, in Hungary. He had previously written a
pamphlet against homa2opathy,t but owing to a peculiar
coincidence of circumstances, Saul had become a Paul.
There are many examples of similar conversions in the
history of homoeopathy. He wanted now to prove publicly
that the results of allopathy were excelled by those of the
new method, and applied to the vice-president of the
province for permission to treat gratuitously for one year
in a special locality the numerous prisoners. This was
granted, and the prisoners were allowed to choose whether
they would be treated homoeopathically or allopathically.
A lively agitation against this both by word of mouth and
by means of the press, on the part of the adherents of
the old school, was the result, but the desired effect was
not produced. Homoeopathy was delusion, quackery, &c.,
and a Dr. Fleischer complained of the ingratitude shown,
after the many years' services of the allopathic doctors.
But the permission was maintained. The homoeopath began
his labours in 1844; the fatal results prophesied did not
occur, and at the end of the year, out of 99 patients, not
only had none died, but the cures effected had been more
rapid than had ever been observed under allopathic treat-
ment. Besides various external chronic maladies, gastric
and other fevers, inflammation of the lungs and pleura
constituted a large proportion of the diseases treated. The
agitation of the allopaths grew ; they called meetings and
* The documents alluded to will be found in Cholera, Homoopathik
ti. Medicmalbehorde, by the Leipzic Homoeopathic Society, Leipzic,
1831.
t Allg. horn. Zeifi;., Vol. LVI., p. 159.
3i8 HomccopatJiy declines hnpossihk
councils, for this horrible homoeopath had dared to propose
a continuance of his treatment. At last, after three months,
his opponents gained their object, and a command was
issued from the royal Government to put an end to the
further homoeopathic treatment of the prisoners, because
the hospital had been established without the permission of
the Government, and, therefore illegally, and because the
homoeopathic method — " from its very nature " — was not
suited for many kinds of diseases. Any one who would
like to have the pleasure of admiring the noble conduct of
the allopaths in this contest will be able to do so in the
Allge^neine JionioopathiseJie Zeitung*
In 1840, two rooms in the Elizabeth Hospital, in Berlin,
were given up to a homoeopath for homoeopathic treatment,
from which he withdrew after some time on grounds that
had nothing to do with the question of the results of ho-
moeopathy.
In consequence of representations on the part of six
homoeopathic practitioners of Berlin, a ministerial rescript
of the loth September, 1841, was issued to the effect that
permission was given for the establishment of a homoeo-
pathic hospital with twelve beds for three years at the
cost of the State, with the condition that the admission of
patients should only take place through a commission
named by the Government. The six homoeopaths were
called upon to propose a suitable physician. The choice
fell upon Dr. Melicher. The hospital was never started.
Melicher declared at a later date that he himself was chiefly
to blame for this, because three years (with twelve beds)
was too short a time to decide so important a question, and
because, according to all experience, no impartiality could
be expected from allopathic judges.t
Why were the allopathic advisers so anxious that admis-
sion should take place only through them ? Why did it
not suffice that they should always have free access to the
wards of the hospital ?
* Vol. XXIX., p. 97.
t AUg. horn. Zcitg., Vol. XXXIII., p. 179.
conditions and is condeninea. 319
These are the trials of homoeopathy at the sick bed, of
which its opponents assert that the results were more un-
favourable than under allopathic treatment, and that the
impotence of homoeopathy was fully proved by them.
Considering the hostile disposition prevailing, we might
have expected that the allopaths would never admit the
superiority of homoeopathy over the old privileged system
" resting on the experience of centuries."
" Homoeopathy was not able to assert its preponderance
over other methods in the case of cholera," the anonymous
writer of the Wonders of HoimvopatJiy declares in 1833
(P-^47)-
Simon writes in 1834:* — "The new method of treatment
furnished no more favourable results in Russia than the
old."
In No. 1 1 of the BeobacJitnngen baij'. Aerzte iiber die
Cholera, 1832, Dr. W. Sander declares " that homoeopathy
had obtained worse results than the treatment by bleeding
and emetics."
Prof. Hasper, the great advocate of " energetic bleed-
ings" in cholera, states in 1832 : — " Those cases in which
the homoeopathic method was used proved most raj^idly
fatal."t
Other critics, like Stieglitz, &c., expressed themselves
thus : — " The results of the homoeopathic method were
precisely the same as those of dietetic treatment." But as
the same critics declared the methods of bleeding, &c., to
be more beneficial than the dietetic method, the judgment
was really this: — Allopathy has obtained more favourable
results than homoeopathy in the treatment of pneumonia,
pleurisy, measles, scarlet fever, gastric fevers, typhus, dy-
sentery, cholera, &c.
Since the blood-thirst of the allopaths and their par-
tiality for emetics and purgatives has abated, no State
trials of homoeopathic treatment have been undertaken.
Now-a-days, even the allopaths would own that the then
* Antihoin. Archiv, I., p. 19.
t Hufeland's Journ., Vol. LXXIII., St. 4, P- Hj-
320 Candid allopatJiic admission.
" rational " treatment yielded worse results than unassisted
nature. Let us put on one side all conclusions as to the
positive results of homoeopathy. What follows from these
facts ?
The statement of the allopaths that homoeopathy was
unsuccessful in these trials and obtained no more favour-
able results than allopathic treatment is manifestly untrue.
Allopathy has shown itself an extremely partial jud.e^e in
this matter, and its judgment is therefore valueless in mat-
ters relating to homoeopathy. Again, in numerous passages
the allopaths have expressed the self-evident opinion that
to judge of a method of treatment in one single disease,
several hundred cases are insufficient. In order to judge of
homoeopathy, some hundred cases of more than a hundred
different kinds of diseases sufficed to make the desirable
fact clear that homoeopathy was ineffective. What says
Dr. Fischer, of Dresden ?* " When we read an account of
homoeopathic successes, we always wish that it may not be
true." This characterises the allopathic mode of looking at
things up to the present day.
A very characteristic light is thrown on the tactics of the
allopaths in a pamphlet by an Englishman, Dr. Horner,
entitled, Reasons for Adopting the Rational System of
Medicine. He had previously been president of the Pro-
vincial Medical and Surgical Association at Brighton, con-
sisting of several hundred members. In a meeting over
which he presided a resolution was passed, that henceforth
no homoeopath was worthy of belonging to this great asso-
ciation. Six years later Horner, from an opponent, had
become an adherent of homoeopathy. He had only made
himself practically acquainted with homoeopathy after that
resolution had been passed. Gradually he was convinced,
hy striking proofs, of the superiority of the system, and was
the first to suffer from this resolution of the Association.
Horner was the oldest physician of the Hull hospital, and
he held it as his duty to treat his hospital patients homoeo-
pathically. He was forced to give up his position. This
* Op. cit., p. 84.
Strike! but don't hear. 321
event caused a great commotion, and 90,000 copies of his
pamphlet were spread through England in a few months.
In this pamphlet Dr. Horner gives an account of the
manner in which the statistics of the homoeopathic treat-
ment of the cholera at the London Homoeopathic Hospital
in 1854 were burked by the commission of allopathic
medical men appointed by Government to inquire into the
results of the different modes of treatment pursued in the
London Hospitals, the London Homoeopathic Hospital
being one of those specially set aside for cholera patients,
and put under the supervision of an allopathic inspector,
who testified to the severity of the cases received and the
excellent results obtained, which were very much superior
to those obtained under allopathic treatment in any other
hospital in London.*
The historian Leupoldt, who was certainly not favourable
to homoeopathy, wrote very sensibly in the year 1863 :
" What is still required is to enter more fully and more
positively into the question of homoeopathy, and at first less
theoretically than experimentally." This respected his-
torian admits, also, that homoeopathy had not been sufifi-
ciently tested on the only decisive ground, that of practical
observation, up to the year 1863. But after 1863 no
practical trials were undertaken.!
Recent Attacks.
All the more zealously were all possible means resorted
to in order to represent homoeopathy as the work of a
cunning impostor — a " so-called method of treatment " dcs-
* A more detailed account of this iniquitous transaction will be
found at p. 248, note.
t What feelings and views the opponents have respecting homceo-
pathy is well shown by an incident that lately took place in England.
Major Vaughan Morgan offered St. George's Hospital in London a
sum of ^5000 if a ward in the hospital should be devoted for five years
to the homoeopathic treatment of patients, in order to make a fair trial
of the efficacy or otherwise of the system of Hahnemann. The offer
was refused, and Morgan repeated his offer to other hospitals, with
the like result. — Allg. horn. Ztg., Vol. CVH., p. in.
21 , ,
322 fit slice denied by literary journals.
titute of all solidity — as an exaggerated mysticism to be
placed in the same category as cures by sympathy and
moonshine. The combatants of 1830 had laid the founda-
tions for this. During the first decades, Hahnemann's ser-
vices of former times were still recognised and remembered
with gratitude. A work which, like those of the present
day, had treated Hahnemann's labours with scorn, would
then have appeared to every reader to bear the stamp
of unbridled party hatred. Gradually the effects of the
cabiviniare andacter began to work on the general public,
the memory of the former services of the founder of
homoeopathy was effaced, and the road was left clear. In
the colleges and in medical writings nothing but scorn
and ridicule was poured on him ; while young medical
men were systematically imbued with the strongest re-
pugnance to homoeopathy.
The political and literary papers naturally sided with the
majority. Here was a welcome and undisturbed arena for
the activity of the allopaths ; there was no fear of rejoinders
nor of the refutation of the wildest assertions ; for, with but
few unimportant exceptions, all these organs refused to
insert any correction of the most downright falsehoods,
even the setting right of historical perversions and the sim-
ple rectification of facts. The Gai'tenlaiibe distinguished
itself most in this line.
Any doctor who expressed a favourable opinion of
homoeopathy was at once looked on as a heretic ; anyone
who practised it was a pariah, was expelled from profes-
sional association, and persecuted with relentless hatred,
It made no difference whether he had formerly given ample
evidence of earnest endeavours after truth or whether his
character was blameless — he was a heretic, and as such he
was branded and under a moral ban. Why ? Because his
scientific views differed from those of the allopaths. The
same is the case to-day. Men in distinguished positions
who dared to defend publicly what they recognised as
truth, were persecuted in every possible way. If its op-
ponents were so firmly convinced of the folly of homoeo-
pathy, publicity was the best weapon with which to combat
Fate of Rapp and Henderson.
j-j
it. Imposture shuns the light. If homoeopathy was to be
honourably attacked, if the allopaths felt themselves firm
in the saddle, why should a man who defended it publicly
be tabooed ? W. Rapp, Professor of Clinical Medicine in
Tubingen, at the melancholy period of universal therapeutic
decay — at the time of prevalent nihilism — began to study
the works of those men who did not despair of medical
art or exclaim with Professor Dietl : " In knowledge, not in
action, lies our power," but who, like Hahnemann, held
firm to the conviction, " There is an art of healing."
Rapp found the heretic Hahnemann had brought into
the light of day much that was good and useful, though
occasionally in a rather crude form, and he was man enough
to assert publicly his convictions. The results might have
been anticipated. The Ministry was soon induced to order
him to abandon clinical instruction and to content himself
with lecturing on theoretical subjects ; but, on the other
hand, they did not omit to express a high opinion of Rapp's
" excellent qualities in all other particulars, and his scientific
zeal." Rapp, under these circumstances, sent in his resig-
nation (1854), and was transferred to Rottweil as chief
medical officer, with a suitable pension, his title and rank
being left him. The number of Rapp's auditors was
greater than that of his predecessor, Wunderlich. The
latter had, in the last six terms, 99 students attending his
theoretical lectures ; Rapp in the same length of time
(from the summer of 185 1 to the winter of 1854) had 145
scholars. Wunderlich's clinical instruction was attended
during that period by 191, Rapp's by 228 students. Rapp
is now physician in ordinary to the King of Wirtemberg.
A few years before. Professor Henderson, who had won for
himself a great name in the scientific world, and who was
listened to by a numerous audience, was forced to resign
his clinical professorship in the Edinburgh University for
the same reason. Altogether, the contest was carried on
in Great Britain with great bitterness on the part of the
allopaths. In 1851 the Universities of St. Andrews and
Edinburgh, as well as the Royal College of Physicians of
Edinburgh, determined not to confer the degree of doctor
324 TJie Wonders of HomosopatJiy
on any candidate who did not pledge himself solemnly
never, during his whole life, to practise homoeopathy.
Every allopathic medical man was turned out of the medi-
cal societies who dared to consult with a homceopath, and
this practice was carried out with great strictness.*
The same course was pursued in Francef and the other
" civilised" countries. Similar attacks were everywhere re-
peated, and their violence was in proportion to the degree
in which homoeopathy had spread — ^just as in Germany.
So the allopaths did, and still do their work both by
word of mouth and by writing. In order to judge of their
present mode of combating homoeopathy, I shall here give
an account of the works of some living combatants.
The Wonders of HoniceopatJiy expounded to all friends
of tntik and especially to the goveininients, by one who
knoius them, Prof. Dr. Karsch of Miinster ; Sondershausen,
1862. . Karsch states and proves to his readers the fol-
lowing : Hahnemann had some knowledge, but he was
unable to earn a livelihood for himself and his family ;
in despair he gave himself up to charlatanry and founded
homoeopathy, in which he himself did not believe. Karsch
proves this thus : Hahnemann and the homoeopaths say
that Hahnemann departed from the ordinary course since
1790. Karsch relates some cases in which Hahnemann
ordered strong doses after 1790, and gave utterance oc-
casionally to traditional views. "Therefore" Hahnemann
was himself not convinced of his homoeopathic principles
— " they were all fables," " wretched lies," " swagger," &c.
It was the same with the psora — the theory of which was
propounded by Hahnemann contrary to his own convic-
tions.
The whole system of homoeopathy was thus the pro-
duct of a cunning charlatan, driven to despair by want —
promulgated against his better knowledge, and only with
the object of enriching himself at the expense of foolish
mankind. The homoeopathic doctors had the same object.
* See Allg. horn. Zeitg., Vol. LIV., p. 80, and Vol. LX\'., p. 32.
t lb., Vol. XLIII., p. 140, and Vol. XLVI., p. 364.
discounted by Karsch. 325
Karsch had set himself a difficult task. To read Hahne-
mann's writings — to witness his earnestness, his industry
in working and in observing, and then to assert and try-
to prove from these very writings, that he himself was
not persuaded of the truth of his teaching — required truly,
besides other qualities, a degree of effrontery at which one
cannot fail to be astonished. If we were to follow the au-
thor sentence by sentence, and examine his work, the most
patient reader might well lose patience. Here are some
few specimens of Karsch's style : —
He speaks (p. 66) of Hahnemann's attack on the doctors
of the Emperor Leopold (compare above p. 88) and states
that Hahnemann had no sufficient knowledge of their
treatment, and in spite of this had attacked it ; " he, who
properly speaking, had hardly ever treated a patient him-
self."* Karsch very prudently keeps silence as to the four
bleedings — which, in the Emperor's weak state, was just the
essential point, and preferred to confine himself to praising
the imperial doctors as " highly esteemed and distinguished
practitioners." He also mentions Dr. StoUer — but calls him
Stolter. Curiously enough he is also called Stolter in the
Wonders of Homoeopathy of 1833, p. 5. Karsch does not
here mention the source, but is well acquainted with the
book, and has even borrowed the title. But that work lays
stress on the bleeding; bleeding was then still scientific,
and its rejection a great fault of Hahnemann's, which in
itself sufficed to lower him in the eyes of readers, so that it
was not necessary first to call the Emperor's doctors "distin-
guished and highly-esteemed practitioners." Karsch could
not disparage Hahnemann on the ground of his blaming
the bleeding ; he had to act differently, so he preferred to
call those doctors " distinguished " practitioners, but would
have been filled with horror if they had appeared four times
at his bedside with the bandage and lancet for bleeding.
Pages 60, 61 : — The author shows the same skill in men-
tioning the case of Leischke (comp. above p. 225), of whom
he states that under homoeopathic treatment he lost his life
* See above, p. 74, 75, and p. 153.
326 Denial of all merit, chemical
" by neglect of proper treatment." As this neglected treat-
ment which the allopaths thought ought to have been had
recourse to in the case of a patient suffering from chronic
lung disease consisted in bleeding, &c., it could not be
mentioned, and would not have suited his purpose, so
Karsch says nothing about it.
Hahnemann wrote in a letter to Hufcland that at one
time, about 1790, he despaired of the medical art, and nearly
gave up its practice. Karsch mentions this and says, p. 43 :
" This is contradicted by a statement of Hahnemann's
which he made after he professed to have despaired of medi-
cine," and he quotes the passage from Hahnemann's Alte
Schdden, &c., in which the latter speaks of the favourable
results he had obtained, and boasts of them. This was in
1784. Karsch, however, ascribes this work to the year
1794. Only by this means could he use Hahnemann's
statement for his own purposes. Now Karsch had this
treatise in his hands, for he quotes it verbatim, and gives
reference to the page. Hahnemann, in this work, is speak-
ing of a limited class of diseases, and not of the medical
art in general. After Karsch has performed this feat, he
exclaims on the ground of this proof of Hahnemann's
mendacity : " Oh ! you potentising homoeopaths ! What in
reality is there in your potencies ? Where is your scrupulous
conscientiousness, your vaunted modesty ? Where is the
proof of your bold assertions ?"
In such a mode of conducting a controversy, it is hardly
necessary to mention that Karsch gives a very unfavourable
opinion of the work, and (p. 42) calls it "quite worthless"
(comp. Professor Baldinger's opinion, above, p, 64). He
speaks thus of Hahnemann's work on Arsenic (p. 24).
" Hahnemann also wrote a work on arsenical poisoning, in
which he strongly recommends what had already been sug-
gested as an antidote by Navier {Antidotes to Arsenic,
Greifswald, 1782, p. 65), viz., soapsuds — a pound of soap
rubbed and beaten up with four pounds of boiling water,
boiled for two minutes, and taken by cupfuls within two
hours." This is all Karsch says about this work. He
directs the attention of the reader to the soapsuds, describes
or medical, to HaJinemann. 327
in detail [its preparation by beating it up and boiling, &c.,
as if this were the chief contents of the work. He does not
make a single allusion to the principal subject on which the
whole work turns. He does not omit to ascribe even the
soap to another ; he names Navier, and indicates the pas-
sage where the latter speaks of the soap, as if he, Karsch
had discovered this, though Hahnemann had already given
the source Karsch quotes {Arseiiikvergiftiing; p. 98), and
has certainly made no attempt to pass off as his own
Navier's recommendation of soap as an antidote.
Karsch has recourse to a similar manoeuvre with re-
gard to mere, solub., p. 26. He mentions that an oxide of
mercury had been known before Hahnemann, and quotes
two authors in proof of this as against Hahnemann. But
Hahnemann himself quotes these two authors ; but this
Karsch does not mention. He does indeed own, when
appealed to by a homoeopath, that Hahnemann was a man
full of information and an excellent chemist, but he repre-
sents his labours in such a distorted light — in some re-
spects, indeed quite incorrectly — and abridges them in
such a way that the reader gets quite a false idea of
Hahnemann's merits. In the same manner he either does
not or will not understand the value of his " wine test,"
Karsch proves with his wonted dexterity that Hahne-
mann administered mixtures contrary to his own doctrines.
As is known, Hahnemann treated the lunatic Klocken-
bring in 1792. He relates incidentally that, to his great
surprise, the lunatic wrote out a prescription for mania,
and that in the most suitable form and in proper dose ;
it begins B/ Sem. Daturas, gran, ii. " What a pity," ex-
claims Karsch, " that we do not know the other valuable
ingredients." In this manner, from this remark of Hahne-
mann's on the prescription of a madman, a proof is furnished
that Hahnemann, contrary to his principles, administered
mixtures, and that his treatment of this case could not
have been homoeopathic. Nothing is proved by the mad-
man's prescription. Hahnemann does not say that he
himself gave the prescription. That the treatment of
Klockenbring was not homoeopathic, is made clear from
328 HaJinemann no Homoeopath f
the 25 grains of tartar emetic which Hahnemann gave
him. If a homoeopath should allege that this treatment
was homoeopathic, he would only show his ignorance of
the history of homoeopathy, nothing more.
Then follows the second and last proof of Hahnemann's
practice of giving mixtures of drugs. In 1797 he, according
to the Biographisches Denkmal, translated anonymously the
System of Veterinary Medicine of an Englishman, Taplin.
Karsch describes the introductory remarks, which treat of
" new improvements " and old and faulty methods of treat-
ment. In the book itself there are some long prescrip-
tions. Karsch thereupon exclaims : " How could Hahne-
mann publicly laud such a thoroughly unhomceopathic
work, containing such composite prescriptions, as a new
method of treatment ? He was no homoeopath ! " This
sounds well, but Karsch omits to add that the introduc-
tory remarks are not by Hahnemann, but by Taplin —
that Hahnemann, therefore, commends nothing in the
whole book, does not make even a single note, but sim-
ply translates. It is by such devices that Karsch proves
that Hahnemann's opposition to the mixing of drugs was
contrary both to his conviction and his practice.
Further on Karsch thus instructs his readers : " When
homoeopaths represent the great Hufeland as an admirer
of Hahnemann, they forget to remark that Hufeland pub-
lished a special treatise in 1831, called HoviceopatJiy, Berlin,
Reimer, 8, 44 p., in which he expresses his opinion that
the new in it is not good, the good is not new, and that it
must be looked upon as the grave of science." This ex-
hausts Karsch's criticism of this book. With this compare
above p. 192, 196, or, still better, read Hufeland's own
pamphlet,* in order to learn the allopathic mode of con-
ducting the controversy.
In describing Hahnemann's character, we saw how beau-
tiful his idea of famil}- life was, and what love he felt for
his wife and his children. Of the former he always speaks
with respect and veneration, although Brunnow alludes to
her imperious ways. If Hahnemann, in spite of this, thought
* Translated in Brit. Journ. of Hotn., Vol. XVI., p. 177.
TJie light of Medical Science, 329
always of her with love, it proves his noble character, and
is in itself worthy of praise. Karsch makes an attempt to
disparage his adversary by sneering at his wife. Referring
to Brunnow's remarks he says, p. 108: —
A change in the character of Frau Hahnemann might have been
brought about by their improved circumstances. Upstarts often
become vain, proud and arrogant. Hahnemann himself speaks with
the greatest respect of his wife. In his autobiography, composed at
Leipzic m 1791, he says: — " Four daughters and a son, together with
my wife, form the spice of my life." Mustard and cayenne pepper are
certainly spices !
These are the characteristics of a man who is called upon
to give advice to the State in the matter of homoeopathy,
as well as in other things, and to assist in the education of
youth.
In the year 1876, Prof Jurgensen, of Tubingen, came to
the front.* He begins thus : —
Knowledge is power, it is no longer necessary to tremble on ap-
proaching the sick bed .... during the last decades the art of
medicine has borne fruit under the light of science.
In 1826 — exactly fifty years previously — Miickisch, also
a physician of a large hospital, wrote thus : —
The sublime science of medicine has, during the 19th century,
reached a degree of perfection which enables it to protect the life of
generations, and save them from premature death by the innumerable
kinds of diseases.
And Miickisch bled copiously, even in the case of
children, and used emetics and purgatives as if it was a
question of sweeping a chimney.
Jiirgensen gives quinine in cases of inflammation of the
lungs to the amount of i ^ drachms and more, and chloral
hydrate to the extent of 2 drachms ; he even threatens to
increase the dose of quinine if the fever is obstinate. And
yet observations are recorded in allopathic literature which
show that from a few scruples of quinine, blindness and
deafness and destructive processes in the cavity of the
* Die luissenschaftliche Heilkimde 11. ihrc Widersacher. Sammhmg
klin. Vortrage, No. 106, pp. 879 — 916.
330 Glorification of AllopatJiy.
drum of the ear and in the labyrinth, and that even from
^ to 1 34^ drachms of chloral hydrate, great danger to life,
were " the fruit of medicine in the light of science."
" The course of the development of therapeutics gives sure
signs that much will be obtainable by our grandsons that
was denied to us." It is to be feared that our grandsons
will reject Jiirgensen's legacy in the same way that they
have already partially rejected that of Miickisch.
" If the doctor has to be told what homoeopathy is," says
Jiirgensen, " if he knows nothing more than that it consists
in giving infinitely small doses, he will hardly be a match
for those laymen who are acquainted with Hahnemann's
system. This is not the place to say what would be the con-
sequence. A doctor's reputation will certainly not be in-
creased by such ignorance, nor will his position be better
assured." In order to remedy this evil, Jiirgensen gives
necessary instruction on the subject. According to him,
homoeopathy has done nothing either for the development
of medicine or for its practice — it is sheer nonsense. It
has done no good, it does no good, and will never do any-
thing for the advantage of science. Its destination is to
be uprooted like thistles from the field of science.
In order to enliven his readers, he quotes certain pas-
sages from Hahnemann which appear to him peculiarly
harsh, and exclaims: "Now, I ask, is it possible to live
under the same roof with these people? Oh no! science
does not permit it."
As the allopaths find a peculiar pleasure in refuting cer-
tain absurdities and theories of Hahnemann by the aid of
our present knowledge, we must repeat that Hahnemann
considered his theoretical explanations of no importance
for his therapeutic rule. He says : " I can only vouch for
the what, not for the howr Hahnemann's earliest ad-
herents did not accept these errors and these theories.
Thus C. Hering writes :* " I am universally regarded as a
disciple and an adherent of Hahnemann, and I am willing-
to declare that I belong to those who adhere to him most
* ArcJiiv f. d. horn. Heilkitndc, Vol. XVI., H. 3, p. 92.
Disparagement of Homeopathy . 331
faithfully and pay the most enthusiastic homage to his
greatness, but I affirm also that from the time of my first
acquaintance with homoeopathy (182 1) up to the present
day (1837) I have never accepted a single one of the theories
in the Organon as they are there given."
Jiirgensen has been set right from various quarters, by
Huber* among others. We mention the following in order
to show the characteristics of the allopathic strategy. J.
uses certain expressions of a homoeopathic non-professional
in order to blacken homoeopathy, without adding that the
homoeopathic doctors themselves most strongly object to
such conceptions of a doctor's knowledge.
Jiirgensen informs his friends of the following " truth."
" It has been laid to Hahnemann's credit that he first drew
attention to the necessity of testing the effects of medicines
on healthy subjects ; according to his own statement this
honour belonged to Albrecht von Haller."
What ignorance or distortion of facts is contained in this
sentence ! This one sentence gives a sufficient answer to
the question : What objects had Jiirgensen in view in this
article ? Were they honourable or worthy ones ?
The so-called isopatJiy originated fifty years ago ; the
majority of homoeopaths never occupied themselves with it.
Only a voice here and there was raised in its favour. They
pointed to cow-pox inoculation, which was introduced and
generally practised by allopaths, as an illustration of iso-
pathic treatment.
Jiirgensen naturally represents this " isopathy " in a most
unfavourable light, and adds that it had been " recently "
introduced. This word "recently" shows the object which
this treatise was intended to serve. For forty years the few
homoeopathic doctors, who at first defended " isopathy,"
have been silent on the subject.
Such accusations are " simple descriptions derived from
the authentic sources " — so Jiirgensen wishes his readers to
believe.f
* Aiidiatur et altera pars ^ Vienna, 1877.
t L. r., p. 880.
332 Hahnemann a mesmerising impostor.
A single allopathic doctor practises in his vaccinations,
more isopathy than all the homoeopathic doctors put to-
gether during the last fifty years, that is to say since " iso-
pathy " was first introduced.
Jiirgensen proves fi-om the report of the Homoeopathic
Hospital at Pesth that the results of homoeopathy show no
therapeutic advantages, but he omits the results of the
treatment of typhus fever fully given in this report. This
shows the results were very different from what they are
represented to be by Jiirgensen.
In his Treatment of Pneumonia^ ^00 cases of pneumonia
are not enough for him to determine the suitable thera-
peutics of it, and here 306 cases of pneumonia, 6% of typhus,
&c., suffice to enable him to judge of the power of homoeo-
pathic treatment.
Jiirgensen skims through the Oj'ganon, and finds near its
end a few casual remarks on mesmerism, by Hahnemann.
Charming ! Something can be made of this! Let us hang
the mantle of animal magnetism on Hahnemann's shoulders.
Let us represent mesmerism to be a gross imposture! Now
we have settled the mystic Hahnemann !
However good Herr Jurgensen's intentions may have
been, and however much he may deserve the praise accorded
him by the allopaths, he is very unfortunate on this point.
In 1876, mesmerism was still mysticism, nonsense, idiotcy,
and the like. Jiirgensen could therefore still say emphati-
cally, " The laws of nature do not apply to the magnetic
condition." A year before Virchow-]- called it " a false doc-
trine." Three years later the Danish " Magnetiser" Hansen
hit upon the unfortunate idea of making a professional
tour through Germany. German medical professors took
to imitating the magnetic arts, and what was worse, they
obtained successful results, wrote many books on the sub-
ject, and recommended magnetism in the medical journals
as a remedy ; and what was worst of all, the reality of
mesmerism was fully recognised at the first Medical Con-
* Sammhmg klin. Vortrdge v. Yolkmann, No 45, p. 345.
t Heilkrdfte des Orgatizsmus, p. 10.
History of medical inesnierisvi. 333
gress at Wiesbaden, without encountering any opposition,,
and its therapeutic value was discussed — and Jiirgensen was
present, and listened and — kept silence. Jiirgensen could
not know that while he was attacking Hahnemann's mes-
merism, Hansen was packing his portmanteau.
But, putting the surprising successes obtained by Hansen
on one side, there was hardly a doctor in Hahnemann's
time who has written so many medical works as he, who so
seldom alluded to the curative powers of mesmerism as
Hahnemann did. Hahnemann seldom prescribed its use,and
that he himself practised it has not been proved, and is very
unlikely. But yet mesmerism was j-aV/i///?^ in Hahnemann's
time, notwithstanding the absurdities connected with it.
Several periodicals devoted to animal magnetism, were pub-
lished, e.g., the MagnetiscJies Magazinfiir NiederdeiitscJiland,
Bremen, 1787 and 1788 (not unfavourably reviewed in the
Medicin. Joiu'nal, by Professor Baldinger), then the ArcJiiv
fiir Magnetisnms und Somnambnlisimis, by Hofrath Prof.
Bockmann of Carlsruhe ; Strasburg, 1787 and 1788. Pro-
fessors Eschenmayer, Kieser and Nasse issued the ArcJiiv
fiir tJiier. MagJietis^mis, 'Leipzig, 18 17 — 1824; and Professor
Wolfart of the Berlin Faculty, edited the faJirbiicher fiir
den Lebensniagneiisimis, Leipzig, 1818 — 1822. Alex. v.
Humboldt wrote :* " I would here remind you of the possi-
bility of the so-called magnetic cures, in which the mere
approach of the hand produces warmth and stimulation of
the exposed parts of the body It is certainly easier to
deny facts than to investigate them or to refute them
by counter-experiments." Lichtcnstadt, Treviranus, G. H.
Schubert, Nees v. Esenbeck, Olbers, Ennemoser and others
recognised the existence of these inexplicable phenomena.
In the medical journals of 1785 — 1835, there are numerous
articles on the " excellent effect of animal magnetism,"
in " violent convulsive diseases," in " hardness of hearing,"
in " mental diseases," and of " the disastrous results of its
misuse," which were also admitted at Wiesbaden in 1882.
* VerssiicJie iiber die gereizte Mttskclfasej; Posen and Berlin, 1797,.
Vol. I., p. 225.
334 Illustrious medicai advocates
Professor Puchelt expressed himself thus, in the year
1 8 19, on the subject of animal magnetism : — *
Now that the Mesmer-Wolfart magnetic medicine [Wolfart was
sent by the Prussian Government to Mesmer in order to form at the
actual source a judgment on the subject in question] is kept with-
in bounds by Kieser's School of Magnetism, and since the employ-
ment of magnetism has been confined to particular cases both by
Kieser and by the majority of doctors who attribute any importance to
magnetism at all, and among these we must reckon all who are not
entirely blinded to natural phenomena by the dust of book learning,
and who have not, owing to their exclusive chemical labours, lost all
interest in the manifestations of life, and as such views point to a con-
nexion of magnetic medicine with scientific medicine, we shall say no
more about it here.
In Austria the use of magnetism was forbidden.f In
Berlin magnetism was included in the course of study of
the university. Prof. Wolfart gave lectures " On mesmerism
and the curative indications of animal-magnetism."j Prof.
Ph. V. Walter even raised animal magnetism to a principle
of the materia medica, and held that the efficacy of all
medicines depended on an animal-magnetic action. "The
art of healing is a continual magnetic process," he writes.
" In this consists the magic of the healing art and the
hidden power of drugs. A relation must exist between
the doctor and his patient of the same kind as that which
is efficacious in animal-magnetism. "§
In 1834 Hufeland, that " honest seeker after truth," pro-
nounced his final judgment on mesmerism,|| and mentioned
that the French government called upon the Medical
Faculty in Paris, in 1780, to pronounce upon the question
of magnetism, and that they rejected it as a deception. In
1 83 1 a report of this same Faculty appeared which was
favourable to magnetism, and thus maintained the exact
contrary to what the scientific men had previously done.
* Hufeland's Journ., 1819, Vol. XLIX., St. 6, p. 10.
t Horn's Archiv f. ined. Erfahru7igen^ 1808, p. ic2r.
:j: Hufeland's Journ., 1819, St. i, p. 118.
§ Epliemeriden der HeilkitJtde, von Adalb. Fr. jNIarkus, Bamberg
and Wiirzburg, 1812, Vol. IV., H. 3, p. 173.
II Hufeland's Jouni., Vol. LXXIX., St. i, p. 44.
of aimnal magnetism. ' 335
Hufeland relates that in 1784 he opposed it out of ignor-
ance. For fifty years he had closely investigated the sub-
ject, and had arrived at the following conclusions: —
(i.) Magnetism is a fact. (2.) The magnetic state can be pro-
duced at will on suitable subjects by the influence of another living
individual. (3.) Certain morbid affections depending on the nervous
system can be cured by such magnetic influence.
He adds, in conclusion : —
I shall never forget what Goethe once said to me on this subject : —
" I have never occupied myself with magnetism ; it contains too many
mouse-holes and mouse-traps."
It is said to have been Kant who first ranked the sup-
porters of magnetism in the category of impostors, and
this was also done by Pfaff, of Kiel. Rudolphi, the Berlin
physiologist, had " the courage," as the allopaths of his
time assure us, to denominate the so-called animal-mag-
netism an imposture, and since that time this " courage "
became scientific, and Jiirgensen naturally displayed it.
Even a superficial examination of German homceopathic
literature would have shown Jiirgensen that mesmerism
occupied a much smaller space in it — both relatively and
absolutely — than in allopathic writings. We, of course, al-
lude to medical literature only. The homoeopathic doctor
mentioned by Jiirgensen, B. Hirschel, in 1840, publicly op-
posed the abuses of magnetism. Schmidt's J ahrbilcJier^'
contains the following remarks on his work: —
The author is animated by the scientific spirit ; he possesses the
critical faculty, scientific knowledge, thoughtfulness, and love of truth.
He opposes folly. We give him the most friendly welcome.
That Hahnemann, in 1796, first introduced his special
mode of treatment to medical circles that he wrote his two
other works on the subject for medical men, and addressed
his Organon, as is especially shown in the first edition, to
the profession only, is well known, and is proved by the cir-
cumstance that this work was reviewed in medical journals
exclusively.
The controversial Jiirgensen, however, makes this state-
ment : " Hahnemann, from the beginning, did not appeal
* Vol. XXXII., p. 375-
336 Patients made to S2if-er not to think.
to the medical profession only." This assertion certainly-
better serves the object of his article.
He then continues with regard to non-professionals : —
A high degree of culture is necessary to enable a person to ac-
knowledge his incapacity to express an opinion where the expert
says it is his duty to do so. Most people are not capable of such self-
knowledge and self-control.
One great hindrance to the reception of homoeopathy
was its rejection of bleeding. Many of the lay public
whose attention had been called by Hahnemann to its in-
jurious consequences, became convinced of the hurtful
character of this practice, and kept the doctors who prac-
tised it at a distance, while the representatives of science
were still insisting on the necessity of blood-letting in " in-
flammatory" and other diseases. According to Jijrgensen
these non-professionals ought to have possessed enough
" self-control " to submit tamely to allow their blood to be
scientifically shed by the professionals.
In another place, Jurgensen expressly says that in cases
of pneumonia, bleeding ought not to be resorted to in order
to allay fever, and that such a proceeding would be the
" act of a weak man whom fate had made a doctor for the
punishment of his fellow-creatures."* According to Jiir-
gensen, then, the allopathic professors and doctors of Hahne-
mann's and of more recent times, were men whom fate had
made doctors for the punishment of their fellow-creatures,
and the lay public of that period ought to have possessed
enough " self-control " to have resigned themselves un-
hesitatingly to the judgment of these instruments of an
evil fate. The majority showed this "self-control " even to
their own destruction, and it is these whom Jurgensen
commends, patients such as he himself desires, who sacrifice
their own opinions on the altar of " science."
Jurgensen is favourable to hydropathic treatment. The
lay public appears to have played no passive part in the
development of this treatment. The hydropathic system
was.' not thought much of when the non-medical Pro-
* Volkmann's Samniluui^ kl. Vorlr., No. 45, p. ;^2)^.
History of the Water-awe. 337
fessor Oertel, of Ansbach, in the AUgeiuein. Anzeig. d.
Deiitschen, in 1826,* declared himself strongly in favour of it,
and from that time onwards for many years he continued
to call the attention of suffering mankind to " the benefits
to be derived from the use of God's gift — cold water."
What medical journal of that time did so much for the
spread of the water-cure as this periodical, edited by a non-
professional? Both friend and foe used its columns to
ventilate their opinions, and allopathic doctors were not
wanting who warned the public of the dangers attending
water-treatment, e.g., in haemorrhoids and gout, since inflam-
mation of the brain and phthisis were likely to ensue from its
employment.! Oertel was undaunted, he answered every at-
tack, and won many laymen over to his treatment, and they
were indefatigable in publishing its results, whether favour-
able or unfavourable. By this means a wholesome pressure
was brought to bear on the doctors. Oertel, indeed, gave
his opinions pretty freely about " medical men," but always
kept within parliamentary bounds. Of his treatises, he re-
commended among others. Newest Water Treatment, ivitJi
Musical Accompaniment. Niirnberg, Campe. He led his
readers, not by force, but gently on the wings of music into
the kingdom of the water nymphs. He certainly worked
too much in one groove, and shared the fate of most doc-
tors who, from seeing that a certain remedy has good effects
in some cases, immediately proceed to generalise and em-
ploy it for a great number of diseases.
Oertel naturally recommended cold water as a remedy
for the approaching cholera, and at a later period ex-
claimed, "Victoria! cold water has conquered the cholera!"
Certainly he did obtain better results than the allopaths.
In 1830, among others, a doctor calls attention in the
Allgem. Anz. d. Deiit.\ to the danger from the approaching
cholera. He recalls the circumstance that hospital fever
had only been checked when Professor Markus introduced
* See Nos. 287 and 2S9.
t See 1830, No. 63, p. 801, and many other places.
X No. 314, p. 4203.
22
338 Holo the authors of Hydropathy
bleeding- as a prophylactic for it ; the same means ought to
be used to protect against cholera. It is difficult to say-
how many laymen followed this professional advice with the
needful " self-knowledge." It can, however, be proved that
Oertel, who advocated the use of water instead of bleeding,
had great influence. This layman spread the knowledge of
the hydropathic treatment through the widest circles by his
knowledge, energy and perseverance, at a time when few doc-
tors employed this treatment. Oertel himself willingly admits
that the merit of having placed the hydropathic treatment
on a scientific basis belongs to Dr. I. S. Hahn, of Schweid-
nitz* (died 1 773), and published a fifth edition of his work,t
of which four editions had been issued during the author's
life| — the first in 1738. With the exception of this physi-
cian (whose father and brother had also rendered consider-
able services), Oertel claims the merit of having up to that
time been most successful in his advocacy of the cold water
cure. He is right. History contains traces and sugges-
tions of many things which only become common property
after the lapse of many centuries. The merit consists in
the introduction of the method — and of this merit a large
share is due to Oertel. This is the case in a still greater
degree with the peasant Priessnitz in Austrian Silesia, who,
soon after Oertel, practised the cold water cure with still
greater energy. We must ascribe the introduction of
hydropathic establishments to Priessnitz, and hou- this
* L.c, 1832, No. 33S, p. 4425, and other places.
t Ilmenau, 1833, and Niirnburg, 1834.
X Unterricht von K7-afft iind Wiirckiing des frisclicji IVassers in die
Lciber der Menschen^ 4th enlarged edition, Breslau and Leipzig, 1754,
290 pp., with a frontispiece and thirty-five cases " from his own ex-
perience and that of two other medici," and a letter " from a foreign
divine," in which a number of successful results are j-elated which this
clergyman had from the employment of cold water ; and also how a
medicus, who lived in the same place as the clerg}-man, opposed him,
and warned patients against him, p. 271. In the preface it is men-
tioned that Dr. Schwerdtner, of Jauer, and Hahn's father supported
him energetically, "in spite of all the calumnies and opposition of
many prejudiced colleagues and of others who dreaded the injury
likely to accrue to the medical profession."'
were treated by the Medical Profession. 339
man was persecuted by the profession ! He had not, as
Jiirgensen says, " the high degree of culture necessary to
enable him to admit his own incapacity to express an
opinion when the professional says it is his duty to do so."
We should like to hear an answer to the question :
"What doctor ever did so much for the introduction of
hydropathic treatment as the non-professionals Oertel and
Priessnitz ? " Both certainly committed gross mistakes,
especially Priessnitz, although " scientific " doctors are not
behind them in the harm they have done in other ways,
Jiirgensen, indeed, gives quite a different account of the
historical development of the hydropathic system.* " Un-
fortunately this interest was only transitory. People forgot,
or wished to forget. This may have been caused by the
influence of Priessnitz, Oertel, and other hydropaths."
Jiirgensen would wish to prove that the Salamanca pro-
fessors would have discovered America much sooner if
Columbus had not stood in their way. In order to avoid
misunderstandings we may at once state that we do not
wish to defend the indiscriminate use of cold water in
fevers as is now common, nor indeed its excessive system-
atic employment.
What professor, medical counsellor or medical excel-
lency introduced medical gymnastics ? It was the Swedish
fencing-master. Ling (1776- 1839).
The Turko-Roman and Russian baths did not originate
in the universities, but they were introduced by laymen.
The " Female Medical Rubbers " have certainly done,
and still do, a good deal of harm, but no one doubts that
they have occasionally done more good than many a pro-
fessor decorated with stars and crosses. That " science "
has changed the German word " Streichen " into the French
word " Massage," alters facts no more than the word " hyp-
notism " affects the existence of magnetism, which was
likewise kept afloat by laymen.
If all the old doctors had held the same opinions as
* Klinische Studieii iibcr die Bchandlung dcs Abdojninaltyphus
ruittelst des kalten IVassers, Leipzig, 1 866, p. 1 3.
340 TJie psora theory a common article
Jiirgenscn he would not now possess the universal remedy —
quinine ; and mercury, secalc, opium, sarsaparilla, ipecac-
uanha, &c., would not have been introduced at all, or, at
any rate, not so soon into the pharmacopoeia. Conceit is
a bad companion in the region of therapeutics. We shall
not be misunderstood.
It is a constant reproach made by his opponents for the
last seventy years against Hahnemann and the homoeo-
paths, that they addressed themselves to the lay public. If
they had been polite, they ought to have retired modestly
w^hen the professors repelled them. Let us put on one side
the positive work accomplished by homoeopathy, and look
only at the question of bleeding. Jiirgensen established,
in 1872, the injuriousness of venesection as a febrifuge in
inflammation of the lungs. Let us suppose that Jiirgensen
had made and published this discovery in 1772 ; the pro-
fessors would have repelled him, called him *' unscientific,"
given him all sorts of names, and repeatedly prosecuted
him before the tribunals, because he did not bleed like his
accusers. What would Jiirgensen have done? We imagine
that he would also have addressed the lay public and called
upon them to judge his cause ; for there was no other way
open if one had sufficient energy to fight for the good cause.
The author takes so great a pleasure in the " psora," the
" itch-miasm " of Hahnemann, that we cannot help rejoic-
ing along with him ; but at the same time, the question
again arises : why did Jiirgensen pass over in silence the
itch theories then in vogue? It would not in any case
have been superfluous if Jiirgensen, by giving an account
of the views then prevailing, had given his readers a his-
torical basis by which to judge Hahnemann's doctrine. It
would also have been only fair if he had mentioned that
even in the first years after the publication of this theory,
no homcEopath recognised the itch as such a fundamental
malady. If we transport individuals from the time in
which they lived, we can prove that Hannibal was a bad
general, because he did not attack Rome after the battle of
Cannae with 48 pounders. But this is the mode of war-
fare pursued by the allopaths. Whatever good Hahne-
of AllopatJiic medical faith. 341
mann accomplished was borrowed from some one else, and
whatever errors of the time in which he lived are shared by
him, are attributed to him alone, and judged according to
the standard of our present knowledge. It gives us an in-
structive glimpse into the allopathic arsenal if, in contrast
to the attack of this professor, we look at what some of
Hahnemann's earlier opponents say on the subject of psora.
Wedekind, 1825, l.c., p. 87 : "I can willingly credit Herr
Hahnemann that phthisis and asthma may be derived from
the itch."
Hufeland, 1831, Hoviojopathy (p. 32): "The physician
at last discovers that a hidden scabies or syphilis lies at
the root."
Wonders of Honiceopathy, 1833, p. 69: "It was well
known to all medical men that suppressed itch is very
frequently followed by chronic diseases, and Hahnemann
need not have covered thirteen pages with quotations from
old authors in order to prove this, but his avarice drove him
to do this in order to increase his honorarium."
Schmidt's Jahrbiicher, 1834 :* "Did not Autenrieth pro-
pound a modified psora theory not long before Hahnemann?"
Lesser, 1835 I.e., p. 334 : " The truth of the matter is that
an inveterate and incautiously suppressed itch has at all
times caused after-diseases, and not unfrequently death. But
this has long been known to every intelligent physician."
Eisenmann, the well-known adherent of the natural
historical school, writes in his Priifung der Honioopatkie,
Erlangen, 1836, p. 24: "A celebrated German physician
stated, long before Hahnemann borrowed the psora theory
from him, that very many chronic diseases — but not six-
eighths of them, as Hahnemann asserts — are produced by
badly treated and suppressed itch."
We saw above that it was asserted in two medical
journals that Hahnemann borrowed his system from Hip-
pocrates "all except the psora theory." These journals were
edited by professors of high repute. Now Eisenmann comes
forward and cruelly deprives Hahnemann of this last shred
— psora. Eisenmann was one of the most esteemed allo-
* Vol. I., p. 393.
342 Folly and ivealtJi the main
paths of his time, so that Hahnemann is not only entirely-
annihilated, but reduced to nothing.
Jiirgcnsen was followed in i88i by a like-minded col-
league called Koppe, who, among other things, confided to
his readers that Hahnemann, in 1796, " was hardly known as
a physician." He says, on p. 41 : "Soon medical men began to
occupy themselves with homoeopathy," and gives many other
equally valuable pieces of information. Koppe surmised
with justice that Jiirgensen had probably written his treatise
on an unlucky day, when he was irritated by the perusal of
some homoeopathic works which had fallen into his hands,
and had observed that a knowledge of the subject was not
necessary to constitute him an accepted champion with his
brethren of the faith, Haser* declares: "That many of
the opponents of homoeopathy in this controversy did not
disdain to employ the most despicable weapons, such as
the notorious Fickel." Koppe makes use of Fickelf in many
ways with evident pleasure.
Jiirgensen was refuted from two quarters,:]: an honour
which must certainly have been the greatest surprise to
himself, but which was due to the fact that he received
great praise from the allopaths, who did not blame his
mode of conducting the controversy in the very least.
Meanwhile Prof. Liebreich, of Berlin, opposed homoeo-
pathy publicly in a tone which, for his own sake, he ought
not to have adopted. He declared that a combination of
folly and wealth formed the mass of the homoeopathic
clientele, but probably for the moment forgot the homoeo-
pathic dispensary in Berlin, superintended by eight doctors,
and which was attended by destitute patients, and in such
increasing numbers that the doctors were not able to give
advice to all those who sought their help. The journals
* GescMchte der Median, 1881, II., 802.
t Fickel was an unprincipled rogue who published a number of
pretended provings and cures. His cheat was soon detected by the
homcEopaths.
X Sorge, Zcitsch. dcs Bcrlitic?- Vcrcins horn. Aerate, 18S1, and
Mayntzer, Die Hoinoopatliic iind Allopatliie, Leipzig, 1883.
supports of Hoiiio:opathy. 343
show that in the period from 1878 to 1883, z>., in five years
24,000 patients were treated in more than i20,oco con-
sultations.
Our readers can imagine the daily, mean and irritating
attacks delivered by the allopaths in their intercourse with
the public, at meetings and in political and other papers,
&c. We may just mention here that recently in Berlin,
dissertations for the doctor's degree were written against
homoeopathy. When we add that they are dedicated to
the professors, the reader will know their contents before-
hand. It would be unfair to call the authors to account.
No one is responsible for the instruction he has received,
and it is a rare exception to find a young doctor free from
a blind faith in authorities on leaving the university.
Most doctors never escape from the domination of
authority.
A Historian as a champion of Allopathy.
If a historian of Haser's reputation lends himself to party
purposes it is a striking proof how deeply the opponents of
homoeopathy were imbued with hatred of it. Haser deals
with homoeopathy in 1 1 pages. He says of Hahnemann :
"After the conclusion of his studies." What studies ? He
does not mention any, but, on the contrary, throws doubt
on their existence by the following statement : — '' The Uni-
versity of Erlangen conferred on him a doctor's degree hi
abscniiar This method of belittling Hahnemann is new,
and peculiar to this historian. He cites as his authority for
Hahnemann's life, Ein biographisches Denkmal and Karsch.
But Karsch, who is also an eminent man, says nothing about
" absentia^' and we read in the Biographisches Denkmal,
p. 5, that Hahnemann attended the lectures of four pro-
fessors in Erlangen, defended his thesis on the loth of
August, 1779, and thereupon received his doctor's degree.
This is also related in Karsch's book, quoted by Hiiser,
p. 21.
Haser appears as a most reckless partizan. He demeans
344 ^ medical historian disdains
himself, e.g., to attack the second Frau Hahnemann, " who
generally appeared in masculine attire, attended lectures on
anatomy, &c," This "etc.," in its connexion, can only
mean that she was a Vv'orthless person, and he implies that
it was an immoral act of Hahnemann's to marry her in his
8oth year ! What were the real circumstances ? Melanie
d'Hervilly-Gohier came in 1834, in her 35th year,from Paris
to Cothen, in order to consult Hahnemann. According to
report, she performed this journey in masculine attire, per-
haps for the sake of greater security, or for some reason
which may interest female gossips, but not a man. She
attended lectures on anatomy. Why ? She was the daughter
of a painter, and herself an artist of unusual talent. There
still exists a large portrait in oils of Hahnemann, executed
by herself, which, both in conception and execution, shows
the artist's hand, and is, in the judgment of men who knew
Hahnemann personally, the best portrait of him existing*
Hiiserdoes not allude to the fact that Melanie was an artist,
although this is stated in the: Biographisches Denkmal, which
he expressly gives as his authority, and of which he says
that " it is distinguished by its efforts to be impartial." But
there is still more to be read in this biography. Several
letters are given from her and from Hahnemann to the
members of his family who remained in Germany. We see
from these what a happy domestic life Hahnemann led in
Paris ; with what affection he thought of his relations in
his dear old home, to whom, at this same wife's request,
he left his whole fortune, with the exception of a small
sum ; we read, not without emotion, how she wrote cheer-
fully to his family : " He is as blooming as a rose, and
as merry as a young bird." Again, her husband is full
of praise of her faithful care : " You yourselves could not
take better care of me." " She will soon write to you
herself in German, for she can do anything she wishes
to do." The letters of the Parisian homoeopaths describe,
with satisfaction, the devotion of Hahnemann's wife to the
* An engraving of this portrait may be seen in Dudgeon's trans-
lation of the On^anon.
to stick to truth. 345
man who was so highly honoured by all. The book Haser
uses as an authority contains all this and much more, but
yet he sees fit to throw imputations on the family life of
the founder of homoeopathy in a historical work. -Surely
the private life of any individual ought to be sacred, and
above all, where, as in this case, his nearest relations arc
still alive.
That he contemns Fickel's weapons is certainly, under
these circumstances, to be reckoned to his credit. But we
cannot be surprised when he writes : " Vanity and the
desire of gain were the cause of Hahnemann's course of
action." What accuracy of description of homoeopathy is
to be expected from a man who says such things ?
Kurt Sprengel acted on other principles when he wrote
his Versuc]L ciner pi'agmatischen GescJiicJite der Heilkunde,
that gigantic work, the product of thirty-six years of un-
wearied industry, which is still unfinished. He was guided
by the principle professed by Thucydides, " to create a
treasure and a possession for all times, and not merely to
gain applause in the present time." Kurt Sprengel wished
to make Lucian's words his rule : " Remember that you
should not write in order to be praised and honoured by
your contemporaries, but fix your eye on future ages.
Expect from these the reward of your labour, that it may
be said of you : He was a man of unfettered intellect, and
of courage in speech and in writing, free from flattery or
slavish feelings, a man by whom truth was prized beyond
everything."
A certain Dr. Johannes Rigler delivered a discourse on
homoeopathy in October, 1880, before the West Berlin
Medical Society. According to him no piece of quackery
" is more significant and lamentable " than this system of
treatment. The statements of Herr Rigler " met with the
complete approbation of all the members present." We
will quote some of these statements. " Hahnemann first
34<5 If i^^(^ facts are against my theory,
promulgated his wonderful system in the Organon, pub-
lished in Dresden in i8io."
With a refinement of cunning, Hahnemann, from the very first,
denied the competence of medical men to judge of his system, and
appealed to the impartial judgment of the lay public.
We have already seen that exactly the reverse was the
case. He published his first exposition of his method in
Hufeland's Journal; his first drug provings were published
in Latin, and in the Organon (ist ed., p. 104) he recom-
mends this Latin work to those who wished to test his
principles. And on the strength of this falsehood is founded
the accusation of Hahnemann's " refined cunning."
The medical profession could do nothing but ignore with silent
indignation this disgusting monstrosity.
What is the opinion of the hostile but unimpassioned
Krijger-Hansen ? —
Hahnemann thereby excited a very bitter opposition; he was placed
under an interdict, he would have been imprisoned, banished, or even
crucified or burnt, like some wise men of old, if only there had been
an inquisition in existence.
Further : " It is strange that the majority of allopaths
should have attacked homoeopathy so fiercely, and looked
upon every homoeopath as an enemy."*
The same author writes thus of the homoeopathic prac-
titioners :
I have often had occasion to enter into literary relations with the
most zealous defenders of his doctrines ; and I feel myself bound to
state that I have been surprised by the friendly courtesy with which I
have been met [Kriiger-Hansen attacked homceopathy vehemently,
but confined himself to the subject], and I shall alwajs be very
grateful to them.f
Rigler continues : —
It is incomprehensible how Hahnemann found it possible to test
thus his hundreds of remedies. Besides the manifest absurdity
involved, we see here the most palpable and shameless falsehood.
And here, as usual, one lie led to another.
* Die Homoopathie ttnd Allopathic atcf dcr Waage, Giistrow und
Rostock, 1833, p. II.
f Hcil und Unheilmaximeii der Leibivaltcr, Ouedlenburg und
Leipzig, 1840, p. 22.
so much the tvorse for the facts. 347
Sorgc points out the absolute falsehood of this state-
ment, by showing that all the medicines proved by
Hahnemann and his earliest disciples, during a period of
more than forty years, amounted only to ninety-five.
Hahnemann only proved a part of these, as he clearly
states in his Fragvienta de Viribtis, Materia Medica Para
and Chronic Diseases. Numerous assistants helped him,
for a period of twenty-eight years, in proving the other
remedies. Neither Hahnemann, nor any of his adher-
ents, ever stated that he had proved hundreds of remedies.
Here, then, an absolute untruth is attributed to the founder
of homoeopathy, and on the ground of this untruth he is
accused of " palpable and shameless falsehood." And
notice this — all the allopathic doctors present gave their
" entire approbation " to Rigler's statements. Chief among
them was the Geheimer Ober-Medicinalrath Dr. Bardeleben,
Professor and Teacher at the Royal University of Berlin,
Further, the lecturer proceeds to state that Hahnemann
used the poisonous toad (rana bufo) for medicinal purposes.
This, again, is an unmitigated falsehood. Sixteen years
after Hahnemann's death, an allopath, Vulpian, first made
experiments with the poison of the toad, and it was only
after this mentioned in homoeopathic periodicals.* After
Rigler had given this piece of information to the society
which placed implicit reliance on his words, he added the
following remarks : —
Unfortunately, the excellent Hahnemann has never revealed why he
hit upon the toad and sentenced it to the torture in order that it might
be incorporated into the homoeopathic materia medica. According to
a Tyrolese superstition, toads are unfortunate souls who are con-
demned to wander about the earth in this form and do penance for
their sins. It is possible that by the decree of a cruel fate homoeo-
pathy came mto the world solely to crown the penance of these poor
creatures by a fresh martyrdom. Or did Hahnemann accept as literal
truth the words of the poet, "the toad, ugly and venemous, wears yet
a precious jewel in its head." But enough of this folly !
Let us realize the situation. A doctor undertakes to
deliver a lecture before an assembly of doctors whose
* Zcitsch. d. Vercins Iwm. Aerzte Oesterr.., 1S59, \o\. H., No. 7, and
AUg. Jiom. Zcitg.^ i860, Vol. LX., Monatsbl, No. i and 2.
348 Rigler's ^' light of truth" proved
president was an appointed teacher at a university. He
entitles his lecture : Against JiomQ:opathy and homeopaths
and their present position in the State. In this he is
guilty of the most barefaced falsehoods, and this with
" the complete assent of all members of the society present."
Not a single voice is raised against it ; on the contrary,
they are so enraptured by this lecture that they determine
unanimously, without any opposition whatever, to print it
and disseminate it as widely as possible, which was done.
When the other allopaths became acquainted with this
curious lecture, not a single voice among the whole allo-
pathic body was raised against it, and several other
medical societies applied to the West Berlin Society before
whom this precious discourse had been delivered, praying
them to take suitable steps to suppress the mischievous
homoeopathy.
Meanwhile, a homoeopathic physician* called attention
to the monstrous statements contained in Rigler's discourse,
and care was taken that this refutation, founded on facts,
should be brought before Bardeleben, Rigler and Co. In
judging the motives of the opponents of homoeopathy it is
important to notice that, in spite of this, no attempt was
made to correct even the most glaring misstatements. On
the contrary, an appeal was made to State authority for
assistance in the contest. Rigler had, at that very meeting
of the West Berlin Medical Society, " with the complete
assent of all the members of the society present," expressed
the wish that the apothecaries should be forbidden to
" disfigure their shops " by inscribing over them " Homoeo-
pathic and Allopathic Pharmacy."
The following resolutions were passed : The permis-
sion to dispense their own medicines by homoeopathic
practitioners, which has existed hitherto, " to the great
injury of the reputation and dignity of medicine," should be
withdrawn. Besides this, no medicines prepared homoeo-
pathically were to be kept in stock in the apothecaries'
shops. Fine resolutions certainly, and going direct to the
point !
* SorgQ, Fiir die Homoopathze^ Berlin, 1880.
to be the darkness of falsehood. 349
Rigler continued his labours, and wrote a book in 1882,
entitled : HomooopatJiy and its importance to the general
tmlfare.
In the preface he writes :
Ignorance of the true nature and tendencies of the subject has
allowed views to prevail with regard to homoeopathy, both with the
pubHc generally and in the law-making circles, which are not conso-
nant with facts, and can only have an injurious effect on the State and
on society. Let us, therefore, try to present the life and work of the
founder of homoeopathy, and the development and spirit of his dis-
covery in the light of truth.
He relies on the " in every respect, excellent little work
of Karsch," with which we are already acquainted. " Karsch
has rendered a great service by this work, which may be
pronounced a model of its kind." Rigler has, however,
added his own services to those of Karsch, and has gone
beyond him in many respects. What trouble Karsch took
to convict Hahnemann of the crime of using mixtures of
drugs! Rigler simplifies the process and writes, p. 25 :
" For the rest, he treated his patients according to the
traditional methods with mixtures of drugs." And to
prove this he quotes certain passages from Hufeland's
fonrnal, in which mixtures of drugs are not even alluded to.
Karsch at least tried to appear as though he appreciated
Hahnemann's talents. Rigler can detect nothing in him
but " acuteness and a certain literary capacity."
He calls Hahnemann's attack on the four bleedings
which shortened the Emperor Leopold's life, the " most in-
famous accusation." We should expect from what we
have seen of his adroitness that he would cunningly sup-
press, the question of blood-letting and only speak of
" treatment," and we are not disappointed. If only
Hahnemann had more frequently repeated such " infamous
accusations," if he had only attacked this destructive prac-
tice with still greater power and influence than he possessed,
much unhappiness would have been spared. There would
also have been no shedding of the precious blood " to the
extent of causing the most profound syncope," by means
of which, aided by the " evacuating method," the life's
350 In order to criticz.-:e impartially
thread of the ever memorable Queen Louisa was pre-
maturely cut.
Rigler thus writes of Hahnemann's first wife : " Hahne-
mann's noble companion of his professional life, as he calls
the ' scolding Xantippe ' whom he had the happiness to call
his wife." He tries to place his second wife in as unfavour-
able a light as possible, retails some completely apocry-
phal miserable gossip, and represents her as being eighteen
instead of thirty-five years of age, which certainly suits his
purpose better, but he gives no authority for this statement.
And the homoeopathic practitioners ?
Page 67 -. — " The whole lot of them exceed even their
master in infamy and cunning," is what he says of Hahne-
mann's first adherents. Griesselich, he asserts, " called his
opponents ' dogs,' and challenged them to mortal combat."
Where does Griesselich say anything of this sort ? Rigler
takes refuge behind Stiirmer, who was of his own way of
thinking ; Stiirmer does not give his authority for the state-
ment. Griesselich was staff-surgeon-general in the Baden
army, and in that capacity was a favourite with his subor-
dinates. That would surely have been impossible if he had
really acted in this vulgar manner.
Words such as the following are ascribed to the homoeo-
paths, p. 59 : " Affinitatsamelioration, Indifferenzirungs-
blanditat, Participialeinschachtelungsmethode," &c. Where
in the world are such terms to be found ? Why is no refer-
ence given ? We cannot remember having read anything
of this kind. And if some blockhead did ever write such
nonsense, what right has he to lay it at the door of the
whole homcEopathic community ?
In his description of the homoeopathic practitioners,
Rigler alludes several times to the Sanitatsrath Dr. B.
Hirschel (p. 33 and 75). Dr. Hirschel has played a con-
siderable part in the history of homoeopathy. He sought
to harmonise homoeopathy v/ith university medicine, and
he also opposed Hahnemann's extreme dilution of medi-
cines. He founded and edited for twenty years the Zeit-
scJirift fiir JiomoopatJiiscJie Klinik ; it ceased to appear
not long after his death in 1873. Anyone who is
do not read the author's book. 351
" thoroughly " acquainted with the history of homoeopathy
must be aware of these facts.
Rigler thus addresses Hirschel in the year 1882, 2.e., nine
years after his death : " I can assure this esteemed author,
with whose Hterary productions I have unfortunately been
forced to occupy myself, that I have with very great self-
denial acquired the most thorough knowledge of homoe-
opathy and its historical development." In his ignorance
and excitement he does not even leave the dead at rest.
With regard to Hirschel's literary productions, we have
already (p. 335) heard the opinion expressed by an allo-
path on one of his works. He is, besides, the author of
the History of Medicine, Vienna, 1862, two editions, and
of the History of Brozuiis System, which is thus reviewed
in faiius, a journal devoted to the history of medicine
(1846, I., p. 871):—
The author's plan of writhig the history of the medical systems of
recent times can only be welcorrjied — especially when it is carried out
with such great industry, such careful study of authorities, and, as a
rule, with such clear judgment as is here displayed. The author is
already known to us by various historical works .... I repeat that
this work is a valuable contribution to the special history of medical
systems .... We can only wish for the continuation of this under-
taking.
Rigler has been " unfortunately obliged to occupy him-
self with Hirschel's literary productions."
In order to convict all Hahnemann's adherents of a
want of earnest conviction, he mentions the sad case of
a " homoeopathic" doctor, who recommends medicines in
allopathic doses, and adds that Hirschel recommended
emetics for croup. He of course suppresses the fact that
Hirschel is speaking of very exceptional cases, and that the
great majority of homoeopathic practitioners disapprove
of this part of Hirschel's practice, as may be seen in all
homoeopathic works, and in the treatment of homoeo-
pathists. Besides, what is proved by such individual cases ?
An allopath is now practising in Berlin who draws two
pounds of blood from consumptive patients at one sitting,and
who in five months deprived some of these wretched creatures
of eleven pounds of blood, and brought about their speedy
352 Riglcrs ''Mirror of Trut/r
death. It Is undoubtedly true that Professors of Medicine
have committed the most glaring mistakes both in diagnosis
and treatment that would have been disgraceful to tiros
in medicine. What would the allopaths say if such indi-
vidual cases were used as proof against the whole old school
profession ? And we might confront them with many such
cases. If homoeopaths are such wretched quacks and im-
postors, how is it possible that their number increases all
over the world from year to year ? How, indeed, can we
explain the existence of a homoeopathic literature, counting
as it does its thousands of volumes ?
At present four medical homoeopathic journals appear in
Germany; of these, the Allgeineine Jiomdop. Zeitung\va.'s> been
published regularly since 1832. This is the oldest of all the
surviving medical journals in Germany ; one sheet of print
appears every week, and there are now 107 complete
volumes, which all testify to the earnest conviction of
homoeopaths ; not to mention the numerous other periodi-
cals and treatises."*
Such facts certainly deserved to be mentioned, especially
in a treatise in which, as Rigler expressly affirms, p. 45,
" The mirror of pure and unvarnished truth is held up to
the reader."
Rigler appends to his book three pages with the names
of works, all of which he has not however read — as for
example the works of Bahr, Kafka, Sorge, &c., which are
important for judging of the convictions and earnest study
of the homoeopaths, and to the contents of which he does not
so much as allude, or even mention their authors' names in
the text. In this way the author might have given a list
■^ That homcEopathy has its disreputable parasites is true, and is
much regretted by its adherents. But they are no more able to pre-
vent this than the allopaths are to hinder the shepherds, old wives and
such like, from dabbling in physic. If we consider that every homoeo-
pathic practitioner in Europe, without exception, was previously an
allopath, that in Germany there are as yet no public schools for
homoeopathy, that every homoeopath is his own teacher and must
gradually emancipate himself from the crude allopathic therapeutics
he has been taught at college, then it must be admitted that the
number of pseudo-homoeo-paths is very small.
proves to he a disto7'ting glass. 353
of works referred to by him twenty times as long. Usually
authors only mention those books which have really been
consulted by them, and the contents of which they have
utilised for their own work. Rigler is an exception to
this rule — an author who goes to work in a truly original
manner. This mode of procedure produced the effect which
might be expected from it.
The Hamburger NacJiricJiten writes : " Rigler has used
for his purpose the whole literature for and against homoeo-
pathy — the titles are cited in the appendix."
The PJiarmaceiitische Zeitwig (1882, No. 35) declares
that : " Rigler, in writing his work, has made use of the
whole existing homoeopathic literature." His readers
imagine, and they are pardonable in doing so by Rigler's
way of going to work, that he had studied the whole
literature in question carefully, and was giving the result
of his arduous studies in his " Mirror of Truth."
After this investigation of Rigler's knowledge and his
motives in writing this book, we will allow him to give
us an account of the origin of homoeopathy and the
characteristics of Hahnemann. This account is most de-
lightful.
We see Hahnemann wandering about the country with a
wife and eight children. He is seeking a livelihood for
himself and his family. He has vainly tried to earn his
bread by chemistry and literature. At last dire necessity
urges him into crime ; he becomes a wretched impostor and
charlatan. He is actuated by the vulgarest avarice ; stay !
he has hit upon a plan. He determines to call homoeo-
pathy into life !
As a beginning, there appeared in Hufeland's yi^/z/v^i^/, in
1796, an article by Hahnemann which, however, as Rigler
discovers with the assistance of Karsch, "was taken, though
without acknowledgment, from Cullen's work and from
other sources, a matter to which we will afterwards return."
Besides that, Hahnemann wrote : u^sailapiiis in the Bal-
ance, The Medicine of Experience, and De Viribns ITedica-
vientoruiii. Sec. These three works form the groundwork of
homoeopathy.
354 Hoiu to write the biography
" The only task now left to the inventor," Rigler con-
tinues (p. 32), quoting Karsch's words, " was to spread
abroad his doctrine in order to pose as a reformer and, if
possible, as a new Messiah of medicine. If he should be
successful in this he had gained his end, and he did
succeed, ' for it is not only children who can be fed with
fairy tales.' — Lessing, Nathan, III., 6."
Hahnemann's pharmacology is the " most fabulous ever
presented to mankind." " The ideas proper to a lunatic
asylum, which the most shameless of the shameless has
dared to throw in the face of common sense ; he has tried
to palm off his frivolous rubbish on mankind, and, alas !
even this most insipid absurdity has found friends and
supporters."
Page 45 : We say, then, Hahnemann has no importance for scien-
tific medicine, or possesses only this negative interest, that he was
the founder of a well-organized system of quackery, which he decked
out with the tinsel of sham learning in order to dazzle mankind.
He invented a pretended system of medicine, based on ridiculous
hypotheses and ingenious lies, which makes it possible for any
one who is sufficiently devoid of all critical sense to earn for
himself without trouble, if not external advantages, at least the
reputation of a benefactor of suffering mankind. This is his work,
which immortalizes him. The unclean spirit of pride and calumny
was the foundation on which he erected, under the influence of
external necessity and avarice, a temple of deceit and falsehood
such as history offers no other example of. By this means Hahne-
man, with insolent hand, injured not only science, but also the
entire system of culture; and everyone who cares for the progress
of the human intellect, everyone who is interested in the triumph
of truth and in the welfare of mankind, must fight with us against
this demon who has covered our age with disgrace.
In order that the desired effect may be indelibly impressed
on the reader, these charges are recapitulated on p. 46, and
he is invited " to look through them again."
With ever-increasing vehemence the reader is repeatedly
assured that Hahnemann invented homoeopathy from the
basest and most sordid motives. This would seem enough
to dispose of Hahnemann, But he has not been suffi-
ciently condemned : —
Page 47 : If the well-read Hahnemann omitted to state whence he
derived this science, and even impudently laid claim to originality,
I
of an inconvenient hero. 355
history here again convicts him of falsehood. The central idea of
homoeopathy is not derived from Hahnemann, but from Theophrastus
Bombastes Paracelsus.
Rigler has discovered this, and he raises the veil with an
unsparing hand. Schultz is his witness, and he appeals to
his work (comp. above, p. 300). Rigler writes his name
without a " t." It is the same Schultz who afterwards
called himself " Schultz-Schultzcnstein," and under this
name wrote, among other works, the book, Life — Health —
Disease — Cilvc (2nd edition, Basle, 1873). In this he proves,
on page 187, that the cellular theory is not German, but
French in origin, and that " those are utterly mistaken
who look upon it as the outcome of German industry." It
was first enunciated by the French flower painter, Turpin —
Schultz discovered this, too — and "his doctrine was repeated
by Schleiden, Schwann, and others Turpin's part has
only been played over again in Germany."
Page 2S9 : He pronounces his opinion that medicine in
Germany is " a scientific electuary, comprised of cells and
tissue changes."
Certain people, then, had better keep on good terms with
Rigler. Were he to seek for the truth about them he
might pass them before him in the same " mirror of truth "
which he has been cruel enough to direct against Hahne-
mann,
Hahnemann's merits are once more clearly, plainly, and
comprehensively represented : "Hahnemann strove to break
through the necessary limits of science ; to change medicine
into child's play by means of lies and absurdities ; to weaken
and to libel both German physicians and the whole medi-
cal art ; to represent the sources of medical knowledge as
worthless and objectionable ; and, finally, to introduce the
disgraceful traffic in secret remedies into the practice of
medicine. In order to carry out the travesty to the end,
Hahnemann did not omit to call attention to the beauty
and worth of the German language, but, nevertheless, we
miss these painfully in his writings, and encounter all
sorts of crudities and the most unheard-of barbarisms."
Stieglitz {I.e. p. 89) had admitted that " Hahnemann was
35^ Medical iconoclasm.
master of the art of writing clearly, decidedly and power-
fully." Stieglitz was, therefore, mistaken.
The following is the solemn conclusion of this remarkable
chapter : —
Notwithstanding all this, posterity erected a bronze statue to Hahne-
mann, the vilest of quacks and impostors, in the very centre of
Germany, " in grateful recognition of his immortal teaching and of
his invaluable services to medicine." And a German town suffers this
disgrace ! Where is the German love of truth, the German sense of
right and feeling of shame? Awake! throw this false idol down
from its beggarly throne, and save culture from further destruction !
It is (according to Rigler) only because of their love of
gain, and their desire to plunder their confiding patients,
that the homoeopaths insist on themselves dispensing their
medicines. His remarks do not suffice to refute the strong
arguments in favour of all doctors, allopathic or homoeo-
pathic, dispensing their own medicines — surely a self-
evident right — which Sorge brings forward in the pamphlet
we have already mentioned. Rigler does not allude to this
— does not even mention it in his " complete literature " of
homoeopathy. At the end of his book Rigler, quite un-
expectedly, makes a sensible proposal. The homoeopaths
should be allowed to dispense themselves those remedies
Avhich are found to contain no medicine discoverable b}-
chemical analysis, taste, smell or colour {i.e., perhaps
beyond the 3rd or 4th decimal, or beyond the 2nd cen-
tesimal dilution) ;* but if they wish to give stronger doses,
as I in 10, they should prescribe these " in the regular way."
When Hahnemann was prohibited from dispensing his
medicines, he addressed a representation to the authorities
at Leipzic, in which he pointed out the inconsequence
involved in this prohibition : —
I only use doses that are so small that they are imperceptible to the
senses and to chemical analysis. The extreme minuteness of the
doses of simple medicinal substances in this new system removes all
possible suspicion of any injury from the size of a dose of medicine
administered to the patient. The beneficial effect and great curative
* Certain substances can e^•en be detected by chemistry in the
Tou^uijth and by spectral analysis in the proportion of i to
1,000,000,000.
A glimmer of sense. 357
power of such small doses depends upon their mode of selection for
the appropriate cases of disease, which is peculiar to homoeopathy, of
which ordinary medicine knows nothing. The apothecary, unable to
understand this, ridicules the idea of doses so small that they cannot
be detected either by the senses or by the best chemical analysis.
If the apothecary, jealous as he is of the new system, can find neither
medicine nor poison in the remedies of the true homoeopathic practi-
tioner that could be injurious, surely the State need alarm itself less
about the remedies given by homoeopathy than about the trade of the
apothecary, who unhesitatingly sells the very same remedies to any-
body — in a million times greater amount — only limited by the prohi-
bition to sell arsenic, corrosive sublimate, opium and a few other
substances to strangers.
Rigler discusses this representation of Hahnemann (p. 38)
and indicates the source correctly, but without quoting
verbatim. Hahnemann's words are only given to the reader
either distorted or out of their proper connexion, other-
wise Hahnemann might not appear in the desired light, and
so Rigler would not have been able to add (at least, not with-
out losing all claim to be believed even by the most good-
natured reader) the following remark : " The authorities
did not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by such sophis-
tries and cunning devices." Are the sophistries and cun-
ning devices to be found in Hahnemann or in the united
apothecaries and allopaths ? Rigler (p. 144) makes exactly
the same proposal which had been made by Hahnemann,
under the delusion that he is thereby annihilating homoeo-
pathy. He calls sophistry and cunning in one place what
he himself suggests in another. If such a proposal were to
receive the force of law it would be of great service to homoeo-
pathy. For what was the object of the numerous petitions
of the homoeopaths ? What is even now one of their most
ardent wishes ? The carrying out of Rigler's proposal.
What was it that drove Hahnemann from his home in
Leipzic, with his wife and children, when an old man ? The
lack of such an arrangement has exposed, and still exposes,
the homoeopaths to numerous intrigues and chicaneries.
But the majority of combatants do not agree with Rigler on
this point. They see further into the matter, and will not
consent to such a proposal. They will look on with
pleasure while Rigler decries and abuses homoeopathy,
358 " A^o case — abuse opposite coiniscl."
but beyond that they will not follow him. He lays
about him with such blind impetuosity that his blows fall
on his own adherents and, with the phlebotomizing Simon,
he exclaims : " The world is given over to folly," quite
forgetting that the world still adheres to allopathy.
To show the spirit with which Rigler's work is imbued,
we quote some of the epithets which he bestows on Hahne-
mann and the homoeopaths: Hahnemann — p. 25: "Dealer
in secret remedies," " charlatan of the basest kind" — p. 27:
"medical vagabond," "adventurer" — p. 28: "liar," "cheat,"
"pickpocket," "braggart" — p. 34: " the old rat-catcher" —
p. 35: "sly and unprincipled liar and deceiver" — p. 36:
"the most shameless of the shameless" — p. 40: "grand
master of lying" — p. 42: "prince of lies" — p. 52: "the
most miserable of all charlatans and impostors," "false idol
on a beggar's throne" — p. 57: "this pitiable wretch" — p.
64: " arch-father of lies."
Homoeopathy — p. 16: "castle on the sand" — p. 38:
" deception " — p. 41 : " absurdity, lies " — p. 45 : "a pretended
system founded on the most absurd hypotheses and cleverly
invented lies," "a fabric of deceit and lies" — p. 46: "a
demon that is a disgrace to our century" — p. 47: "charla-
tanry" — p, 51 : " child's play made up of lies and folly" —
p. 54: "tissue of absurdity and lies" — p. 59: "miserable
trash and nonsense" — p. 19: " this pest was introduced
into Russia, 8z:c." — p. 70: "refuge for rogues and charla-
tans" — p. 75: "flagitious game," "impudent, miserable
crime " — p. 84: " fool's play," " the dunghill of homoeopathic
practice" — p. 85: " repulsive and absurd rubbish" — p. S6:
" miserable filth of the most pitiable superstition." Cer-
tainly an out-spoken writer !
He thus speaks of lay hom.ceopathy — p. 99: " the height
of homoeopathic harmfulness in all its viciousness " — p. loo:
" shameful deception " — p. 102: "this wild absurdity," " de-
ception," " superstition," " system of lies," " the invasion by
the pest of a region hitherto free" — p. 109: "madness" — p.
133: " castle on the sand " — 146: "homoeopathic imposture,"
"charlatanry, destructive nonsense," " lies " — p. 150: "dis-
honour of the medical profession," " disgrace of the age."
I
How not to zvritc Jiistory. 359
Homoeopathic practitioners are — p. 61: "traitors to
science" — p. 67: "the whole lot transcends the master in
infamy and trickery" — p. 70: "fools, rogues, charlatans,
lunatics, mountebanks" — p. 75: "we should have no mercy
on Hahnemann and his adherents — they are a disgrace to
truth and science ; no words are too strong to designate
their shamelessness " — p. 'jZ : " there are patients who lack
common sense, and there are doctors who are homoeopaths"
— p. 16: "they drag the science of medicine through the
dirty mud of the most pitiful superstition."
We only give here a few specimens of Rigler's fluenc}-.
If we wished to exhaust this topic it would be necessary
to reproduce half of Rigler's treatise. " Remembering the
ridendo dicere vemni, I have taken infinite pains to avoid
all bitterness and harshness," says Rigler in his preface.
We might suppose that a book of this kind, made up of
misrepresentations and expressions of personal ill-feeling,
larded with falsehoods, deserves no respect. If a Frenchman
were to undertake to describe Germany and German life,
and were to do it thus: Endless, desolate, barren tracts ex-
tend over the whole country. The climate is always severe,
cold and rainy, and oats is the only grain that ripens. The
whole nation suffers from want, and barely subsists on the
remains of the milliards stolen from us. Their food consists
chiefly of oat cakes and potatoes, of which they consume in-
credible quantities, so that their bodies are swollen out like
frogs. Their national drink, beer, contributes to this defor-
mity, and gives their noses a potato shape and a red hue.
Their brain is constantly muddled by their unlimited con-
sumption of this brown alcoholic fluid, which increases their
natural rude and awkward behaviour. Their houses are
wretched huts, ornamented only with clocks stolen from us,
which, however, often change their owners, because the Ger-
mans are unable to overcome their propensity to confound
mcuiu and titiini. Lying and deception prevail to such an
extent among the whole nation, from the highest to the
lowest, that it is almost impossible to find any one whom
one can trust. (In illustration, he would relate a quantity
of utterly unfounded facts, and distort the words of the
360 The whole allopathic school
Germans themselves). If any one dares to speak French
in the street, all eyes are at once directed on him, and he
meets with hostile and furious glances. The most import-
ant towns are Berlin, Spandau, Kasscl, and Breslau. Berlin
is situated in Brandenburg, Spandau in Pomerania, Breslau
in the East, and Kassel is the capital of Westphalia. This
is the true condition of Germany, presented to us in the
mirror of pure and unvarnished truth.
Should we consider it worth while to refute such a
Frenchman ? We should be astonished at such impudent
distortion of the facts. We should almost compassionate
the ignorance and want of good taste of the readers who
should approve of it ; and we should remark, with satisfac-
tion, that such absurdities could never be perpetrated in
Germany. Just so is it with Rigler. He is only worth
noticing (and this is our only reason for having dwelt on
him so long) because the allopathic criticism of his book
has given us a convenient means for forming a judgment of
allopathic knowledge and opinion with regard to homoeo-
pathy.
The reception of his book by the allopaths is, therefore,
interesting and important, as it shows us what the allopaths
consider the proper mode of combating homoeopathy. We
are met with this remarkable fact : —
The whole body of allopaths is in full concurrence with
Rigler's treatise, and not a single voice is raised to ex-
press the very least dissent from him. Rigler's book and
Rigler's conduct were most favourably noticed by all allo-
pathic reviewers. Rigler was even praised to the skies for
his conduct of the contest.
Here are some specimens from among the mass of
criticisms, of which some even surpassed their Rigler in
virulence ; they all express their great satisfaction with the
book — a sufficient proof of their knowledge and of the
spirit that animated them.
The Berliner klin. Wochenschrift, 1882, p. 338, writes :
" Dr. Rigler, who is well known as one of the most
energetic opponents of the homoeopathic delusion, draws, in
this work, from authentic homoeopathic sources, viz., the
delights to honour its champion. 361
works of Hahnemann and his disciples, a picture of the
inept absurdities which this monstrosity, begotten of filth
and milk-sugar, has produced."
" We must express our thanks to the author who has
taken the trouble to work his way through the wilderness
of materials, and has presented his sum-total in a form
which makes its perusal a real pleasure, in spite of a melan-
choly feeling it cannot fail to inspire. We recommend it
to be circulated as widely as possible, and hope it may open
the eyes of the public on the subject of the ' like-sufferers,'
as Herr Rigler translates the word homoeopath, and their
false doctrine."
The Deutsche mediciniscJie Wochenschrift, 1882, p. 565,
begins : " It would be a sad sign of the times if a work such
as Rigler's were now, as happened in the days of Bleekrode,
Gmelin and Stieglitz, to serve the purpose of inaugurating
a struggle of reason against the superstition and folly of
those dabblers in medicine who call themselves homoeo-
paths." The days of Bleekrode ! The struggle of reason
against superstition and folly ! Who was Bleekrode ? How
and when did he attack the " superstition " and " folly " of
homoeopathy ? Bleekrode wrote : Commentat. medic, in-
aiigitr.^ pat'S prioi% sis tens Palceolog. reg. therap. Siuiilia
Siinilibns curantur ; Groningai, 1835. The attempt was
made in this work to represent the siinilia similibus as an
old principle known even to the ancient Jews. The Bible
and the Talmud were examined ; the old Chaldjeans and
^Ethiopians were appealed to ; then came Hippocrates and
the Greeks, Galen and the Middle Ages. With regard to
Paracelsus, he says, p. 102, after having spoken of siinilia
siinilibiLS and the small doses : —
Si vero ad Paracelsum spectes, plane hisce contraria inveniemus.
Paracelsus enim arte sua signata, anatomica et magica, in medica-
minum vim inquirebat, licet nonnullis in casibus ejusmodi remedia
laudaverit, uti arsenicum [this is the only remedy, according to this
indication, which Bleekrode mentions in connexion with Paracelsus,
comp., p. 89] cujus vis medicatrix ipsi innotuit symptomatum simili-
tudine, quje ex actione in sanum hominem sequuntur.
Page i2T),et seq., it is mentioned that Fr. Hoffmann and
Albrecht von Haller expressed themselves in favour of the
362 TJie pi'opJtets brougJit out to airse
testing of medicines without, however, carrying out the
practice. Page 125 : —
Ita inter multos Greding, Ludwig, Storck,* ideo laudabant narcoti-
corum in neurosibus, mania, paralysi, &c., usum, quia haec a sano con-
sumta ipsum iisdem moi^bis tegrum redderi solent. Etiam specificorum
indicatio inde deprompta fuit, quia remedia haec sanis in eodem
organorum systemate morbum excitant. Ita cantharidum usum
laudarunt in organorum uropoeticorum morbis, quia haec organa
hisce eadem ratione segrescunt. Aloe et sulphur ha2morrhoidibus
laborantibus porrigebantur, quia in organa abdominalia vires suas
exserunt. Plura hujusmodi exempla addi possunt, etiam fusius ab
Hahnemanno indicata. INIulta etiam exstant exempla remediorum ad-
hibitorum, de quibus non dubitandum est, quin a sanis consumta
eandem symptomatum seriem produxissent, quae morbum deter-
minavit ; sed haec a posteriori ita visa sunt sese habere, quippe
quEe empyrica ratione vel periculi faciendi causa tentata sunt.
After Bleekrode has briefly sketched the history of the
origin of homoeopathy he gives his opinion, founded on
observations at the sick bed, and often quotes the illustrious
Hufeland and Kopp (the clarissimus vir), whose stand-
point he adopts : p. 143 : —
Eadem quippe regula similia similibus curantur, quje hujus syste-
matis est fundamentum, aliquando probabiliter Methodus Therapeu-
tica Medicinje Rationalis erit, quemadmodum nostra aetate nonnulli
jam preesagire inceperunt.
He then seeks to determine the limits of the use of
homoeopathy. He does not doubt the efficacy of Hahne-
mann's remedies, but blames, with justice, his fondness for
systematising and other things which had been condemned
by Hahnemann's adherents ten years before. He thus
gives his opinion of Hahnemann : —
Vir celeberrimus et acutissimus, qui semper magna cum sagacitate
in Uteris versatus et praeterera de arte chemica optime meritus.
These are the " days of a Bleekrode !" and such his attack
on " superstition and folly."
Stieglitz and Gmelin certainly rejected homoeopathy.
We have seen that Stieglitz said in 1835 that homoeo-
pathy would soon die out, and its adherents would re-
turn to allopathy, in thankful remembrance of the services
* We have seen that Hahnemann cites these authors.
2ingratcfully proceed to bless. 363
it renders (the bleedings, emetics, and purgatives of
those days). We know, too, how a homoeopathic physi-
cian came to occupy Stieghtz's position as physician in or-
dinary to the King of Hanover, and that the king assured
him by letter that the results of homoeopathic treatment
had been more favourable than the results of his former
physician's treatment. Gmelin reproached the hom.ceo-
paths severely for rejecting bleeding and emetics. He
admitted, however, the worth of much of the system, e.g.,
the proving of medicines, and pointed out the defects of
the old system in this respect.
The placing together of the names of Bleekrode, Stieglitz
and Gmelin, as is done here, gives (from reasons that excite
the amusement of any one acquainted with their writings)
another proof of the absolute ignorance of the allopaths, and
astonishes one at the positiveness with which they speak of
a matter, the existence of which is, indeed, in the highest
degree unpleasant and disagreeable for them, but as to the
nature and history of which they are either grossly ignorant
or deceived. It is a remarkable coincidence, that in Haser's
History (1881, p. 797), the same three names are placed
together. We need only throw a glance at this page and
the chapter on " the criticism of Hahnemann's doctrine,"
and these same three names meet our eyes. Gmelin is one
of the few opponents who own that homoeopathy has been
attacked with base weapons.* It would hardly, then, have
been superfluous if the writer in this periodical, who speaks
with the assumption of superior knowledge, had shown that
he possessed at least a superficial acquaintance with the
works to which he refers.
The same DeiUsche medicin. WocJienscJirift continues : — •
Every one, be he an adherent or an opponent of homoeopathy,
knows what a cut-purse principle incorporated itself in the person of the
inventor of homoeopathy, the adventurer who neglected no means of
gaining a practice ; every one knows and abhors the tricks by means
of which this kind of quacks seek to maintain their g-round. . . .
To this subject belongs, besides the damning biography of the arch-
impostor, the critical contribution to the sincerity of the conviction
* L.c, p. 247.
364 SiiJ'cly nozv the State will
of the more recent homceopathic practitioners [which we have dis-
cussed above], which shows how they endeavour, in their wretched
stammering way, to profit by the pathological discoveries of medicine,
and how they treat the fools who fall into their hands non-homoeo-
pathically if they desire it.
The reviewer reaches a high pitch of excitement, such as
no adherent of a system protected by the State and sup-
ported by the majority would fall into if he were convinced
that he was waging a just war with fair weapons. The
.accusation that the homoeopaths treat their patients allo-
pathically if they wish it, is as old as homoeopathy, and
would, if it were true, easily prove the quackery of the
whole business. For this reason it is constantly repeated.
Occasionally accusations such as these are publicly made,
but they have repeatedly been shown to be groundless.
The term " charlatan " would certainly be indelibly stamped
on a medical man who acted thus.
With regard to the strength of conviction of the homoeo-
pathic practitioners, we refer these gentlemen to their
<;ha,mpion, Gmelin, who says, I.e. p. 246 : " Homoeopathic
physicians are enthusiasts Its disciples would
lay down their lives in defence of the new doctrine."
Ever)^ one who has to do with homoeopathic practitioners
becomes more and more firmly persuaded of the unshak-
able strength of their convictions, and sees that they have a
pleasure in exercising their profession such as the allopaths
for a long time have ceased to possess.
This paper thus alludes to the liberty possessed by the
homoeopaths to dispense their own medicines ; this right
was conceded to them in Prussia, subject to a State exam-
ination which, with all the rights appertaining to it, is open
to every medical man :
The struggle to acquire the right of dispensing medicine by homoeo-
pathic practitioners forms a page in the history of Prussia which will
excite in our posterity a feeling like that with which we read of the
making of gold, of werewolves and of the trials of witches — a feeling
made up of incredulous wonder and a sense of indignant shame.
It is then emphatically asserted that it is the duty of the
State " not to expose its citizens to be injured by the homoeo-
pathic fraud, not to allow them to become the prey of this
mode of treatment or permit the flagrant piracy of dispen-
1
put dozuii that horrid JiomccopatJiy ! 365
sing their medicines by practitioners. Many thanks are
due to Rigler .... greatest care .... purity of language
. . . calmness in carrying out his train of thought, &c. . . .
If he tries to make this odious theme somewhat more
enjoyable to himself and his readers by the use of strong
language and sarcasms, who will seriously blame him ? '^
This periodical suggests to the Prussian government that
" if it would only read this concluding chapter we should
not have long to wait for an alteration of this condition,"
i.e., dispensing of medicines. " This monograph [Rigler's]
is a contribution to the re-organisation of the laws relating
to medicine." If, on the one hand, it is impossible to
preserve one's gravity when Rigler, with his glaring perver-
sions of truth, is represented as the " re-organiser of the
laws relating to medicine ; " on the other hand, we can
hardly understand how such a work can be recommended
to a Government which ought to consist of calm and im-
partial men, as the material from which its decisions are to
be formed. It is the work of a man who had been con-
victed and punished for publishing about his homoeopathic
colleagues the most glaring falsehoods suggested by per-
sonal irritation and party feeling, and who, instead of con-
fessing the injustice of his charges, repeats and exaggerates
his former misstatements in this very work.
Another medical journal expresses the following opinion
of Koppe's and Rigler's works : —
The appearance of these two works is eminently well-timed. The
first of the two points out clearly and calmly the absence of scientific
method in the system ; the second [Rigler] draws his sharp sword
against falsehood with the fire of just indignation. We can give this
praise to both works, that they are characterised by historical truth-
fulness and scientific treatment of a subject which suggests so much
that is absurd and ridiculous that it would appear to be very difficult,
satyram nan scribere. In his chapter on liberty of dispensing medicines^
Dr. Rigler throws much light on the disadvantageous effects of Hahne-
mann's system on the public welfare.
The organ of the united German medical societies, the
AcrztlicJics Vereinsblatt fiir Daitschhind expresses (1882, p.
118) the opinion that —
Rigler's historico-critical treatise will occupy a prominent position
among the works which ha\c hitherto been written on homoeopathy and
366 A trap to catch allopaths.
the homoeopaths. The first part — Samuel Hahnemann — a biographical
sketch — deals a blow at the constitution of homceopathy from which
its Coryphsi will find it difficult to recover. He proves that the Divine
gift of homoeopathy was an invention brought about by the pressure of
necessity and perfected by speculation. This is historic truth, related
by Rigler in a manner at once so cutting and yet so pleasant that this
one chapter gives permanent value to the whole work.
After having lauded this work in all its parts, the allopaths
are informed " that Rigler has furnished material which will
enable physicians to become thoroughly acquainted with the
subject, and thus to put themselves in a position to contri-
bute towards the final settling of this question. Rigler con-
cludes with an energetic appeal to physicians to rouse them-
selves and manfully combat this mischievous system," as if
the allopaths had hitherto looked on quietly and in childish
innocence at the inconvenient spread of homceopathy.*
If a homoeopath had wished to prove to the world
how profound was the ignorance of the allopaths on the
subject of Hahnemann and his doctrines, he could not have
set about it more skilfully than Rigler has done. He has
involuntarily laid a snare for allopathy. One allopath after
another has eagerly entered the net, and a number of politi-
cal papers have joyfully followed suit — a fact worth noting.
Out of the large draught of fishes in Rigler's net we call atten-
tion to two remarkable specimens. One is the organ of the
apothecaries, the central organ for the trade and scientific
interests of pharmacy, the PharniaceiLtische Zeitiing.'\ The
satisfaction of the apothecaries with Rigler's work appears
still greater than that of the doctors. With much joy
their central organ gives long extracts, quoting conscien-
tiously all Rigler's strong expressions, and praises them
greatly. These extracts arc continued through five num-
bers, each occupying several columns. The mood of the
apothecaries becomes so cheerful that a satirical poem on
Hahnemann, written at the beginning of this century, is
* In 1 88 1, Rigler was fined heavily for calumniating the homoeo-
paths, and the Editors of the IVochenscJn'ift and Vcrciiisblati were
also fined for publishing Rigler's calumnies, which may perhaps
account for the extreme bitterness of these champions of " scientific "
and "rational" medicines in 18S2. — [Ed.]
t 1883. Nos. 38, 41, 42, 45 and 49.
Anii-hovKropat/nc tvit. 367
re-published in No. 45, and in number No. 49 the following
skit is reproduced : —
Oh that I were a homceopath ! Would that I could believe in
Hahnemann's theory! But I cannot. I will at once state why. I
have read a great deal about homoeopathy, and I find that though the
theory is good, the practice is bad. One day I was suffering from
diarrhoea. Well, I said to myself, here is a good opportunity for
testing homoeopathy. What is the cause of my illness? Sour plums.
Then sour plums ought to cure me. They nearly killed me. I cannot
believe in the like-by-like system. If I did I would erect a monument
in the middle of a town like a drinking fountain ; round it I would place
basins with pipes- leading to a reservoir, and above every basin I would
write the words, " Stranger, let your tears fall here." When the re-
servoir was filled with tears I would evaporate them to dryness and
would dissolve every grain of the salt thus obtained in a gallon of
water, and would put the solution in 2-drachm phials, and sell it as
" Dolorin, a cure for every grief," at a high price. Every homoeo-
path is invited to make use of this idea. I have not yet taken out a
patent for it.
The reference to Rigler's book is accompanied by the
following remarks : —
The fact, apparently', is incontrovertibly established by Rigler that
both Hahnemann and the other heads of the school were gross char-
latans. About the year 1830, homoeopathy had been almost com-
pletely abandoned by the German doctors, but the aristocracy and
the clergy took it up. The science of pharmacy was degraded by
granting the right of dispensing to homoeopathic doctors. The wild
desire for freedom of dispensing was the war cry of Hahnemann's
adherents. Dispensing by the practitioner became a wretched trade,
which, however, had advantages both direct and indirect, and on that
account, therefore solely from love of gain, was firmly adhered to.
Hahnemann amassed heaps of gold and lived in great luxury. Is it
to be wondered at if, under such circumstances, homoeopathy finds
enthusiastic adherents, both among doctors and non-professionals.
The history of homceopathy forces on the philosopher the sad reflec-
tion that every speculation on the folly of mankind, if undertaken with
the necessary boldness, has the prospect of material success and
imitation.
If the apothecaries write and print such views for a large
circle of readers, we can safely infer by what spirit they are
animated towards homceopathy, even if other more tangible
proofs did not come under our notice every day. By such
criticisms they show us with how much confidence homoeo-
pathic doctors can prescribe homceopathic medicines from
allopathic drug-stores.
368 We persecute JiomccopatJiy because
Another catch of Rigler's is the Wiener viedicin. WocJien-
schrift. According to this (1882, p. 1199), the allopaths
" ought to be heartily grateful to Riglcr for expending so
much labour and care on the study of so worthless a sub-
ject." Homoeopathy is " a speculation on the credulity,
the superstition and the stupidity of a large portion of
mankind," and does not require any knowledge from its
adherents. " This is the reason of the popularity of
homoeopathy with its medical adherents." The grossest
misrepresentations of Rigler in his descriptions of Hahne-
mann and homoeopathy are extracted, and the opinion is
expressed that Rigler's condemnation is the result of a
thorough study of homoeopathic literature.
With regard to the " ease with which a knowledge of
homoeopathy is acquired " as opposed to allopathy, which is,
as this journal believes, or at all events asserts, the chief
reason of its attractiveness, the writer seems to forget that
the homoeopaths have to follow the same course of study,
to pass the same examinations as the allopaths, and that, in
order to obtain the right of dispensing medicines, they have
besides to pass an examination in chemistry, in pharmacy
and in homoeopathic therapeutics ; that the homoeopaths
have to learn much more than the allopaths, and that there-
fore the knowledge of therapeutics possessed by every true
homoeopath exceeds that of the allopaths. But setting all
this aside, the time required for mastering allopathic thera-
peutics is only a fraction of that required for homoeo-
pathic therapeutics.
Quinine in fever ; morphia, chloral-hydrate in pain or
sleeplessness ; iron in chlorosis ; salicylic acid in rheu-
matism of every kind, &c. ; these can be taught in a very
short time to any non-professional. Neither is it difficult
to master the ordinary mode of mixing medicines. The
task of the homoeopathic doctor is not so easy ; he has to
choose in individual cases among a much larger number of
remedies, and must be more accurately acquainted with the
effects of medicines and their employment ; this requires a
peculiar, diligent and uninterrupted study and careful note-
taking. Anyone lacking zeal in this particular can never
be a good homoeopath, though no one can prevent him
our ozvn system is indefensible. 369
calling himself a " homceopath." Only an earnest and
assiduous student can become a good homoeopathic thera-
peutist who will never resort to the allopathic custom of
giving quinine as a remedy for fever or even for ague,
who treats scrofulous inflammation of the eye only by
internal remedies prepared homcxaopathically, and who in
diphtheria never employs external medicines, &c., &c., but
who in all cases gives medicines only in homoeopathic doses,
and with all this obtains results which enable him to con-
template allopathic persecutions with the tranquillity of a
good conscience. Anyone who acts otherwise, either has no
right to the name of homoeopath, or is still in a transition
state, or has prematurely brought his studies to an end, a
condition of affairs which is largely due to the want of
homoeopathic hospitals and teachers. Even salicylic acid
in cases of rheumatic anthritis and mercury in appreciable
quantities in syphilis can be replaced by Hahnemann's
preparations, and better results will be obtained, with a
complete absence of injurious after effects.
If we have often had occasion to notice that the most
bitter opponents of homoeopathy were those whose thera-
peutic treatment was least successful at the sick bed, and
who were the least confident of their power to cure, this
periodical, which joyfully, gratefully, and " with all its heart "
adopts Rigler's mis-statements, furnishes a further proof of
our assertion. This same Wiener medic. Wochenblatt, while
under precisely the same editorship, expresses the following
views on allopathic therapeutics :— *
What is praised by one is ridiculed by another. What one doctor
dares not give in small doses is given by another in large doses, and
what is praised by one as something new is considered by another as
not being worthy of being rescued from oblivion. The favourite
remedy of one is morphia ; another treats three-fourths of his patients
with quinine ; a third expects favourable results from purgatives ; a
fourth from the healing power of nature ; a fifth from water ; one
blesses, another curses mercury. In a short period of time the treat-
ment by mercurial inunction flourished, was set aside, and then
came into repute again; it was looked upon as buried, funeral orations
* 1867, No. 5.1, p. 6S1.
24
370 A too candid friend.
were pronounced over it, and then it was disinterred, and lately its
praises have again been sung by enthusiastic admirers. And such
things happen within a few decades in the self-same " school,'' under
the sway of the same infallible therapeutic despot, girded with the
sword of triumphant science.
Further on, this same periodical, which has always per-
secuted all who thought differently from itself, gives the
following criticism of its own allopathic materia medica.*
Above all we must here allude to that gross fraud which the high
priests of science impose on their disciples, although neither they nor
the majority of medical men beheve in it. I mean the fables of the so-
called pharmacodynamics, of the niateria medica This newer
pharmacology, which is taught at the Universities, and about which
large volumes are written which students are obliged to learn almost by
heart, belongs, in virtue of at least nine-tenths of its contents, to the
region of fables and fairy tales, and is a survival of the old belief in
magic. The numerous announcements of newly-discovered remedies
which, in all the journals, are recommended by the apothecaries and
provided with testimonials as to their infallibity by doctors, show that
pains are being taken to extend the empire of magic and super-
stition.
RETROSPECT.
Let us briefly recapitulate the history of the opposition
offered to homceopathy. When Hahnemann first intro-
duced his method of treatment to notice, he was well known
throughout all Germany and abroad as an excellent chemist.
The pharmaceutists honoured in him a zealous promoter
of the apothecaries' art, and when the names of the most
illustrious in this branch were mentioned, Hahnemann's
was not omitted. He enjoyed a high reputation as a
scholar, and was regarded by the medical profession as one
of the most esteemed representatives of their art, to whom
they owed many important contributions tending to per-
fect the science, as was frequently and unreservedly ad-
mitted. By his lively, impetuous temperament, by his
desire to remedy acknowledged evils, and by his vast
schemes for overthrowing the whole system of medicine
* 1872, No. 44, p. 1 1 13.
Hahneviann's reform a. revolution. 371
and building it up anew on the foundation of his prin-
ciples, which he held with the whole strength of his con-
viction, he was involved in a life and death struggle with
almost the whole medical world. He attacked medicine
on its weakest sides, and declared without circumlocution
on every occasion that he considered the treatment of its
practitioners more dangerous than the disease itself The
old school felt that the foundations of their therapeutics
were shaken, and sought to maintain them by every
possible means. They had to justify the greater part of
what had been their medical practice hitherto in order
to maintain their reputation, and to answer this cardinal
question, whether their labours had tended to preserve
and lengthen men's lives or to destroy them. The strife
was bitter, as must be the case when the ground on
which the attacked party stands is insecure.
Many medical men, however, looked upon Hahnemann's
attacks on the wretched system of treatment according to
all sorts of illusory theories, on the irrational bleeding, on
the violent purgatives, on the complex prescriptions, as
being partially, at least, well founded. Several among them
approved of his earnest attempts to obtain a firm, natural-
historical basis for medical treatment, and to banish conjec-
ture, superstition and speculation from medicine by simple
prescriptions, by strict individualisation, by careful attention
to the preparation of medicines, by the proving of medicines
on the healthy organism, by their use according to fixed
principles, and by the most careful observations taken at
the sick bed. This recognition of his merits is expressed
and thankfully acknowledged in many places, but Hahne-
mann is constantly exhorted not to set up this method
as the universal and only true system. But he remained
unmoved in his own opinions, and thus became one-sided
in his views, and was guilty of errors which laid him
open to the attacks of his opponents.
A great hindrance in the way of an understanding
being arrived at was the practice of bleeding, which the
opponents of Hahnemann clung to as an article of religious
faith. His rejection of bleeding exposed Hahnemann to
372 Snnilia similibtis — tit for tat.
the most bitter attacks and the most reckless accusations.
The class of his opponents favourable to bleeding has
now almost disappeared, but the slanders and abuse which
they hurled in blind fury against their dangerous enemy
have remained, have been inherited and added to by a
subsequent race of opponents.
At first all his opponents spoke in high terms of Hahne-
mann's previous services ; but at the end of the second and
beginning of the third decade of this century, works appeared
containing no allusions to his previous services, and dwelling
on the weak points of his doctrines all the more forcibly.
His mode of preparing medicines, arrived at after long and
laborious investigations, served as a butt for ridicule, and
was eagerly employed to convict him of folly.
None of his bitterest opponents dared at first to term
Hahnemann a charlatan. They still preserved a certain
amount of decency, and recognised the psychological im-
possibility that a man who had during twenty years given
such obvious proofs of unflagging industry, of an earnest
striving after truth, who enjoyed the friendship of the most
highly esteemed men, could suddenly turn into a vulgar
charlatan, and employ himself during forty years and more
of his life in basely deceiving his suffering fellow-creatures
who had sought his aid in their distress. This class of his
opponents was at least logical, and said that his mind had
become enfeebled.
Gradually, however, Hahnemann's previous services were
consigned to oblivion, and now it was sought, by perversions
and misrepresentations, to represent him as an impostor, a
charlatan and a swindler. His adherents met with the
same fate. " I have repaid him with full measure for his
attacks on the profession ; and if he has not lost all sense
of truth, he must own that I have, at least in this respect,
fully grasped the sense of his similia siuiilibiis cnrentiir,
and have treated him according to true homoeopathic prin-
ciples," exclaims one ardent opponent of Hahnemann and
defender of bleeding,* with a sense of gratified vengeance. f '
* Even in threatened phthisis.
t Simon, tJm/ ^/tv //(V//., Hamburg, 1833, p. 8.
Eteigiions les Imnicres. 373
The apothecaries, who feared danger to their very ex-
istence from homoeopathy, lent their zealous support to the
allopaths, and assiduously characterised homoeopathy as a
" fraud." But this did not hinder them from attempting
to bring homoeopathy within the sphere of their privileges.
The great advance in the medical auxiliary sciences by
the physiological school, which apparently intensified the
current that ran counter to the homoeopathic tendency,
now took place, and gave rise to the idea that homoeopathy
was a hindrance to the physiological development of
medicine. Professors at the universities who occupied
themselves with homoeopathy were turned out, and young
doctors were imbued with a hatred of everything connected
with homoeopathy. Its opponents employed all the organs
devoted to the interests of the majority in order to repre-
sent homoeopathy as mere folly and imposture.
The homoeopaths busied themselves with the develop-
ment of their system, but yet found time to reply in nu-
merous works, wherein they set forth the real character
of their therapeutics, but they omitted to furnish a history
of the development of homoeopathy, nor did they care to
refute the gross misrepresentations which were propagated
in ever increasing numbers, until they, in course of time,
grew to the most monstrous dimensions.
It can be incontrovertibly proved that every opponent
has been guilty of misrepresentation or error — of ignor-
ance and mendacity — in his representation of homoeopathy.
There is no exception to this.
Hahnemann and the homoeopaths were generally at-
tacked with passionate recklessness, and the object of their
opponents was gained by making homoeopathy appear to
be a farrago of rubbish.
It is only accidentally that every now and then a physician
gets a glimpse of the true nature of homoeopathy, and he is
astonished to perceive the obstructions which the allopaths,
in their blind infatuation, have opposed to truth. If he, then,
recognises the gross error of the opponents of homoeopathy ;
if he seeks to ascertain the real essence of the system ; if he
grasps its truth, and if he possesses the energy to defend it
374 Alhnnons les feux.
publicly, he is furiously persecuted on all sides, and is
driven out of the medical body and avoided like a plague-
stricken creature, and that quite regardless of the evidence
he may have given of honest striving after truth ; he has
committed a mortal crime and is condemned off-hand.*
Owing to such a remarkable state of affairs, we are im-
pelled to investigate the therapeutics taught in our universi-
ties, and see if it is really such a crime to be discontented
with the present system and to look for something
better.
* A few words respecting the allopathic efforts to stifle and put
down homoeopathy in other countries besides Germany, may be per-
mitted here.
In Great Britain, various medical men of greater or less eminence
in the old school have written books and articles in journals against
it. The most conspicuous of these polemical authors are Sir J. Y.
Simpson, Sir J. Forbes, Sir B. Brodie, Dr. C. J. B.Williams, Dr. Bris-
towe. Dr. Bushnan and Dr. Routh.
Simpson's work is elaborate and unfair ; Forbes's first article in
h\s Ulcdical Review \s ostensibly judicial and moderate in tone. He
there says : " Whoever examines the homoeopathic doctrines as
enounced and expounded in the original writings of Hahnemann and
by many of his followers, must admit, not only that the system
is an ingenious one, but that it professes to be based on a most formid-
able array of facts and experiments, and that these are woven into a
complete code of doctrine with singular dexterity and much apparent
fairness."
Eleven years later, in Nature a7id Art iti Disease (p. 250), Forbes
speaks of homoeopathy as "a system utterly false and despicable" ;
the violent attacks made upon him by his allopathic brethren on ac-
count of his first article, may perhaps have had something to do with
this remarkable change of opinion.
Dr. Bristowe's address on homceopathy at the meeting of the
British Medical Association, in 1S81, is written in a calm and
judicial spirit, and displays the unique quality of speaking of the
adherents of Hahnemann's system as though they were entitled to
professional courtesy, and might be considered to be honest as well
as well-educated men. The writings of Williams and Brodie show
that their authors know nothing about the system they attacked.
Bushnan's work attempts to unite the conflicting parts of quasi-
candid examination and unreasoning abuse. Routh's work is an attack
Cosi fan iutti. 375
APPENDIX.
Medicine as it is nozv tanght in the Universities.
In Germany the minds of scientific physicians were still
enveloped in the mists of natural philosophy, while the in-
ductive method of research was already firmly established in
England and France. In England, John Hunter (1728 —
1793) I'^ad, by his intelligent researches, brought to light
many scientific facts, and had especially striven to prove
that in inflammation the phenomena of the disease follow
physiological laws.
on homoeopathic statistics, which he proves by elaborate tables to be
infinitely superior in the results obtained to those of the allopaths, but
which he concludes must be false chiefly, as it seems to me, because
they do show this superiority. His argument is like this : Homoe-
opathy is false. Allopathy is true. A false system must be less suc-
cessful in the treatment of disease than a true one. These statistics
show a much greater success in the treatment of disease in homoe-
opathic than in allopathic hospitals, " argal " the homceopathic
statistics must be cooked.
The warfare against homoeopathy in this country was not con-
fined to literature. The power of the majority was exerted against
the heterodox minority in other ways. Black was refused the fellow-
ship of the Edinburgh College of Physicians ; Henderson was forced
to resign his Clinical Professorship ; Horner and Reith were turned
out of their hospitals; coroner's inquests (presided over by allo-
pathic medical coroners) were used oppressively against homoeo-
pathic practitioners ; Colleges and Universities fulminated anathemas
against any of their members who should practise the hated system.
Candidates were rejected by examiners if they would not abjure
homoeopathy. Societies expelled homoeopathic members, and even
their own allopathic members who met homoeopathists professionally.
Articles against homoeopathy were frequent in the medical periodicals,
but no reply was allowed, nor would these periodicals admit any adver-
tisement of a work on homoeopathy unless it was against it, and they
even refused to advertise a work of any sort written by a homceo-
pathist. Every place and post of honour and emolument was withheld
from homoeopathists. In short, the whole hostile armoury that was
used against homoeopathy in Germany was employed against it here
with the exception of the apothecaries' weapon, for no law exists in
Britain preventing a medical man giving his own medicines, or if such
law is on the statute book, it has long been obsolete.
In the United States of America, the bigoted practitioners of the
'^^'jG Hoist wit J I their oivn petard.
In France, Bichat (1771 — 1802) was the first who,
although not free from some mistaken theories, sought to
direct medical research to facts, and strove to give an
anatomical basis to medical science : " Observer la nature,
rassembler beaucoup de faits, prendre leur ensemble pour
principes Qui sommes nous pour nous detourner de
cette voie?" "What is the use of observation," he says
afterwards, " if we do not know the seat of diseases ? "
Among the clinical authorities, Broussais (1772 — 1838)
was one of the first who sought to localise diseases, and
strove to refer them to anatomical changes. He fell into
the error of referrincf most diseases to an inflammation — a
old school bou nd themselves together in an Association, whose chief
object was to "boycott" the homoeopaths. They formed a " code of
ethics " for this purpose. Under this code, the Massachusetts homoeo-
paths were expelled from the State Society ; an allopathic physician
of New York was expelled from his society for purchasing goods at a
homoeopathic drug-store ; another physician was expelled for assisting
a homoeopathic practitioner in a difficult labour case, said homoeo-
pathic practitioner being his own wife ; Dr. Bliss, a Washington allo-
path, was excommunicated for serving on a Board of Health with a
homoeopath; Dr. Cox was expelled for consulting with the excommu-
nicated Dr. Bliss ; Dr. Van Valzah was dismissed from his lecture-
ship in Jefferson Medical College for trying to save his life with
homoeopathic medicine after his allopathic physicians had given
him up. The existence of this Association, whose bond of union is
hatred of homceopathy, has produced complications and difficulties in
connexion with the projected International Medical Congress, whereat
the allopaths throughout the world, who promised themselves a de-
lightful holiday trip to Washington, are grieving, and the homoeopaths
everywhere are laughing. A British medical periodical (T/ic Medical
Times) remonstrates with this American Association for their treat-
inent of the homoeopaths, which reminds us of Satan reproving sin.
In France the old school does not seem to have the same opportu-
nities for exercising oppression on their reforming brethren enjoyed
by their colleagues in Germany, England and America, but when a
chance occurs we find it as zealously seized on as we could desire.
Thus, on the 4th January, 1856, the Anatomical Society of Paris ex-
pelled, on account of homoeopathic publications, Drs. J. P. Tessier,
Gabalda, Frddault and Jousset, and in the same resolution of expulsion,
in order to add insult to injury, this high-minded society included the
name of a member who had just been condemned by the tribunals for
some infamous crime.
Therapeutic ineptitude of pathological theories.
0//
gastro-enteritis — which he tried to cure by means of vene-
section and the apphcation of numbers of leeches ; by this
means he and his scholars and adherents made away with
some thousands of human beings, and, finally, with himself
The " anatomical school " which was developing itself at
this period went to work very thoroughly. Those diseases
for which no anatomical substratum could be found in the
dead body, e.g., neuralgias, were simply ignored. Percus-
sion and auscultation were brought to perfection by Cor-
visart and Laennec. Corvisart employed Auenbrugger's
percussion, and Piorry introduced the plessimeter ; Laennec
invented the stethoscope and taught its use. This method
In all the behaviour of the partizans of the old school towards their
colleagues of the homoeopathic school, what strikes us most is the
total absence of that courtesy and forbearance that should charac-
terize the controversies of members of a liberal and learned profession,
and which is to be found in their disputes and discussions about other
subjects. On what other points of medical opinion would the par-
tizans of one side consider it decent or becoming to call their oppo-
nents impostors, swindlers, quacks and liars, to expel them from their
societies, to refuse all professional intercourse with them, to defraud
them of their diplomas, to bar them from defending their views in the
periodicals, to harass them with coroner's inquests 1 And yet all these
things have been done by medical men to colleagues of equal social
rank and education, only because these colleagues held other views on
the selection and administration of medicine in disease. It is a
curious and unprecedented fact that though the school of traditional,
and, as it likes to call itself, " rational " medicine, assailed homoeopathy
with a bitterness and rancour that has no parallel in the mode of its
reception of other systems and other opinions, it has at the same
time gradually abandoned almost all the methods of treatment which
Hahnemann denounced, and which it declared to be essential, indis-
pensable, " sheet-anchors," and so forth. Where are now its lancets,
leeches, cupping-glasses, setons, issues, actual cauteries, blisters,
emetics and mercurial salivation? Thanks to Hahnemann, the school
of traditional medicine has now abandoned its traditional methods,
and may say with Sganarelle : " Cela c'tait autrefois ainsi ; mais nous
avons chang^ tout cela, et nous faisons maintenant la m^decine d'une
m(fthode toute nouvelle." Any one who should bleed now as Hahne-
mann's opponents bled and persecuted him for not doing the like,
would be denounced as a dangerous lunatic by that organ of allo-
pathic physic which still retains the name of the instrument of
bleeding — The Lancet. — [Ed.]
3/8 Qjiot homines tot seiitenticu.
of investigation was universally accepted in France and
England, while it was but partially adopted in Germany.*
These French ideas were transplanted by the new Vienna
school to Germany. Rokitansky, "the father of modern
German medicine," as he was called before the adoption
of the cellular pathology, brought about the reception of
pathological anatomy and developed it; and Skoda and
other stook up and taught the physical modes of investi-
gation. The changes effected by disease were observed,
but what was the cause of them? Where did they arise?
The impetus to pathological processes was given by de-
rangements of the fluids. In what did these chemical
changes consist? This was not discovered, and the thera-
peutic point of attack was wanting. This was the period
of nihilism, when it was " scientific " to scoff at the cura-
tive power of medicines. With regard to the development
of pathological alterations, in 1850 and still later people
believed in free cell formation on a structureless base
" from free blastema," when a generatio sequivoca had
already been rejected in other branches of science. The
exudation theory was of great importance in accounting for
the occurrence of morbid processes.
Natural philosophy constructed out of disease a special
organism, and some of its adherents supposed it to have roots
which penetrated the organism and which enabled it to grow
and flourish. The natural philosophers encouraged the
study of the natural sciences, and in this direction the
French school was not without influence.
Kieser, Ph. von Walther and Dollinger were adherents
of the school of natural philosophy ; and Schonlein was a
pupil of the two last; Schonlein founded "exact clinical
research." Johannes Miiller furnished a firmer and broader
basis for physiology.
Virchow was a pupil of Schonlein and Miiller. The
following is an abstract of his teaching, stated as far as
* J. H. Kopp. Aerztliche Bcmerkt(noen^ vera?ilasst durch etne Reisc
in Deutschland tend Frankreich, Frankfurt A/M. Also A, Miihry,
Darstellungeii nnd Ansichtcn ztir Verglcicliii77g dcr Medicin in Frank-
i'cich, England iind Deutschland. Hannover, 1836.
Virchozos cellular doctrine. T^yg
possible in his own clear words : — The human organism is
composed of simple minute components called cells, which
again may be considered as elementary organisms, for each
of these cells possesses inherent vitality and energy, and its
power is founded on its peculiar arrangement. The human
body is not, therefore, a unit in the strict material sense of
the word, but is rather multiple, a sort of federation or state.
The single cell within a tissue is not nourished but it nourishes
itself, i.e., it absorbs for its own use from the nutritive fluids
in its neighbourhood that which it requires. Its nourish-
ment, therefore, both in quantity and quality, is a result of
the energy of the cell, and is naturally dependent upon
the quantity and quality of the nourishment within its reach.
It is by no means obliged to absorb into itself all the
nourishment that flows around it. Just as a single cell of a
fungus or an alga extracts from the fluid in which it exists
just so much and just such kind of material as is necessary to
maintain its life, so the tissue cell in the middle of a com-
pound organism has elective faculties, in virtue of which it
rejects certain substances and accepts and utilizes others.
This is nutrition in the cellular sense. It is not one single
power that rules the organism, but its energy depends on
the co-operation of various powers. These powers are de-
rived from the individual elementary organisms — the cells.
Even the most striking unity in human life, the spiritual ego,
is not a fixed but a variable quantity. If, in spite of this,
the human organism appears to us to be a unit, this is owing
to three circumstances : ist. The arrangement of the vascular
apparatus and of the blood circulating in it is on a connected
system prevailing through the whole body, which causes a
material interchange of the stuffs and a certain dependence
of the individual parts on the blood. 2nd. We possess in
the arrangement of the nervous system, with which are
connected man's highest functions of intellectual activit}-, a
network of branches traversing the whole body and concen-
trated in the great central masses of the brain and spinal
cord. 3rd. The stamp of unity is given to the body by the
co-ordination of the innumerable cells. Such tissue co-
ordinations are, e.g., the muscles and the glands. Each of
380 Virchozu's cellular doctrine.
these arrangements, each of these so-called organs, is a
multiple made up of numberless elementary organisms.
The nervous system and the blood vessels also are made
up of these cellular elements. Every conception of the or-
ganism must therefore be superficial, external, so to speak,
which does not take account of the elements of which it
is composed. If such a conception at first sight appears
a breaking up of the body, a disintegration of the manner
of regarding it, further reflection shows that these innumer-
able elements are not placed side by side by chance ; they
belong to one another on account of their common origin
from a simple basic element, and this community of origin
causes a certain inherent resemblance and relation of the
elementary parts to one another, such as we observe among
the descendants from a common stock. They also belong
to one another because their existence is interdependent,
because the life of one cannot — or can only for a short
time — be sustained without that of the others. They are
also held together by mutual needs. Just as the vessels or
the blood and the nerves influence the other tissues, so they
are influenced by them in their turn. Hence a mutual in-
fluence is produced which may, according to circumstances,
be either beneficial or the reverse to the whole.
The study of diseases must, therefore, be preceded by a
knovrledge of those parts from which all the activit}' of
the body is derived, i.e., of the cells. Disease is an
alteration of the cells. This change takes place according
to fixed laws, the same laws as those underlying healthy
function. Therefore disease is no foreign existence causing
mischief in the body ; disease is only unregulated vital
activity. Every morbid symptom, every morbid structure,
has its physiological prototype, and it is impossible for
a pathological form to arise of which the elements are
not repetitions of normal processes. The development
of the foetus and of the egg may be referred to the same
fundamental principles which regulate its subsequent
course of life and the morbid disturbances. The diseased
structures are distinguished from the normal ones by the
irregular mode of their origin and occurrence. This irre-
VircJiozifs cellular doctrine. 381
gularity either consists in the fact that a structure is pro-
duced at a point where it does not belong, or at a time
when it ought not to be produced, or in a degree that departs
from the normal type of the body ; so that it is just as
possible to discover the elements of cancer in a normal
organism as those of pus. The diseased structures do not
alwa)-s correspond to one single physiological tissue ; thus,
for example, a cancer, like a gland, contains cellular ele-
ments in alveoLx or canals, surrounded by a stroma of
connective tissue supplied with blood vessels. All patho-
logical tissues are produced continuously from physio-
logical tissues.
Blood cannot be looked on as a whole in contradistinc-
tion to other parts, it is not a constant, independent fluid
on which the mass of the remaining tissues is more or less
directly dependent. This is the mistaken view of humoral
pathology, which, as regards most of its principles, rests
on the hypothesis that changes which have taken place in
the blood are more or less lasting. In the doctrine of
chronic diseases it was usual to represent the change
of the blood as being continuous, and even as being
transmitted and maintained by heredity from generation
to generation. Blood, as such, does not transmit dys-
crasia. The blood is not an independent fluid, regen-
erating itself from itself, but a fluid tissue, which is in a
state of constant dependence on the other parts. Every
lasting " dyscrasia " depends upon a permanent accession
of injurious substances from certain points (foci), though
these localizations are not found everywhere. Every last-
ing alteration in the condition of the circulating fluids
must be derived from individual organs or tissues. There
is no such thing as a dyscrasia in which the blood
lastingly transmits special changes. There are two
categories of dyscrasic conditions — according to whether
anomalous morphological components are contained in
the blood, or v/hether the deviation is rather chemical
and exists in the fluid parts. As a rule, morphological
dyscrasias do not go on without chemical dyscrasias, and
vice versa. The question what the infectious substance
382 Virchozus cellular doctrine.
actually is, whether it is connected with cellular elements
or peculiar organisms, or whether it is purely chemical,
is a difficult one, and nowhere is rash generalisation
more dangerous Ihan here. With regard to the thedry of
dyscrasia, it is shown that either substances enter into the
blood which influence injuriously its cellular elements, and
disturb them in their functions, or that substances are
brought to the blood from some definite point, whether
from outside or from some organ, which, from the vantage
ground of the blood, affect the other organs injuriously.
Finally, it may happen that the components of the blood
are not regularly replaced.
No permanent dyscrasia is possible except by means of
some new influence brought to bear upon the blood from
,some central focus. It follows as a consequence of this
that it is important in practice to find out the local origin
in all cases of dyscrasia.
By means of the study of pathological and pharmaco-
dynamical phenomena we are driven by necessity to admit
the existence of certain affinities between certain substances
and certain tissues, relations which can be referred to
chemical qualities, in consequence of which certain parts
are more fitted to draw certain substances from the sur-
rounding parts, and thus, also, from the blood. Certain
substances which enter the blood can induce changes in
certain parts of the body, by being taken up into them in
virtue of the specific attraction of special tissues to special
substances. In almost all cases specific relations exist
between the irritable parts and the irritant substances.
In all tissues we find that the function depends on the
minute change of the contents of the cell or the proto-
plasm, which probably consists in a slight chemical change
in the molecules.
Virchow himself recognises that his theory splits up
the body into a complexity of cells ; he seeks to keep
them together by their " reciprocal action ;" but this is
not sufficient to explain the organic processes. If we look
Recrudescence of the vital force. 383
at the harmonic movements in the concrete individual,
whether vegetable or animal, the transmission of the
qualities of parents — even to the slightest peculiarities —
which are transplanted from generation to generation ;
the constantly recurring properties of different genera and
species developing themselves from a small cell ; if we
consider the regular processes of growth which seem to
be prescribed to the original cell and maintained within
the individual until its final extinction, we are obliged to
accept the hypothesis of a transmissible principle of unity
which causes the activity of the organism. This funda-
mental force can only be a component part of common,
natural forces. It was formerly called the " vital force,"
and everything was referred to it that could not be other-
wise explained. By this means an insuperable obstacle
vvas placed in the way of scientific knowledge, which was
soon, however, torn down by the inquiring human mind.
A school of iatro-mechanists and iatro-chemists arose who
made the processes of the organism fit in witli the chemical
and physical views of the period. These attempts in the
primitive state of this science led to the most crude views,
which were not satisfying. The conception of a vital
force was again introduced, but as it was believed that
scientific investigations could not flourish under the empire
of the vital force, this has been recently vehemently
opposed, and everyone was condemned who accepted the
idea of such a fundamental force. Physiologists rushed
into the opposite extreme.
In order to maintain this stand-point they went to work
in a very radical manner ; everything was simply ignored
or denied that did not fit in with the system. Physiology
puts on one side the discussion of the forces which excite
the originating cells to the development of the individual,
although this question ought to be the very first. To
satisfy the requirements of this system the truth of vital
magnetism was long denied. Virchow persisted, up to a
recent period, in calling it a false science. Recently mag-
netism has suddenly become " scientific," and has intruded
itself into university knowledge, and, notwithstanding
384 Chemical changes in the molecules
Heidcrhain's* efiforts, refuses to be suppressed. The medical
faculties scornfully denied a fact they were not acquainted
with, and which they refused to investigate because it did
not fit in with their science. They closed their eyes wil-
fully in order to maintain their own system.
It is the same with the reception of a fundamental force.
We are certainly justified in not giving a cordial reception
to the idea of a vital force, because it is apt to become
associated with mysticism ; but we are not justified in
simply rejecting it altogether. This is a fault on the part
of University medicine which has been a chief cause of
their therapeutic fallacies. The abstract term " irritation,"
has been adopted from Virchow, although it has a wider
signification. " The cell Is acted on by an irritatant." This
is an expression that means nothing, but which is daily
used without any distinct idea being apparently connected
with it.
A second great mistake from which orthodox medicine
suffers is, that it is at variance with itself, there is a diver-
gence between doctrine and practice. It says : " In all
tissues we find the function principally depending on the
minute alteration in the contents of the cell or the proto-
plasm, which makes it probable that it depends on a
chemical change in the molecules." It would be more in
accordance with facts if we were to say : " the energy of
the cells is influenced by a movement of chemical mole-
cules." Whether it is not rather a daring thing to refer
the whole activity of man, the world of his thought and
feeling, his memory, &c., to chemistry alone, need not be
considered. At all events, according to this view it is
the principal object of investigation to become acquainted
with the chemical changes. The physical anatomical ap-
pearances are primarily the result of chemical processes.
Investigation must occupy itself first with chemical pro-
cesses and then proceed to consider pathological anatomy.
Instead of this the reverse takes place. The physical altera-
tions of the cells form the chief object of investigation,
* Dcr sog. thicr. Magnctis)mts^ Leipsic, 18S0.
the cmtse of morbid processes. 38 5
and, incidentally, a certain amount of attention is given to
chemistry.
Soon after the appearance of the cellular pathology, phy-
sical theories forced themselves into the foreground of
therapeutics, because investigators were constantly con-
sidering the anatomical form of cells and cell groups. Up
to that time the effect of iron in chlorosis, for instance, had
been explained by the fact that it supplied a constituent
that was deficient in the blood ; now the untenability of
this theory was proved, and the action of iron was referred
to the tonic properties of this metal, and the effect of steel
baths was appealed to in confirmation.
A chance discovery of Virchow's, that ciliary move-
ments are excited by alkalis, was sought to be applied to
therapeutics, and it was triumphantly used to explain the
beneficial effects of mineral waters ; the alleged discovery
of the paralysing effect of carbonic-oxide gas upon the
nucleus of the red corpuscles (according to the present view
there is no such nucleus) was brought forward, and raised
hopes that other excitant physical agents might be dis-
covered to act on other cell groups.
It was Virchow himself who chiefly called attention to
pathological anatomy, and this is easily explicable by his
especial line of study. He thus himself principally con-
tributed to make his theory unfruitful for therapeutics.
He did not hesitate to maintain that chlorosis was re-
ferrable to " defective structure of the heart and large
arteries."* According to him " chlorosis " is incurable, and
only a temporary benefit can be attained. If Virchow had
been a practical physician he would never have made this
statement, or would at least have confined it to certain
cases. It is, however, characteristic, and we need not be
surprised if a tendency to chronic coryza is referred to the
anatomical structure of the nose.
Do the anatomical views of pathology agree with the
investigations of the physiologists ? What does the physi-
ologist teach? With all organs he tries to discover, among
* Ucbcr die Chlofose. Berlin, 1S72, p. 3.
25
386 Thc7'ape2itics vmst be founded on
other things, the influence of the nerves on their functions,
and investigates with the greatest minuteness the chemical
processes which come into play in the body. Take for
example the functions of the spleen, the pancreas and the
liver. In the last, for instance, account is taken of the
chemical composition of the bile, of the connexion of the
constituents of the bile with those of the blood, of the
changes that take place in it in certain states of activity
of other organs, when certain nerves are irritated, and of
the chemical changes attending it in the faeces, urine, blood
and saliva. Cells are hardly mentioned.
What is the pathological method of procedure? The
greatest importance is attached to the physical changes of
cells, little attention is paid to the influence of the nerves,
and chemistry occupies a comparatively subordinate posi-
tion.
Here, then, there is a most obvious want of harmony in
the methods of investigation, and this is the fault of the
pathologists. They themselves say that chemistry is pri-
mary and physical phenomena secondary. According to
their own theory, then, they direct their attention to the
results of the disease, not to the disease itself " There is
a great gulf in the medical art between knowledge and
practice," as Virchow says of allopathy. When such a
method of investigation is pursued, it would be remark-
able if the case were otherwise.
If there is any prospect, which we doubt, of founding
a system of therapeutics on our imperfect physical and
chemical knowledge, a greater prominence must be given
to chemistry than has been the case hitherto. Certain
attempts have been made in this direction, and here we
must mention the name of the late lamented Beneke, who,
however, did not meet with much attention, especially as
his efforts had no therapeutic results, because he, too,
started from too crude notions. More recently Baumann,
Brieger and E. Salkowsky (these two last under Frerichs
and Virchow) have obtained valuable results. The work of
Salkowsky and Leube, Die Lchre vom Ham, Berlin, 1S83,
deserves to be mentioned with approval.
a knozukdge of minute chemical changes. 3 8/
These ^are only the efforts of individuals, they are not
general; investigations are not conducted methodically.
Then we have the search for " nitrogen," " phosphoric acid,"
" sulphuric acid," &c., indeed we never feel sure that one of
these substances will not crop up in any book we may
happen to be reading.
How can such coarse experiments give us an insight into
the chemical movements of the organism ? Such attempts
might be sufficient to discover the value of some article of
food, but not to determine the nature of the complicated
chemical processes in the organism. Such " investiga-
tions " disgrace our knowledge, and show that we are very
far from a right appreciation of the importance of chemistry.
This is also shown by the fact that even now there are no
special professorships of pathological chemistry, which are
just as important for medicine as professorships of patho-
logical anatomy.
We seldom or never find among the writings of the
allopaths the report of a disease with a satisfactory diag-
nosis, and yet they receive adequate assistance from the
State for their investigations in every direction. If the
anatomical changes present have been, as far as possible,
ascertained, " scientific " requirements are supposed to be
satisfied ; if the urine has been tested for albumen, su-
gar, and " nitrogen," everything has been done. We might
expect from orthodox medicine, which is so amply pro-
vided with means, the establishment of a chemical, in
addition to an anatomical diagnosis, which should make
an accurate chemical analysis of all the secretions of the
body, such as urine, faeces, saliva, expectoration, sweat,
and also if possible the exhalations, and, in the case of
animals, the blood, with strict regard to the amount of the
ingesta, the temperature and moisture of the air, the state
of the barometer, &c., and we should thus enlarge our
knowledge of the chemistry of the body in a manner cor-
responding to the present state of science.
Thus, for example, in patients suffering from fever the
urine ought not to be merely analysed for nitrogen in order
to calculate from this the amount of urea ; but the other
3 88 TJie zvagoii-axle theory of disease.
nitrogeiious constituents, crcatinin, xanthin, hippuric acid,
&c., should also be considered. Private medical practitioners
can only carry out such investigations with the greatest
difficulty ; but in hospitals, with the aid of assistants, they
could at least be undertaken in each form of disease.
Future generations will smile at the perfunctory manner in
which we make our diagnosis.
A glance at the text books of general pathology will show
us the onesidedness of allopathic vievv-s. The best known
are those of Uhle and Wagner, of Samuel and of Cohnheim.
In all three, chem.istry is treated in an extremel}' step-
motherly manner. The well-known results of chcmico-
pathological investigations are seldom if ever mentioned.
If medicine is treated in such a fashion, the crudest
ideas concerning the operations of the organism must
prevail. Professor Jiirgensen imparts the following in-
struction to his pupils : " The axle of a wagon, by the
concussions it is perpetually subjected to, graduall}- be-
comes crystalline, and its weight-bearing power is lessened.
In the same manner the construction of an originally
povv-erful constitution maj' be gradually disintegrated by
the labour of life."*
If a university professor, whose duty it is to instruct
future physicians in the physiological bases of medicine,
and to* encourage his students to reflect upon the natural
processes of the organism—if such a man plants such
crude, mediaeval iatromechanical ideas in their young
heads, hastens, indeed, to publish such doctrines and
spread them far and wide, the mere mention of such a
fact suffices to characterise allopathy. Jiirgensen's analogy
of the wagon axle-tree should be kept constantly before
the eyes of the allopaths as a warning.
Jurgensen, in his anti-homoeopathic essay, says : " As
long as the arrangement of our studies makes it possible
for the young doctor, who has learnt without having been
taught to think, to enter into practice with the scantiest
amount of knowledge, so long will it be likely that he will
* Sanwilung ]:Jin. J'ofir.^ von A'olkmann. No. 6i, p. 4S2.
Bacterial therapeutics. 3 89
soon desert into the ranks of our opponents." Jiirgensen
may rest assured that as long as such wagon-axle con-
ceptions are taught there is not the slightest danger of the
young physician accepting homoeopathy.
Latterly, the wildest therapeutic hopes have been
founded on the interesting discoveries of bacteria in the
seat of various diseases. The bacteria certainly form a
very seductive point of attack for the operations of the
physician. The indications lie patent to the view, and the
therapeutic treatment is very simple. Hitherto, however,
the results have not been commensurate with the expecta-
tions. In no internal disease, according to the allopathic
view, is the point of attack on the bacteria more con-
veniently situated than in diphtheria. Nevertheless, the
results of the allopathic treatment of this disease are pitiful.
In Berlin alone, 2000 children die annually from it, which
is a large proportion, notwithstanding the confessedly un-
hygienic surroundings.
The antiseptic treatment of wounds with carbolic acid is
cited as an admirable example of the importance of killing
bacteria. But there is a concurrence of facts connected with
this subject which ought not to be disregarded. Among
other things, the temperature is said to be lowered by car-
bolic acid ; * further, it has been observed that carbolic
acid and other antiseptics will prevent the escape of the
white corpuscles, and therefore they will arrest the progress
of inflammation and the formation of pus. It is further
manifest, from the researches carried on by the sanitary
authorities, that carbolic acid in an oleaginous solution
will not destroy bacteria, and yet physicians refuse to
subordinate their practice to theory, and believe in an anti-
septic action of carbolized oil, although oil in itself is not a
suitable dressing for wounds.
It is also worthy of observation that even the much
vaunted antiseptic iodoform, even in large quantities, is not
able to arrest the decomposition of albumen. Greater at-
tention should be given to the chemical action of the
* Szhmi^^s Jahrbiichcr, Vol. CXCIV., p. 23:
390 Transformation of bacteria.
aromatic compounds on the production of urea in fever
and inflammation.
The observations of Rosenberger* and others that septic
poison free from bacteria can excite the same infective
phenomena as that containing bacteria, have an important
bearing on the bacteria question ; indeed, specific sep-
ticaemic bacteria make their appearance in the organism "
which has been infected without bacteria. These sep-
ticsemic bacteria thus developed were, according to Rosen-
berger, produced from the fissiparous fungi present in the
normal organism. Of course these assertions require
confirmation.
Buchner has observed the transformation of innocent
into poisonous bacilli in the hay and splenic fever bacilli,
and in spite of the denial of Koch this is confirmed by
other observers.
That a hurtful substance introduced into the body is
able to increase the number of bacteria normally existing
in it, has been established by Rossbachf by his experi-
ments on the effects of papayotin. By introducing this
substance into the circulation an extraordinary large
number of micrococci is developed in the blood even in
one to two hours. This discovery, which has been con-
firmed by subsequent experiments, affords experimental
proof of the fact that a poison, itself free from organisms, is
able to increase the lower organisms pre-existing in the
body with astonishingly greater rapidity than can be done
by an actual infection.
Rossbach justly draws the conclusion " that in true in-
fection the chemical poison or ferment present along with
the inoculated organisms is not unimportant." We may
add that it is of far more importance than the bacteria,
which are only the carriers of the poison, and that this is
capable of existing without them.
The hereditary transmission of syphilis is a proof of this.
This disease may also be transmitted through parasites. A
single spermatozoon is sufficient for conception. This one
* Centralbhiiif. d. med. Wiss. 18S2, p. 65.
t Ibid.^ p. 8r.
Germicides the only true medicines. 39 1
seminal animalcule is the carrier of the syphilitic virus, as
well as of many other things. The virus appears to be
structureless in this case, and indeed, must be infinitel}-
small in quantity.
It is also important to note that the extent and intensity
of a morbid process are not always proportional to the num-
ber of the bacteria present. It would be rash as yet to
pronounce a decided opinion respecting the importance of
bacteria with regard to hygiene ; it is, however, certain that
they will not have the important bearing upon therapeutics
which allopaths expect from them. The results hitherto ob-
tained are in the highest degree unsatisfactory. Nevertheless,
the attempts in this direction occupy a prominent position.
Many have gone so far as to appraise the therapeutic value
of medicines according to their ability to kill bacteria, and
to deny all medicinal action to substances which are not de-
structive of bacteria.
Bacterial therapeutics, which played such an important
part in the Medical Congress of 1S83, is the pendant to the
earlier chemical theories before spoken of We are as much
dazzled nowadays by the discovery of bacteria as our pre-
decessors were formerly by the great advances in chemistry
caused by Lavoisier's discoveries. Over-hasty attempts
were made to utilise them at the sick bed, which were even
shared by Alex, von Humboldt. Deficiency and excess of
oxygen were the causes of disease, and there were corres-
ponding drugs which were to cure by promoting the pro-
duction or the absorption of oxygen. There was a germ of
truth at the bottom of these views.
Yet, just as we now smile at the nai'vetc of such physio-
logical conceptions, shall we some day smile at the present
attempt to found a bacterial therapeutics, which does not
hesitate to attribute the efficacy of cold baths, in part at
least, to their effect upon the growth of bacteria, as appears
from the reports of the Medical Congresses.
Parasitism, upon which a large proportion of the allo-
paths now place all their hopes in spite of its signal failure,
shows how little confidence they had in their former thera-
peutics ; it further demonstrates that they do not understand
392 Killing izvo birds zvith one stone.
how to appreciate Virchow's beautiful doctrine and, indeed,
that they have no clear conception of its importance.
The gist of his doctrine, which no one has ever before
expressed with such conviction and supported by such
proofs, and from which Hahnemann himself started, is
this : — Disease is a physiological process. The inference
is: Study the forces which move the healthy organism and
are inherent in it, search for the substances with which
they are bound up, and make use of these forces for the
cure of diseases.
The bacterial craze disregards these fundamental rules,
for it regards the processes in the body as of no account ;
it simply kills the parasites and so cures the patient, unless
the latter is killed first ; for it cannot be doubted that an
agent capable of killing the bacteria would also kill the
bacteria's host or seriously injure him.
We observe that in typhus, scarlet fever, measles, &c., the
body develops forces which subdue the disease together
with the bacteria ; the true physiological method of cure
would be to stimulate and reinforce these forces in morbid
processes.
Virchow's theory, which for more than twcnt}' years
formed the basis of orthodox medicine, so much so that
Virchow was called " the father of German medicine," has
lately been to a great extent abandoned. Whereas it in
former years completely dominated the views of all the allo-
paths, and the latter confidently anticipated that it would
effect a beneficial development of medicine and loftily de-
spised all who thought otherwise, a decided opponent to it
appeared at the Congresses of Naturalists and Physicians
in Munich in 1877 and in Cassel in 1878. Klebs boldly
attacked Virchow in Cassel, without for a moment denying
the latter's great services to medicine: "The central idea
of the whole cellular theory," Klebs declared, " is quite
undemonstrated, and is indeed extremely improbable." In
the doctrine of the independent activity of the cell, there
lay concealed vitalism, which is untenable.
A special cell-force, ^vhich resents injuries and carries on a kind of
war with the enemy — a cellular vital force — does not exist We
Cellular pathology of no therapeutic value. 393
cannot recognize the autonomy of the cells as a morbid principle
Metaplasia of the cells, as described by Virchow, does not occur
Cellular pathology has not inquired why this or that element should
get beyond bounds.
The most important task of medicine is not fulfilled by the cellular
pathology ; the latter neglects everythmg antecedent to cellular
changes, and has not succeeded in giving us a knowledge of those
morbid processes in which cell-changes do not occur or come on at a
later period.
For this reason cellular pathology can develop no rational — i.e.
scientific — therapeutics based on a knowledge of the course of the
morbid processes Amicus Plato, major amica Veritas !
We here see an allopath and an admirer of Virchow
convinced that his doctrine has been of no service to
rational therapeutics, a fact of great significance when we
recall the great expectations founded upon it, and the sub-
lime contempt expressed by thorough-going partisans of
Virchow for all who differed from them.
Physical investigations are of the greatest importance to
surgery. We observe daily with satisfaction the benefits
of the great progress it has made, although the application
of the same ideas to the province of internal medicine have
had a most detrimental action.
Hygiene has also made great and most beneficent pro-
gress.
All the more lamentable is the condition of therapeutics.
It is evident from what has been said that allopathic treat-
ment, which disregards the active forces, must be merely
symptomatic and mechanical. E very-day experience con-
firms this.
In his Handbuch der KrankJieiten des chylopoctischeii
Apparaies* Leube attributes the beneficial action of Karls-
bad, Marienbad and Tarasp to their supposed property of
accelerating the evacuation of the injurious contents of the
alimentary canal, and deduces therefrom that enough water
must be introduced into the diseased bowels to produce
many watery stools.
We imagine ourselves transplanted to the last century
after we read such stuff. Here are the same crude and
coarse ideas respecting the process of cure as were enter-
* I. 2nd Edit., p. 77, Leipzic, 1878.
394 Saivation in the stoniacJi-pinnp.
tained by the old defunct physicians with their stases,
obstructions and impure humours. Even on theoretical
grounds, every physician must see that if this were the case
every purgative would have as good an effect, even if the
most superficial observation did not suffice to show him
that these mineral waters have a beneficial effect even in
doses too small to purge, and that constipation during a
course of the waters does not interfere with the cure, and
that if the waters are taken in moderation better results
are obtained than if the large quantities necessary to
establish diarrhoea are taken, and the organism is by this
means overloaded and weakened.
The same chimney-sweep ideas are held in connexion
with the stomach-pump. This instrument, which is cer-
tainly useful in very rare cases, is abused to an extent
which shows how dissatisfied the allopaths are with the
results hitherto obtained by them in affections of the
stomach. Limited at first to dilatation of the stomach and
gastric ulcers, it soon became employed in all chronic dis-
eases of the stomach. Zeal was carried to such a pitch
that a certain physician complained loudly because his
name was not mentioned in connexion with the stomach-
pump, though he was one of the first to advocate its use
in all cases of catarrh of the stomach. Leube boldly as-
serted* that : " The immense progress made by clinical
medicine in this century is shown in this " — the use of the
stomach-pump.
This commendation had hardly been uttered, when voices
were gradually raised to expose the error into which medi-
cal men had so generally fallen, and by one after another
this proof of "the immense progress" of allopathy was con-
signed to the lumber-room of exploded doctrines.
If the theory of the action of the stomach-pump were
correct, every cold in the head should be rapidly cured by
blowing the nose frequently and physiolog}- would be
naught.
We can excuse the mistakes of individuals, but when
* Die Magejisonde, Eriangen, 1S79, p. Si.
Narcotics and anti-pyretics. 395
wc find the whole profession holding a view quite opposed
to physiology like this, we cannot but believe that their
entire therapeutic principles have no foundation on physi-
ology.
The same is the case with regard to the pneumatic appa-
ratus, without which no " scientific " consulting-room was
complete. At the present time it only plays a subordinate
role and is only used by a few physicians.
The treatment of pain and sleeplessness, which are so
frequently combined, by morphia or chloral hydrate, shows
how one-sided and symptomatic is the allopathic method of
treatment.
In the majority of febrile affections the therapeutic eye
is fixed exclusively on one manifestation of the process,
on one partial phenomenon of the disease, that is on the
fever. For some years past quinine is the great remedy
for all the various morbid processes combined with fever ;
it is the great febrifuge.
For a period salicylic acid ran it hard ; latterly, however,
it has been more and more confined to the treatment of
rheumatism, but even with regard to this disease, in spite
of the tens of thousands of observers, they are not yet, after
so many years, in a position to indicate precisely the cases
for which it is suitable. It cannot be doubted that sali-
cylic acid is a great gain to allopathic therapeutics in the
treatment of this disease, though the allopaths, by their
immoderate doses, seem to render doubtful the utility
of this remedy.
Before quinine, digitalis had been brought into fashion as
the febrifuge par excellence, by Traube and Wunderlich.
Quinine, also, is again dethroned, and new usurpers are
making their appearance which will obtain the empire
over all the fevers. A professor of Erlangen has brought
on the tapis as the newest, and therefore of course the best
febrifuge, oxychinolinmethylhydrure. This drug, which
for the sake of brevity he calls kairin, " is able to bring
down the temperature to the normal without any evil re-
sults,"* Therefore this wonderful remedy must be able to
* Berlin, klin. Wochenschrift^ 1882, p. 681.
396 Give several vicdicines at once,
cure the most various pathological processes depending
upon the most various morbific causes.
As long as the universities are wedded to the delusion
that one remedy directed to one manifestation can arrest
the morbid action, no valuable achievements are to be
expected from them.
Daily experience gives sufficient proof of the super-
ficial and one-sided symptomatic treatment of university
medicine.
Another fault that still adheres to ordinary practice, is
that of mixing various drugs. Virchovv, who has never,
like so many of his colleagues, despaired of therapeutics,
gives the allopaths the sensible advice with regard to the
action of drugs, only to trouble themselves about the
" what " and not the " how." Hence he appeals to ex-
perience, but he might very well have added the warning
of old Professor von Wedekind, given in 1828.*
Physicians may, while continuing their practice of administering
mixtures, attain in course of time to grey, even, God willing, to white
hair, but they will never gain any experience. But if the example of
the homoeopaths is able to induce us to give less medicine, to change
our remedies less frequently, and never to mix them without special
reasons, we shall, by careful observation, some day come so far that
we shall, without boasting, possess more practical experience than is
now unhappily the case ; with what satisfaction shall we then be able
to regard the absurdities of the homceopaths.
The virulence of their attacks show that the satisfaction
over the " absurdities " of the homoeopaths is not great, but
all the greater is the mania for mixtures, as the allopa-
thic prescriptions daily show. This is shown not less by
the works on prescription-writing, especially that of Wal-
denburg and Simon, in which, according to the assurances
of the preface, the " best prescriptions" are given ; and, in
fact, they are almost all long and what the chemists call
" beautiful " prescriptions, prettily arranged for the use of
medical practitioners. How much these prescriptions are
used, is shown by the number of editions through which
the book has run; a new one appeared in 18S3, edited
* Hufel. Jown., Vol. LXVL, St. 6, p. 4.
pei'Jiaps one may hit the mark. 397
by a physician named Ewald and an apothecary named
Liidecke.* The prescriptions are just as long and beauti-
ful as ever.
The best " authorities " are devoted to the practice of
giving complex mixtures, which, as Hahnemann told them
so often nearly a hundred years ago, always goes hand in
hand with quackery. Though now-a-days it is considered
necessary to brand Hahnemann as a charlatan, this one
merit they should allow him and they might imitate the
simplicity of his medicines, for without that exact observa-
tion is impossible. They are, however, still far removed
from this goal. The most illustrious physicians mix four
or five drugs together " scientifically," and thus ally them-
selves with the quacks ; and these are the teachers of the
rising generation of medical men.
In order to excuse the practice of compounding, they
refer to the composite character of plants and mineral wa-
ters. These, however, are quite definite, unalterable com-
pounds of various substances, and have been proved as
a whole, and may thus be regarded as individual medicines.
The compounder capriciously mixes various drugs, one for
each symptom, and is under the delusion that each in-
gredient of the inixture retains its peculiar action and will
reach its proper address like the letters in the Post Office,
or he imagines that one remedy will " correct " the other.
The allopaths, at least some of them, give certain drugs,
of whose effect they feel certain, simply, as morphia,
quinine, salicylic acid (salicylate of soda), and mercury,
and thus, as regards some medicines, they already ap-
proach the teachings of the great Hahnemann, as they
do also in their disuse of blood-letting and the "evacu-
ating: method."
* In the Preface they speak of " Rademacher's long prescriptions,"'
which shows that they know nothing about Rademacher's therapeutics,
and do not even know the contents of the book they edit. In it Rade-
macher's prescriptions are given, and they are among the very shortest
it contains. This is another proof of the fri\-olous manner in which
allopaths judge of things not belonging to their orthodox system, and
of which, on that account, they are quite ignorant.
398 Usual doses much too large,
It is true that they still change their remedies too often
and do not allow them to exhaust their full action, and
they also commit the still greater mistake of giving them
in immoderate doses, thus complicating the natural with an
artificial disease.
But a true " rational " scientific allopath is never at a
loss; thus the Aer::tlicJies Intelligenzblatt recommends in tlic
dangerous injuries to the hearing produced by salicylic
acid — not, indeed, a diminution of the dose and to pay par-
ticular attention to the peculiarities of individual cases, in
order to ascertain where it is suitable — but the adminis-
tration of secale cornutum in order to diminish the hyper-
aemia and paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves ; it, however,
adds that the addition of this drug often produces nausea,
retching,* and even vomiting. Another widely-read paper,
the Deutsche Medi::inalzeititng,^ considers this discovery of
such importance that it gives it to its circle of readers with
an approving introduction.
In order to carry out the requirements of " science,"
morphia should be added to counteract the retching and
vomiting of the secale, and it would certainly also be
" rational " to counteract the " collateral effects " of this
dearly beloved morphia, by giving its antidote atropia by
way of a corrigens.
In such a state of " science," it will not be superfluous to
glance at some of the " collateral effects " of the allopathic
remedies.
Quinine, in medicinal doses, produced gastralgia, pa-
ralysis, epileptic fits, deafness, amaurosis, and in twelve
cases death-t
A child six years old, suffering from ague, was given two
doses of 3 grs. of quinine, one at two and the other at
five p.m. An hour after the last dose it became hot and
restless and was seized with convulsions, followed by
mydriasis and blindness. It died in three hours.
A man of thirty years of age, suffering from ague, but
* No. 3, 1S83. t Deutsche Medizinalzeitung, 1S83, p. 511.
X "ScA-wnidisJahrbiichcr. Vol. LXVL, p. t6S.
they sovictinies kill the patient. 399
otherwise healthy, took in the space of twenty and a half
hours, 52 grains of quinine. An hour and a half after the
last dose, he was seized with restlessness, trembling, ir-
regular and shallow breathing, mydriasis, blindness and
convulsions. Guersent quotes similar observations by
Trousseau and Giacometti in the Diet, de Med., vol. 26,
art. Qjtinquina.
When quinine was given to dogs the following symp-
toms were produced : restlessness, vomiting, diarrhoea,
convulsive movements in the muscles, staggering gait,
paralysis of the limbs, vascular excitement, accelerated
pulse, difficult breathing, immovable and dilated pupils,
loss of sight, convulsions, coma, twitchings, dyspnoea and
death.
The necroscopies showed " accumulation of blood in
the lungs resembling red hepatisation ; " " congestion of
the vessels of the brain and its membranes, also, occasion-
ally, of the liver and kidneys;" "patches of congestion in
the stomach and intestines;" "the spinal cord more or less
congested."
" The poisonous effects of quinine on dogs agree with
those produced by it on man."
Dr. Bazire dosed himself to death with quinine, and his
wife was rendered deaf and blind for a considerable time
by taking "^y^ drachms within a short time. Kriquet saw
death result, on two occasions, from much smaller doses,
and Recamier from 2 ounces taken in 4-grain doses. The
author thinks that doses of ^ to i drachm would be fatal
nine times (?) out of ten.*
After 3// drachm of hydrocyanate of quinine, the following
effects were observed : " great heat of the whole body, red-
ness and swelling of the face, hard and full pulse, twitchings,
redness of the conjunctivae, widely-dilated pupils, salivation,
stammering, convulsions of the upper extremities, embar-
rassed respiration, anxiety, profuse sweating on the chest,
incontinence of urine and emission of semen in a strong
man, aged 27," who could with difficulty be saved.
■^ Schm\(}i\:s Ja/irdiichcr, Vol. LXIIL, p. 16.
400 Quinine not absolutely Juxruiless.
After y^ drachm of sulphate of quinine amaurosis came
on, and after 3/^ drachm violent hsemorrhage from the
rectum.*
A woman, aged 33, experienced violent cerebral symp-
toms, with convulsive movements, from i^ grain of
quinine, and a repetition of the dose brought on the same
symptoms. Three other similar cases are mentioned.!
After medicinal doses of 6 grains to i drachm common
effects produced were : Heaviness and sense of fulness,
confusion of head, difficulty of hearing, deafness, delusions
of vision, vertigo, occasional delirium, in rare cases menin-
gitis and convulsions, still more rarely general collapse.!
On giving it to three healthy colleagues, i to li hours
after doses of 9 to 12 grains of quinine, there resulted:
redness of the face and ears (especially the lobes), sense of
fulness and ringing in the ears, as also great injection of
the vessels of the malleus — signs, probably, of congestion
of the lab}Tinth.§
By experiments on animals, the fact has been established
that quinine produces great hyperaemia and ecchymoses of
the mucous membrane lining the internal ear, exudations
and destructive processes in the labyrinth, great injection
of the meningeal vessels and ecchymoses in the brain.
We not unfrcquently meet people com.plaining of deaf-
ness after the administration of quinine. An allopath con-
firms this in the Berliner klinische WoeJienscJirift (i88r, p.
726), where he declares " that he has interrogated people
worthy of credit, who asserted that they had become deaf
in consequence of the administration of large doses of
quinine." The symptoms of quinine-deafness are there
described in detail, and bleeding, mercurial ointment, and
tincture of iodine are recommended as remedies.
In consequence of an observation of Hardy, that sudden
death has followed the administration of quinine in large
doses in typhus, Labordcli undertook physiological experi-
'•^ Schmidt^s Jnhrb. Vol. XVI 1 1., p, 292. J Ibid, LXXXL, p. 1 57.
t Ibid, Vol. LXXVIL, p. 308. § Ibid, \o\. CLXXIV., p, 294
l| Ibid, Vol. CXCIX.,p. 122.
Pathogenetic effects of quinine. 401
ments by giving large doses of quinine to rabbits and dogs.
Soon after the injection the force of the contractions of the
heart increased, and this was followed by weakening of the
heart's action ; on renewing the dose the heart's action was
again increased ; finally, its force was greatly diminished
and trembling movements of it supervened.
" This effect of quinine on the heart, in predisposing
morbid states, explains the cases of sudden death in typhus
and allied fevers through syncope or paralysis of the heart
and respiration."*
Besides quinine, salicylic acid has become a fashionable
allopathic remedy, and we see it prescribed in doses of 3 or
even 5 drachms (salicylate of soda). Prof. X.-f- who tried
0.05 to O.io gramme doses of salicylic acid several times a
day in the diarrhoea of children states : " In most cases in
which it was given, sooner or later severe inflammation of
the kidneys set in, not seldom accompanied with uraemia
and ending fatally. More or less serious collapse was also
a common result of its administration."
He further speaks of the injurious effects of salicylic acid
in febrile affections, and the following case is narrated :
Febrile symptoms made their appearance in a child of five
months, the " probable cause of which was inflammation of
vaccine vesicles, three of which existed on each arm and
which had suppurated." To bring down the fever salicylic
acid was prescribed, 15 grains in three doses, to be taken
at short intervals ; the child resisted so lustily that only
8 or 10 grains could be given. It immediately became
restless, cried loudly, tossed about, &c.
* Physiological experiments by Dumdril, Demarquay and Lecointe,
with doses of 1 5 to 30 grains of quinine, caused, first, a decrease of
the temperature by some tenths of a degree, and then a rise of 1.3 to
2.2" (Schmidt's Jahrb., Vol. LXXI., p. 288). In two dogs {Ibid, Vol.
LXXVL, p. 21), after the introduction of 15 to 30 grains of quinine the
temperature rose from 1.5 to 2°. In the same periodical (Vol. LXXVI I.,
p. 358) there is a report of the "quinine fever," in the manufactory of
Zimmer in Frankfurt o. M. In one case there occurred a tertian
ague, p. 359 : " according to Zimmer the fever comes on with extreme
heat or with icy coldness of the whole body, very like an ague."
t Schmidt's >/^/-&., Vol. CLXXIII., p. 161.
26
402 Toxic effects of salicylic acid.
As a consequence of the medicine, the mucous mem-
brane of the mouth and fauces was eroded as if from the
action of lunar caustic ; the child was unable to swallow,
and any touch on the mouth, the cheeks and the pharynx
appeared to be painful. The child's breathing became
much distressed, and it died of the effects of the salicylic
acid, as was shown by the cadaveric section (Ibid).
Vertigo, ringing in the ears, even deafness and dyspnoea
are mentioned in allopathic works as results of the admin-
istration of salicylic acid.
Bride,* e.g., observed complete deafness after salicylic
acid; he found the semi-circular canals of this deafened
person completely filled with masses of connective tissue of
various thickness.
In the Berliner Jdinische WocJieiischrift, 1883, p. 241,
it is stated that a lady, after the second dose of one
drachm of salicylate of soda, was seized with alarming
dyspnoea. Nevertheless the dose was repeated, and violent
dyspnoea returned to such a degree that the on-lookers
expected her death momentarily ; other symptoms were :
giddiness, noise in the ears, systolic heart murmur, weak-
ness of the heart, intermittent pulse and dimness of vision.
Prof. Y.f gave a girl of seventeen, who was suffering
from rheumatism, at first 2^, then 3 drachms of salicy-
late of soda daily. Death ensued on the fourth day.
According to the report of the post-mortem examination,
the Professor himself said : " There can be no doubt that the
fatal issue must be attributed to the salicylate of soda."
He, at the same time, adduces a number of cases from
medical literature, in which toxical effects were caused by
medicinal doses of salicylic acid.
A third drug which has long been fashionable with the
allopaths is chloral hydrate. The allopaths thus describe
its " collateral effects."
That large doses of chloral hydrate may cause serious poisonous
symptoms and even death is shown by a great number of observations
* Deutsche Medizinalzeitung, 1883, p. 511.
t Berliner Idin. Wochenschrift., 1882, p. 709.
Fatal results from chloral hydrate. 403
made on patients .... It can be confidently asserted that several
people have been poisoned by it in doses within the limits of approved
medicinal doses.*
This remark is made by Husemann, who gives the
hypnotic dose of choral hydrate as 7 to 30 grains (see his
A rzneiinittellehre, 1875).
Another authorf says :
We can, unfortunately, adduce a number of cases which show that
even chloral hydrate has dangerous and undesirable collateral effects.
It cannot be maintained that in all these cases impure chloral hydrate
was given.
A minute account of the cases of poisoning follows.
Further on the following statement is made :;]: " Numerous
other examples of the poisonous effects of chloral hydrate
might be quoted." A number of cases is given where the
patients were brought to the brink of the grave by the ordin-
ary doses of this substance, and only with difficulty saved.
We also find the report of seven fatal cases following
the administration of chloral hydrate to patients who were
not suffering from mortal diseases. Death resulted in the
case of a woman whom it was intended to slightly nar-
cotise by it for the extraction of a tooth ; she was given
55 grains, and died very soon afterwards. The same hap-
pened in the case of a vine-grower of forty-three years of
age, " almost instantaneously," and a notary, aged forty-
eight years, died in a quarter of an hour after a dose of i ^4^
drachm; a woman expired after taking i^ drachm in the
space of three hours.
" A young lady, twenty years of age, enjoying good
health in other respects," was given 25 grains of chloral
hydrate for dysmenorrhoea. At ten o'clock at night she
took this dose, and, after a period of excitement, fell asleep
to awake in eternity. In spite of every assistance she was
a corpse next morning (Ibid).
A young man and another patient are mentioned who
suffered the same fate (Ibid).
* Schmidt's Jahrb., Vol. CLI., p. 97.
t Ibid, Wo\. CLI 1 1., p. 140.
X Ibid, Vol. CLV., p. 146.
404 Allopathic remedies sovietimcs
A number of striking cases will be found in the Bayr.
drztl. Intdligenz-Blatt, 1872. Bd. 19.
In the Congress of Physical Investigation at Freiburg, in
1S83, the fact was acknowledged that " literature contains
the accounts of many cases in which large doses of chloral
caused speedy death directly by paralysis of the heart and
blood vessels : the patients fell into a faint, with lowering
of the temperature, and could not again be roused." The
same speaker also enumerated the symptoms of chronic
chloral poisoning : derangements of digestion, skin affec-
tions, flushings of the face and head after small quantities
of stimulants, great congestion of the conjunctiva and
fundus of the eyes, excited action of the heart, impairment
of nutrition, severe pains in the limbs and slight psycho-
pathic disturbances. He concluded by describing an attack
of fully developed mania in a patient who had been taking
morphia and chloral for asthma.
If these facts do not suffice to enable us to judge of
the value of allopathic remedies, plenty of further materials
of a similar kind will be found in other volumes of this
same periodical.
We could also cite numerous examples to show that
morphia, chlorate of potash, digitalis, iodine, mercury, &c.
in the hands of the allopaths have proved destructive to
health and life. What immense quantities of that per-
nicious drug, mercury, are taken into their bodies by our
unfortunate fellow-creatures! Its ravages are often more
dreadful than those of the disease. Accidental and arti-
ficial cases of mercurial poisoning have shown that inflam-
mations and ulcerations of the mucous membrane, extensive
cutaneous ulcerations, caries of the teeth, diseases of the
bones going on to ulceration, inflammatory and destructive
processes in the lungs, haemoptysis, &c., are brought on by
it. The carelessness of the allopaths induces them to give
this injurious metal in incredible quantities. To rub in 2^^
ounces of mercurial ointment within ten to fourteen days
is quite a common event.
The circumstance that the same poison does not act with
the same virulence on all people, and may be taken by some
the reverse of femedial. 405
without immediate injurious results, causes the allopaths
to forget with what dangerous poisons they are working,
though the great observer, Hahnemann, has shown that
such perilous doses are unnecessary.
Schmidt's JaJirbiicher^ gives complete information con-
cerning the collateral effects of the much-used chlorate of
potash. This drug may produce cerebral inflammations,
gastro-enteritis, inflammation of the kidneys and death, as
was shown twenty years ago, and as has been fully confirmed
by post-mortems in recent years. A great many cases arc
quoted in which, to be sure, death was generally owing to
having taken more than the prescribed doses of this drug,
but the liberal manner in which it is prescribed by the allo-
paths was the chief cause of the catastrophe. At all events,
we have here again a proof of the injurious effects of the
allopathic doses furnished by the allopaths themselves.
In the same way examples could be easily given of
atrophy and albuminuria caused by allopathic doses of
iodine, and also of the injuriousness of digitalis and many
other drugs habitually prescribed by allopaths. Instead of
diminishing, allopathic doses seem to be increasing coinci-
dently with their crude and symptomatic conceptions. In
1855 it was possible for Virchow to say in his Handbook of
Special Pathology and Therapetitics^ that " chronic poison-
ings by means of morphia, or substances containing it,
fortunately occur so seldom in Germany that they pos-
sess little clinical interest." Now, however, special works
are written on Morphia Poisoning, The Treatment of
MorpJiia-Patients, and prospectuses distributed of " Insti-
tutions for the treatment of patients suffering from morphia
and nervous complaints," as if the morphia disease were
a natural morbid process. All cases of morphia disease
may be referred to an allopathic initiative.
We must not forget that these substances, which exert
such an energetic action on the body, are given to patients
whose systems are already weakened by disease, that the
* Vol. CLXXXVIL, p. 14, and CLXXXVIII., p. 12.
t Vol. II., p. I, p. 291,
4o6 Dangerous doses often prescribed.
sick organism is thus additionally burdened with a medi-
cinal disease, and the task imposed on it of overcoming the
medicinal in addition to the natural disease.
In the Allgemeine ArzneiverordmmgsleJire^ we read that
" Liebermeister in high fever gives pills containing 0.005
gramme veratrin, one every hour, till nausea or vomiting is
produced, for which four to six pills usually suffice."
Such prescriptions remind us of the " science " of the
last century. And this is the treatment pursued by a pro-
fessor who imparts to so many young physicians their
therapeutic principles. Older physicians copy these pre-
scriptions, and are thus able to adduce the best authority
for their treatment should it turn out disastrously.
In Nothnagel and Rossbach's Handbuch der Ar::nei-
mittelleJire we read : t " Children have died from the effects
of 0.00 1 gramme of morphia" — the quantity calculated to
be contained in the opium administered to them. We are
therefore advised not to administer opium to very young
children. A given dose of opium, however, is said in the
same work to have an action equivalent to two-thirds of
its weight of morphia.
Professor Seitz recommends, in Niemeyer's TherapieX
for catarrh of the stomach and diarrhoea in infants, 2 to 5
drops of tincture of opium in 8 ounces of decoction of salep,
a teaspoonful every two hours. Niemeyer's book is in the
hand of every practitioner, and all young physicians go to
it for their therapeutic wisdom. A book so widely read re-
commends opium in a dangerous dose !
Physiology teaches us that the amount of stimulation is
by no means proportional to the intensity of the stimulus.
A stimulus liberates a number of forces whose magnitude
cannot be estimated by the commercial weight of the agent
administered.
Besides the mischief which allopaths do by the size of
their doses, their treatment is also inconsistent with the
teachings of physiology. Their therapeutic rule, " much
* By Ewald and Liidecke, Berlin, 18S3, p. 687.
t Berlin, 1S78, p. 611.
X Tenth Edition, 1S79, P- 54--
Allopathic treatment of pneiuiionia. 407
helps much," which is specially illustrated by their endea-
vour to cure disease by killing the bacteria supposed to
cause it, is entirely unphysiological.
If we examine in detail allopathic therapeutics, we shall
find full confirmation of these assertions. Let us glance at
their treatment of pneumonia, not because we think it
specially suitable for deciding on the value of a method of
treatment, on the contrary, we consider it utterly unsuitable
for this object, but because the allopaths are fond of ap-
pealing to this disease to demonstrate the excellence of
their system.
Liebermeister and Jiirgensen are the great coryphc-ei of
the par excellence " rational " treatment, and as such
they received the thanks of the Congress at Wiesbaden.
Moreover, Jiirgensen spoke of the recent great advances in
allopathic therapeutics, and of the great benefit which
would be reaped by our descendants. We are therefore
interested to know how he treats pneumonia. He lays
down his principles in Volkmann's Sanunhing klinischer
Vortrdge, 1872, No. 45.
According to him, the physician must keep his eye on
the heart and on the fever. " Pneumonia patients die from
failure of the heart," p. 326. The cause of the weakness of
the heart is the exudation. We would therefore suppose
that the process going on in the lungs must be attacked,
but no ! Jiirgensen says we must attack the cardiac weak-
ness and the fever, that is to say, the consequences of the
disease. For this purpose he advises cold baths and
quinine: "When the fever is high i% drachm of quinine
may be given to an adult, or 15 grains to a child, under
a year old — always in a single dose."
Jiirgensen is "strongly of opinion that these are very far
from being the extreme limits for quinine. I know that
such large doses will appear dangerous to many ; my in-
structress is experience. Only fools fight against facts.
408 Only fools fight against facts,
Those whose object it is to restore the sick to health must
not treat them according to traditions, but when they are
once certain in their own minds what is best to be done
they will not hesitate to do it." We detect in this the
didatic tone of the professor. With enviable coolness he
•calls his experience " facts," and stigmatises as " fools "
those who do not agree with him.
" Not unfrcquently" vomiting follows the administration
of quinine. If it comes on soon, the dose must be re-
peated, and " when there is periculum in mora we should
not hesitate, but should rather give too much than too
little." Moreover, the patient, after taking the quinine,
should keep the mouth open " in order to get rid of
the excessive secretion of saliva," and thereby " perhaps
• obviate" the vomiting.
" Tartar emetic and veratrin lower the temperature at the
expense of the heart, both induce collapse."
In Niemeyer's Therapic* veratrin is strongly recom-
mended. " We must, however, bear in mind," says Pro-
fessor Seitz, " that the desired effect can only be attained
by the administration of doses large enough to produce of
slight toxic effects — -vomiting, diarrhcea, great prostration."
Veratrin is nevertheless recommended, for diarrhoea; vomit-
ing and great prostration are only " slight " phenomena
to the scientific physician. We are therefore actually re-
commended to induce these " slight " toxic effects, other-
wise " the desired effect will not be attained."
Seitz maintains (/.<;.) that digitalis should be " exten-
sively employed " in pneumonia, and Jurgensen states that
*' Every one who has had much experience with digitalis,
and has given it in effective doses, must have observed
that the collapse following its administration has coincided
with the defervescence," p. 336.
Prof. Husemannf writes :
While some decades ago hardly a case of pneumonia was conducted
to a favourable or a fatal issue without the administration of digitalis
* Edited by Prof. Seitz, 1874, I., p. 197.
t Arz7ieimettellehrc, 1S75, ^'-j P- 9-°-
biU what ai'e facts ? 409
with or without nitre and tartar emetic, the use of preparations of
digitalis is now becoming much less frequent.
This drug- is now greatly superseded by quinine. Jiir-
gensen prefers quinine " because it does not affect the
heart injuriously." Only fools fight against facts, never-
theless we venture to quote the opinions of other men,
with whom Jiirgensen may fight it out. Schmidt's JaJir-
biichcr^ quotes a number of experiments on dogs, showing
that quinine, in doses of ^O grains, has a depressing effect
on the heart's action, and, in the same work we read :-f-
" Its poisonous effects on dogs agree with those on human
beings." On page 401 further observations on the action
of quinine are detailed, according to which much smaller
doses than those given by Jurgensen produced highly in-
jurious effects, and here young and old physicians are
advised to give such large doses in such a dangerous
disease.
If there is sleeplessness in a case of pneumonia, morphia
and chloral hydrate are the panaceas. Jurgensen gives
chloral hydrate in doses of i ^ to 2 drachms.
We have just seen that l ^ drachm of chloral hydrate,
and indeed even i scruple has caused death in diseases
not of a serious character. Jurgensen recommends doses
up to 2 drachms. With what ideas are the young phy-
sicians of to-day turned loose upon suffering humanity
by such professors !
Jurgensen writes on page 340, with regard to the diet of
pneumonic patients : " In every severe case, I insist upon
the patient taking strong beef tea once or twice a day in
table-spoonfuls, with one to two eggs. Also a quantity of
milk, which is to be determined separately for each case,
according to circumstances." Besides this, alcoholic drinks
play a prominent part. In certain cases this may be ad-
visable. Dogmatism is, however, here out of place, the
patient should not be imperatively required to eat under
all circumstances. If this is done the physician will dis-
* Vol. LXXXI., p. 155 and 156.
t Vol. LXIIL, p. 16.
410 SananUir in libris,
order the patient's stomach and aggravate his malady.
Milk is a two-edged sword. In many healthy people it
causes catarrh of the stomach ; nevertheless, it is theoreti-
cally easily digested, and it is frequently prescribed with-
out sufficient caution.
Before recommending milk the physician should always
inquire whether the patient could take it when he was
well, and prescribe it or not accordingly. But this is
playing too humble a part ; we issue our commands and
they must be obeyed.
To combat the cardiac weakness : Port wine, madeira,
sherry, champagne, hot grog made with brandy, rum, or
whisky, strong coffee or tea, camphor and musk — here we
have Brown over again, though the words sthenia and
asthenia are not used. On pages 345 and 346 Jurgensen
holds forth on the subject of venesection. We are only
interested in noting that it is again found to be indicated
at the present day.
If dyspepsia occurs during convalescence, cinchona and
iron are prescribed : " We begin with one pill, and increase
the number proportionately to the degree of dyspepsia
present," p. 349. This is beyond all doubt " scientific."
The more intense the disease the more ferocious the
attack, the weaker the stomach the stronger the dose.
Much helps much!
" If absorption is slow, I cannot sufficiently urgently
recommend oleum terebinth, to your notice," twelve drops
six times a day!
This is the only remedy alluded to for this state, and
Jilrgensen cannot sufficiently urgently recommend it. We
cannot believe that this professor has ever tried the effect
of twelve drops of this drug six times a day on his own
healthy body, otherwise he would certainly not prescribe
it for debilitated patients in such doses.
How far in advance of these physicians was Hahnemann
in this respect !
Where absorption is slow, the stomach is usually in such
a condition that it will not tolerate the twelve drops of
turpentine six times a day. " But in that case we can
morumtiir in led is. 411
give quinine and iron," an allopath would rejoin. This is
true enough, therefore " rational " medicine from prudential
motives must add to the oil of turpentine iron and quinine.
Nephritis is not an infrequent complication of pneumonia,
but Jiirgensen does not mention it ; it is well-known that
oil of turpentine causes symptoms of irritation of the
kidneys. Jiirgensen should not have omitted to mention
this circumstance to his pupils when he recommended oil
of turpentine.
At the commencement of his essay, Jiirgensen says
that the patient and not the disease must be treated, and
wherein does this individualisation consist? The degree
of intensity of the disease must be observed and a stronger
or weaker dose given accordingly.
The proof of the propriety of this therapeia is afforded
by statistics which show a mortality of 12 per cent. Later
accounts* give a mortality of 12.7 per cent. The statistics
given by Professor Hasper of the treatment of cholera by
venesection are, however, still more favourable, viz. : out of
100 treated for cholera by bleeding, one died ! Jiirgensen
appeals to his hearers. This was also done by the advocate
of bleeding, Professor Bischoff.t The latter treated 197
" inflammations of the lungs," only ten of whom died, i.e.,
5 per cent, of these ten, four had phthisis, and three died
" in consequence of errors in diet." " In 26, moderate
antiphlogistic measures, either alone or combined with
leeching, sufficed ; in all the others (not excepting the peri-
pneumonia notha of Sydenham), venesection, regulated in
amount by the degree of violence of the inflammation, was
practised, and, indeed, in some cases repeated three to six
times, and leeches were often applied in addition." " All
his hearers were witnesses of these results."
A remarkable event happened to this same Professor
Bischoff afterwards in Vienna, which had an entirely " un-
scientific" issue. In the first comparative trial of homoeo-
pathy, three cases of pneumonia were taken. One was left to
* Jiirgensen, Croupose Pneumonie. Tubingen, 1883, p. 257.
t Ansichien iiber das bisher. Heilverfahren. Prague, 1S19, p. 129.
412 Comparative trial of hoinceopathy.
nature, the second was treated "scientifically," and the third,
homceopathically. The last became convalescent in five or
six days ; the scientific patient was confined to bed for many
weeks, and nature was very slow in restoring the third.
This was the result of chance, says Simon,* and he adds :
I say, si fabula vera, for I can hardly believe that a comparative
therapeutics can be made in such a futile manner. How can three
cases treated in different ways decide anything? Many thousands of
cases treated during many years would be required, and also exact
observations under the most various conditions and in the most
diverse individuals.
Who will not admit the truth of this ? We must, how-
ever, ask where have these thousands of observations —
required in order to judge of homoeopathy, which are
necessary according to the allopaths themselves, in order
to decide the question — been carried out ?
If Jiirgensen were as imprudent as his late colleague
Bischoff, we are very much afraid he might encounter a
similar mischance.
Jiu'gensen says on p. 333 : —
My experience justifies me in asserting that in pneumonia the direct
abstraction of heat is permissible. I am fortunate enough to be able
to adduce the important testimony of Liebermeister, whose mortality
with purely anti-pyretic treatment was reduced from 24.4 per cent, to
S.8 per cent.
We should like to know how these 24 per cent, who died
were treated. Major's dissertation,! quoted by Jiirgensen,
unhappily gives no information on this point. It states,
pp. 3 to 5, that from 1839 to 1867, in the Basel Hospital,
24.4 per cent, of " true acute pneumonias " died. The pro-
portion remained the same during each decade ; indeed,
between 1863 and 1868, of 200 hundred pneumonia cases
54 died. I.e., 27 per cent!
We saw above, on p. 220, that in the first experiment of
Dietl, 20 per cent, died under venesection and tartar emetic,
while only 7 per cent, died under dietetic treatment. Later,
in 1852, Dietl, who had been violently attacked, published a
* Antihom. Archiv^ 1834, Vol. II., p. 127.
t Ueber die Behandling der acutett croiiposcn Pneumonie, Basel, 1S70.
Victims to allopathic science. 413
further series of experiments.* He treated 750 expectantly;
69 died, i.e., 9.2 per cent. In this instance no selection was
made, but all cases of pneumonia were counted, even if it
were only a complication of some other complaint.
By these statistics we are forced to the following reflec-
tion : among the 24.4 per cent, who died, 15 per cent, were
victims to science.
Further: The results of the " purely anti-pyretic
method" are of no value as proofs of its success, and the
" weighty authority of Leibermeister " is, after all, only a
feather-weight. The only thing affected by it is a diminu-
tion of the number of sacrifices to " science."
^^gQ 332 : Jilrgensen confesses that the cold bath may
be the direct cause of death. The other measures of this
clinical instructor are also acknowledged to be dangerous.
His own statistics, in the face of the obviously danger-
ous character of his treatment, cannot be adduced in his
favour ; besides, they are less favourable than those of
Dietl.
For this reason it is not permissible to imitate Jiirgen-
sen's dangerous experiments.
In 18S2 there met in Wiesbaden the ^'Congress for In-
ternal Medicine" the object of which is to rescue internal
medicine from being absorbed by surgery and the speci-
alists, and to protect the idea of the unity of the human
organism from the threatened disruption and disintegra-
tion. The president, Frerichs, energetically repelled all
dictation by pathological anatomy, chemistry and experi-
mental pathology, and maintained that everything must
be decided by individual judgment and experience. The
proceedings of this Congress might well be looked forward
to with intense interest, for pretty nearly all the members
of the allopathic world who have any claim to be considered
authorities took part in it.
* Schmidt's /<;/«-/'., Vol. LXXVL, p. 30.
414 Individual judgviait and experience ,
We were told all kinds of things we did not want to
know, but no mention was made of what it was essential
to know, viz., what methods of investigation should in
future be adopted ; we were only told that every one
must be guided by "his own individual judgment and ex-
perience."
If we examine the reports of the proceedings more
closely we shall find them interesting, as giving us a glimpse
of some of the modern allopathic ideas and achievements.
The order of the day on the third occasion of its meeting
was " Anti-pyretic methods of treatment."
That such a theme should be put forward in such a manner
shows conclusively the superficial symptomatic and unphy-
siological nature of the treatment of the modern allopathic
school. Liebermeister, in fact, only speaks of the " fever "
which must be combated by cold baths, quinine or salicylic
acid. What the morbid process may be upon which the
fever depends does not seem to be of the slightest conse-
quence. The only thing to be attended to is the degree
of the fever.
Riess says he will not waste words upon " the evi-
dence in favour of the usefulness of an anti-pyretic treat-
ment of fever," because he is sure that the majority of
his audience have long been convinced on this point.
Absolutely nothing is said about the cause of the fever ;
it is quite a secondary matter what the disease is which
produces the fever.
He proceeds to speak of anti-pyretic treatment in
general, " of the danger of the febrile elevation of the tem-
perature," not of the character of the morbid process, with
which the sentence immediately following is in naive con-
tradiction : " It is evident that there is no parallelism
between the height of the temperature and the intensity of
the disease." In proof of this he gives some instances of
relapsing fever and typhus. We confidently expect the
only logical deduction from this : therefore not the fever,
but the morbid process, must be the point against which
our treatment must be directed. But instead and in spite
of this, he recommends quite in a general way " internal
the physician's oily sure guide. 415
anti-pyretics," and especially salicylic acid, together with
cold baths. According to Riess, salicylic acid acts better
than the quinine recommended by Liebermeister. " The
treatment of typhus is the best test of the value of anti-
pyretic remedies." In typhus,* where there is inflam-
mation and ulceration of the intestinal canal, doses of i^
drachm of salicylic acid are recommended. Let the reader
refer to the effects of salicylic acid mentioned above on
pages 401-402. He has also employed the salicylic acid
treatment in pneumonia and phthisis. Here, again, the
anti-febrile method of treatment is spoken of in quite a
general manner. In conclusion, Riess says that the para-
site theory will not abrogate symptomatic therapeutics, and
vv'ill certainly not diminish the importance of " anti-pyretic
treatment."
Jiirgensen is not satisfied with salicylic acid ; it takes
away the appetite and produces disagreeable cerebral
symptoms. In severe typhus he gives " light Bordeaux
wine up to two litres a day." The baths must be given quite
cold — the colder the better. " But the public do not take
to these cold baths, it is said. Last year I treated the only
child of a fellow practitioner in a severe attack of typhus.
Father and mother gave the child cold baths, and they
both admitted that the cold baths of only four minutes'
duration were a real boon to themselves and to the child."
He also agrees with Brand, who holds the view that the
great abstraction of heat prevents the further develop-
ment of the typhus-germ in the body, and Liebermeister
thinks the same. We cannot help asking ourselves whether
the complex human organism is to be regarded merely as
an incubating stove for parasites, without any reactions
caused by the character of the disease and the individuality
of the patient? Jiirgensen concluded by speaking quite
generally of " anti-pyresis," " at the head of which the cold
water treatment must always be placed."
* We may remind our readers that what we call typhoid or enteric
fever is usually spoken of in Germany as "abdominal typhus,'' or
curtly, " typhus."— [Ed.J
41 6 Un enfant terrible.
Curschmann is also in favour of cold water, but he
prefers quinine to salicylic acid.
Binz discusses the question whether the anti-pyretic
treatment can be considered a causal treatment, whether it is
able to kill the fever-poison in the organism. He answers
it in the affirmative. Salicylic acid diminishes the dura-
tion of rheumatic arthritis to as many days as it formerly
lasted weeks. (Whether his whole audience believed him
is not reported.) This can only be explained by supposing
that it destroys the poison of the disease. The same
happens in the treatment of syphilis with mercury. Binz
spoke afterwards of the earlier views of the Vienna school.
" It said : We are not able to cure a disease ; the patient
is only an object for observation, and it is at most a
triumph for us if we can verify our diagnosis on the dis-
secting table."
Binz enacts here the part of the enfant terrible of the first
Congress for Internal Medicine.
Gerhardt is " fully convinced " that the anti-pyretic treat-
ment is the greatest advance made in the whole domain of
internal therapeutics.
At the Congress of Physical Investigators at Freiburg in
1883, Licbermeister says emphatically: "The anti-pyretic
method has justly been called one of the greatest advances
which have been made in therapeutics in recent times," but
he speaks of the method itself as "expectant — sympto-
matic." This expression will be regarded 50 years hence
very much as we now-a-days regard the paeans of praise
that used to be sung to the glorification of venesection."
To return to the Wiesbaden Congress. Seitz observed
that it would be interesting to discuss the question how
much anti-pyresis was able to effect in different febrile dis-
eases. Here at last we meet with a physician who at least
thinks individualization necessary, though he, too, speaks
of anti-pyresis generally and not of the morbid process.
Riihle was emphatically of opinion that the anti-pyretic
method had spread routine treatment among the " medical
public." "This had had an injurious effect on our scientific
position which it should be our task to regain."
Indebtedness of medicine to the ivater-c2ircrs. 417
We willingly subscribe to this opinion ; but by bringing
forward and discussing in such a manner themes like
" anti-pyretic treatment," routine, not science, is honoured.
It is not science. Fifty years ago the peasant Priessnitz
possessed science of this description. Neither is it science
when Riihle recommends the administration of calomel in
typhus in order to " excite the liver, which is used as a
depot by the typhus poison, to energetic action, in order
that at the same time a portion of the injurious matter may
be removed." We seem to be listening to a disciple of
Maximilian StoU in the year 1782, not to a professor of
internal medicine at a Medical Congress in 1882.
Liebermeister defends himself from the imputation
of routine. " The anti-pyretic method was on the pro-
gramme for to-day, and that is why we have discussed it
only." This fact, we repeat, is amply sufficient to justify us
in designating the allopathic a routine treatment. When
Liebermeister adds that this method is not used in the
treatment of syphilis, this far-fetched justification is com-
pletely against himself He proceeds to say that they (the
allopaths) would be happy to treat typhus, scarlet fever, and
other diseases with specifics, " but for the present that is,
alas ! only a pious wish." The same is the case with regard
to the parasitic theory. " We should like very much, only
we cannot." There is a very good reason for this, Binz and
his quinine and salicylic acid notwithstanding. The allo-
paths are searching just where nothing is to be found.
This characteristic discussion was concluded by re-
peated expressions of satisfaction that there was a perfect
unanimity on this subject, and that this proved the unity
of opinion among them on therapeutic questions. But this
unanimity was only with respect to the treatment by cold
water. Who was it that introduced the systematic employ-
ment of cold water? The laymen Oertel and Priessnitz,
more especially the latter, who treated patients in this
way many years ago, and was on that account attacked by
the allopaths in the manner peculiar to them, with which
the reader has already been made sufficiently acquainted.
If it had not been for these two la}-men it is very doubtful
27
41 8 IV hen doctors do agree
whether there would have been this wonderful unanimity-
over which there was so much jubilation.
We should have therefore expected that this Congress
would have paid their debt of honour to these laymen,
considering the vile manner in which they had formerly
been attacked by the allopaths, and that they would at
least have said a few words in grateful remembrance of
these men to whom they were indebted for their present
unanimity.
We may remind our readers that this was not the first
allopathic medical congress in which uniformity of opinion
concerning therapeutic measures prevailed. The same
unanimity was repeatedly observed fifty years ago, in just
as numerously attended allopathic assembUes, namely,
when the employment of bleeding in cholera was held to
be scientific and necessary (see above, p. 246).
The means of judging of the value of a therapeutic
method will be supplied by the answer to this question :
What is the termination of a morbid process if left to itself
without any interference by medical art? This question
was answered on a large scale by Dietl 33 years ago, who
had a mortality of 9 per cent, under dietetic treatment in
the same disease in which the " anti-pyretic " treatment
showed a mortality of 12 per cent., z>., 3 per cent, more
than the expectant treatment.
If, when diseases in general are considered, these num-
bers may require some alteration, which will certainly not be
to the advantage of orthodox physic, they still furnish very
remarkable material on which to form our judgment. Con-
temporary allopathic therapeutics lies under the same
ban of symptomatic treatment as did bleeding. Suppose
we have a patient suffering from pneumonia ; he is gasping
for breath and feels stabs as from knives, due to the accom-
panying pleurisy, at each cough, at each respiration. He
prays for relief. We open a vein, the blood flows, and
all at once the picture changes — the stabbing pains are
ameliorated, the breathing freer, appetite gradually returns.
The physician who, in the opinion of the ignorant, has
saved the patient from death by his energetic interference
iJieir Jinanhnity is luondcrfiiL 419
receives looks of gratitude from his patient, who, if he had
been let alone would have recovered his health in a short
time, but now perhaps will pine away, having received from
his "saviour" the impetus which will throw him into pul-
monary consumption.
The physician only attended to one symptom, and
recklessly directed his efforts to its removal. He over-
looked the fact that all the patient's strength should be
husbanded in order to overcome the disease, and that
every new source of weakness should be carefully warded
off from the patient, who was already sufficiently weakened
by the disease. The symptom was kept in view, but the
actual disease overlooked ; the symptom, the result of the
disease, was combated instead of acting directly on the
proximate cause of the symptom, the focus of the disease,
and thus the morbid process was involuntarily promoted.
Those who advocate " anti-pyresis " labour under the
same mistake. The results of diseases, fever and cardiac
weakness, are the points of therapeutic attack. In order to
attain their object they are obliged to set up a new, alien
drug-disease, in addition to that naturally present. Quinine
is said to strengthen the heart ; we have just seen that in
the course of the action of quinine this increased activity
is followed by a state of depression, which after a fresh dose
again goes off, but afterwards gives place to still greater
weakness. By such and similar treatment the diseased
process does not pursue its course alone, but is reinforced
by an artificial disease; and yet the "first authorities"
among the allopaths meet and congratulate themselves on
the " great advance " made in therapeutics by the introduc-
tion of the anti-pyretic treatment, which has sent more
human beings to the shades below than would have gone
if nature had been left to herself!
Can we have any respect for such " science ? " Is it a
crime to turn one's back on such and similar plans of treat-
ment, or to seek for something better than this miserable
unphysiological therapeutics ?
The inexplicable phenomena of animal-magnetism were,
till recently, denied and declared to be " unscientific " by
420 Gi'atititdc not a medical virhie.
the universities. There was perhaps not present at the
Congress a single medical man, who, a few years previously,
would not have called any man who was convinced of the
existence of this remarkable power, a mystic, an ignoramus,
an unscientific enthusiast, a duped impostor, &c.
If we wished to enumerate all the opprobrious epithets
applied to Mesmer, the simplest way would be to mention
those that had not been applied to him.
In Wiesbaden several physicians spoke of animal magne-
tism and its therapeutic value without meeting with any
opposition. Thus the truth was acknowledged of what,
from prejudice and arrogance, had been rejected for many
decades ; here, at all events, we see progress.
Whom have we to thank for this ? The itinerant magnetiser
Hansen. It is demonstrable that it was owing to his public
appearances that a repetition of his experiments was first
undertaken in " scientific " circles. Hansen was assailed
during his tour by innumerable and virulent insults, the
instigators of which were directly or indirectly the allopaths.
If no public reparation is due to Hansen, at all events the
manes of the physician Mesmer should be considered. But
we shall look in vain for the confession of past errors or
the expression of gratitude to unorthodox physicians from
the adherents of " scientific medicine."
Both the Congresses for Internal Medicine, that of 18S2
and that of 1883, bear witness to the restless diligence and
profound spirit of inquiry which prevail at our universities ;
but we are rudely awakened from the feeling of joyful ad-
miration with which we follow the interesting investigations
and deductions when we come to the subject of thera-
peutics.
The crudest conceptions of the processes going on in the
organism seem to be made the basis of the plan of treat-
ment.
Thus a physician gives, at this Congress, the advice to
The cramming treatment of consumption. 42 1
consumptives " to eat as much as possible." " The chief task
of the medical man in the treatment of consumption is to
stimulate the patient's appetite by every device known to
cookery." The same adviser approves of the plan adopted
by other physicians of introducing food into the stomachs of
tuberculous patients by means of the stomach-pump. No
sensible physician would entertain the idea that a consump-
tive patient must eat as much as possible. A truly rational
physician will inquire into the condition of the digestive func-
tions, and carefully regulate the food in accordance with the
digestive powers and the character of the disease, giving
the advice, not to starve, but also not to eat if there is no
appetite ; because to do so, especially in the case of a
debilitated person, is the sure way to derange the stomach,
and because our life is maintained by what is assimilated,
not by what is eaten. But the allopathic axiom is " much
helps much." What a pitiable state of allopathic thera-
peutics is revealed by the assertion that the main business
of the medical art is to make consumptives eat as much as
possible. And to force down nourishment with the stomach
pump ! Its employment in a consumptive patient already
weakened by the disease, could not fail to produce serious
derangements of the stomach. The most ignorant peasant
would not act upon such crude principles when fattening his
geese by cramming them, and yet in this case he has a
healthy stomach secreting normal gastric juices from a
healthy body to deal with. It would not be easy to find a
peasant who would cram a sick goose with food in order to
restore it to health.
The general agreement upon the subject of anti-pyretic
treatment, about which there was so much mutual con-
gratulation in 1882 fell to pieces in 1883, when the treat-
ment of diphtheria was discussed.
Gerhardt says, " Chlorate of potash is a pure matter of
faith held by few persons," and he recommends papayotin
and chinolin. His next statement is remarkable : " I can-
not refrain from mentioning my own experience that the
employment of a strong solution of carbolic acid seems to
keep up diphtheria, and I have seen cases rapidly recover
422 Divergent views on diphtheric therapeutics.
when the carboHc acid that had till then been employed
was discontinued."
This opinion is not without significance when we reflect
that for many years the orthodox treatment has been such
an employment of carbolic acid through the entire course
of the disease, and that it has been enforced upon young
medical men on theoretical grounds, and has been so
generally adopted that the great majority of physicians
have practised it and do still practise it, though not quite
to such an extent as before ; and when we remember that
the greatest reproaches were cast upon the homoeopaths
for their neglect of this treatment.
Heubner assailed the treatment of diphtheria by local
applications, though this was regarded as one of the most
important measures by the allopaths since the first appear-
ance of the disease, and was and is employed by the
majority of doctors ; he maintains that the organism must
be disinfected by the administration of internal remedies.
The ordinary drugs, according to Heubner, did not at all
fulfil this object, " I recall to mind the disastrous trials of
chlorate of potash, pilocarpin, oil of turpentine, &c."
Jiirgensen was of opinion " that all impurities should be
removed," but not by means of coarse caustics ; all general
disinfection was useless; the indication was "to fortify the
system as much as possible."
Heubner replies: "What Jiirgensen says is certainly
very rational, but it is expectant therapeutics which, as has
been shown, cannot effect very much ; " nevertheless it is
" very rational."
Leube confesses that for ten years he has cauterised
strongly at the commencement.
Gerhardt says that by producing anaemia of the mucous
membrane by the application of cold, the soil is rendered
less favourable for the growth of the morbid organisms.
As, however, according to Heubner, the author of the
prize essay on diphtheria, the organisms are dispersed
through the whole body, it follows that the whole body
of the patient would have to be packed in ice for twenty-
four hours.
IrraUonal treatment of rational doctors. 423
In short, treatment more grotesquely v^aried was never
suggested by a party of neighbours and gossips assembled
round a sick friend on a Sunday afternoon than was re-
commended at this Congress by the foremost allopathic
" authorities," except that the proposals of the former would
not be nearly so injurious as the privileged " modes of
treatment."
If we pass in review the remedies recommended for diph-
theria alone during the past 15 years, from assiduous cau-
terization with nitrate of silver and insufflation of sulphur
to papayotin and chinolin, we shall obtain an interesting
insight into allopathic practice. Every year fresh remedies !
First one drug and then another comes into fashion, and on
the introduction of each new remedy, the old ones, however
much they may have been commended, are contemptuously
rejected, and all the bad results ascribed to them.
How irrational is it to apply caustics ! We think it ne-
cessary to preserve from mental excitement patients who
are dangerously ill, as its injurious effect is well known ;
and yet a wretched child who does not understand the
object of the treatment, is thrown into paroxysms of terror
two or three times a day, so that it cowers in its bed and
regards with apprehension every one who approaches it.
If a healthy child, or even a grown man, were kept in such
terror for days and nights, we should see what baneful
effects such treatment would have upon them.
Again we ask : Is it a crime to reject such "science?"
Is it not rather the duty of every medical man to inquire
whether there may not be something better than what the
universities are able to offer? Is it not clear that there
must be here some important external hindrances which
prevent medical men from learning a better wa}-, and from
refraining from participation in the therapeutics of such
representatives of science ?
Is not the existence of these external hindrances made
still more apparent, when we observe how every now and
then even the followers of allopathy themselves express in
decided terms their dissatisfaction with the present state of
therapeutics, as is well shown by the extract given above
from the Wien. medic, Wochcnschrift, at p. 369.
424 Letting the cat out of the bag.
In Volkmann's Saninilang kliiiischer Vorinige, another
allopathic critic says (1878, No. 139): "When they [the
allopathic school] attempted to substitute for the old a
new, exact, so-called rational system of therapeutics based
upon strictly physiological or anatomico-pathological foun-
dations, they inevitably made a fiasco." , , . . " The
Vienna school, acting in a decidedly logical manner, was
compelled to confess that there is not and cannot be a
therapeia resting on a scientific basis." . . . , " Every
plan of treatment has, in a short time, had to give place to
another."
On p. 18 this allopath concludes that the results of the
allopathic therapeutic investigations have been " almost
entirely negative and of a disheartening character."*
* I may be allowed to say a few words with respect to the state of
orthodox medicine in this country. All that the author says about
the uncertainty of therapeutics, the frequent changing of medicines,
the giving of mixtures, and the prescribing according to imaginary
pathological conditions in Germany, is applicable to most of the
medical practice of Britain ; but there are certain differences in other
respects which deserve to be noted. Thus the bacteria-craze does
not seem to have taken such hold of the medical mind in this country
as it has in Germany and France, except in the domain of surgerj',
but even there it seems to be dying out. The antiseptic treatment,
which Lister borrowed from Ddclat and pushed to such extreme
lengths, has certainly done some good by introducing greater atten-
tion to cleanliness as regards surgical instruments, and care in the
dressing and after-treatment of wounds, but its exaggerated employ-
ment which at first took the medical world by storm, is now mani-
festly declining, and " Listerism," so-called, has been completely
abandoned by some of our most eminent and successful surgeons.
The anti-pyretic treatment by ice-cold baths in cases of elevated tem-
perature has been but little used in this country, though quinine,
salicylic acid and kairin are extensively employed to cause defer-
vescence. The stomach-pump treatment, which for a time found such
favour in Germany, is little practised here. Under the influence of
Ringer, who has exhibited wonderful powers of research — in homoeo-
pathic literature — and has "conveyed" many of our medicines and
methods into allopathic therapeutics, a kind of bastard homoeopathy
has attained a certain amount of assent among our orthodox medical
brethren, and has met with much commendation from the periodical
organs of medical orthodoxy ; so that Ringer's book, which is to a
Hoiv to vc7'ify our diagnosis. 425
CONCLUSION.
Since the foundation of homceopathy, the point of hostile
attack has been constantly shifted. At first it was opposed
by Brown's adherents, the natural philosophers, chemical
theorists, the crude views of the advocates of bleeding
and purgatives, which would not now be defended by any
" scientific physician."
Then appeared the anatomical and that after the Vienna
school, which, as was stated by a professor at the Medical
Congress of 1882, held that : "We are not able to cure a
disease, the patient is only an object for observation, and
it is at most a triumph for us when we can verify our
diae[:nosis on the dissectingf table."
great extent a rccliaitffe of homoeopathic treatment modified to meet
the prejudices of old-school practitioners, has rapidly passed through
ten editions, and we can hardly take up an allopathic prescription with-
out seeing how niuch its construction has been influenced by Ringer's
second-hand homoeopathy.' Desultory attempts are occasionally made
to rehabilitate the old and discarded method of bleeding, but these
have met with little encouragement even from the periodical which
takes its name from the instrument of venesection. England still
retains its partiality for purgatives of the strongest kind, and if these
are not prescribed by the profession with such a liberal hand as
formerly, they are enormously consumed by the population. Medi-
cines which allay pain and cause sleep are also in great vogue. A
sure way to fame and fortune seems to be to invent some new pur-
gative water, pill, powder or lozenge, or to introduce some new
hypnotic or anti-neuralgic, and the most convincing evidence of the
mischief caused by the incautious use of these dangerous remedies,
seems to have no effect in diminishing their popularity. Experimental
physiology is as popular here as it is in Germany, and is pursued with
unwearying zeal in spite of obstructive Acts of Parliament and not-
withstanding the insignificant gains to therapeutics that have hitherto
resulted from it. The whole medical profession is persuaded that its
labours will ultimately prove of immense value to therapeutics. But
here as elsewhere these labours have been almost exclusively in a
wrong direction. Experiments with drugs on mutilated dogs and cats,
on rabbits' eyes and enucleated frogs' hearts, can throw little or no
light on the therapeutic value of drugs on man, and yet we see big
books published with attempts to found a therapeia on such unsuit-
able data, though Hahnemann's Fragmeiita, which shows how drugs
426 All medical systems have opposed
This school was forced to give way to that of cellular
pathology, on which it was sought to build a cellular thera-
peutics. With what pleasing expectations were the founda-
tion stones laid ! but its basis was unsound, and at the
Science Congress of Kassel in 1878 it was stated that
" the most important task of medicine, therapeutics, is
not advanced by cellular pathology." Biology, too, which
some hoped would be ingrafted on the minds of medical
men through the cellular doctrine, has had very little
effect.
At present bacteria are relied upon to draw the thera-
peutic cart out of the mud. In the Congress for Internal
Medicine of 1883, it was stated that there are only four
remedies capable of destroying bacteria, — quinine, iodine,
mercury and salicylic acid. " These facts have not, how-
ever, been ascertained by methodical scientific research,
but by crude empirical methods." " The idea would be
should be tested, was published in 1805. When our physiologists
make their experiments on the human subject they are unable to
utilize the results in consequence of their obstinate refusal to make
use of the only key that makes them available for therapeutics. But
if their own school can make no use of their labours for want of this
key, they are eagerly seized upon by the homoeopathic school which
possesses this key, and at once incorporated in its materia medica.
And thus the Jorgs, the Bockers, the Harleys, the Ringers, the
Murrells and the Bruntons have the mortification of seeing that while
their achievements in medicine-proving are useless to their own
school, their value to homoeopathic therapeutics is warmly acknow-
ledged by the partizans of Hahnemann's great truth. Sic vos non
"jobis is perhaps poor consolation to offer, but it may be a comfort to
them to reflect that their labours are not altogether lost, which they
would be were there no homoeopathic school to profit by them.
But in spite of the fruitlessness of their researches to the thera-
peutics of the dominant school, the experimental physiologists are
believed in, not only by the medical profession, but, it would seem, by
all scientists, so that for medical men the surest road to admission to
the select precincts of the Royal Society is the reputation of having
practised vivisection on an extensive scale, though the result of all this
loss of time, labour and humanity may be nil or misleading, or the
promulgation of some conclusions which arc contradicted or upset by
the next experimental physiologist.
Jioinceopathy and have perished. 427
dreadful," says one speaker, " if the lapse of several
thousands of years were necessary in order to discover
four more such remedies."
Therefore the Congress unanimously decided a search
for bactericidal remedies should be made. It is not
necessary to be a prophet in order to foresee that this
mode of searching for medicines will be valueless to
internal therapeutics. The allopathic principle, " much
helps much," gains great support from these endeavours, so
that there is every reason to anticipate that the allopaths
will attack the diseased human body with strong, pro-
foundly-acting medicines still more " energetically " than
before.
Daily experience shows that the investigations instituted
by orthodox medicine vastly increase the knowledge and
the power of the physician. This advance depends partly
on hygiene and partly on the development and extension
On the whole we may say that at the present time the adherents of
old physic are not so antagonistic to homceopathy in Britain as they
seem to be in Germany and elsewhere. We do not now meet with
the same virulent and vulgar abuse of Hahnemann and his adherents
as we observe in the anti-homoeopathic writings of our German col-
leagues. The liberal spirit shown at the International Medical Con-
gress in London in 1881 contrasts favourably with the conduct of the
old school in America, and altogether homoeopathy has attained in
Britain a pleasanter modus vivendi with allopathy than it seems to
enjoy in the Fatherland, which is strange when we consider that
Germany was the fountain-head of the great therapeutic reformation,
and that German medicine has had almost a generation longer to
adapt itself to the new order of things than we have had. Perhaps
the old saying, " the nearer the church the farther from grace," may
find an illustration here. Still here, as in Germany, much remains to
be done before homoeopathy can enjoy the position in general medi-
cine to which it is entitled ; for its practitioners are still excluded from
all the prizes and emoluments of the profession, from almost all the
medical societies and to a great extent from professional intercourse
with their otherwise-thinking colleagues. The conspiracy of silence
with regard to homoeopathy is strictly carried out in most of the
periodicals, whether medical or literary, and if we are no longer
openly persecuted, we are treated as une qiumtite negUgeable, or only
received on sufferance.- — [Ed.J
428 TJiro7igJi Jiointwpathy alone
of mechanical treatment, which latter, however, threatens
continually to overstep its limits.
The condition of allopathic internal medicine is tho-
roughly unsatisfactory to the physician. This coarse symp-
tomatic treatment, this use of remedies which endanger
both health and life, this unphysiological method, can-
not but dishearten every thoughtful physician. Where
can any sure help be found ? The more zealously we
penetrate into the matter the more we feel the want of
firm ground under our feet, and the greater is the number
of contradictions which confronts us. What long lists of
medicines are recommended in all diseases without any
precise differentiation of them! The endless recommen-
dations of remedies dance like ignes fatui before the in-
vestigator ; they appear and disappear, come into fashion
and then go out of fashion.
All these different therapeutic systems and schools have
waged war with homoeopathy, have attacked it with the
most unworthy weapons, have prophesied its downfall, and
have themselves come to a disastrous end ; but homoeopathy
stands firm, secure through its therapeutic results. Fashion
does not prevail in homoeopathy as in the opposite camp.
The same remedies which Hahnemann used are still em-
ployed according to the same indications as before, though
perhaps they are given with more precision, in consequence
of the careful observations of many zealous and laborious
medical men. Holding fast by the old proved remedies
does not prevent the reception of new medicines, given in
homoeopathic preparations and doses. But the medicines
of homoeopathy are not subject to the caprices of fashion.
Here the exact sphere of action of each drug is dis-
coverable, and if any one wishes to introduce a new remedy
into therapeutics, the homoeopaths require first a careful
proving on the healthy organism and then an accurate
description of the cases of disease in which it is used with
advantage. Anatomical diagnosis is made use of as a
help, but it is not sufficient for them. " There are no
remedies for names of diseases," they say.
can therapeutics be advanced. 429
Homoeopathy contains a treasure of valuable experi-
ences, the outcome of the most careful observations ; but
the form under which they are offered at first excites the
repugnance of the physician who has been educated allo-
pathically (and we have all been brought up as allopaths),
and this repugnance can only be overcome by earnest
professional zeal.
But if we have once gained a deeper insight into it, all
trouble is well rewarded by the results obtained at the sick
bed, and the physician who was beginning to despair of
therapeutics takes a pleasure in his profession which richly
repays his labours. Here is a field in which the physician,
by zealous study, can develope his therapeutic usefulness
without being confused and disheartened by therapeutic
contradictions.
Homoeopathy has existed for more than seventy years,
thousands of medical men practise it, millions of laymen
are attached to it, and made enthusiastic by its success in
the treatment of disease. The adherents of this system go
on increasing in spite of enormous external hindrances.
A large number of periodicals is published in all civilized
languages exclusively devoted to this subject; its literature
numbers thousands of volumes.
And it is attempted to upset such an established system
of medicine by misrepresentations, by abuse, by denuncia-
tions, and by all sorts of unworthy odious machinations !
A foolish enterprise !
Abandonment of their pernicious arrogance and of their
blind respect for authority, self-knowledge and improve-
ment of their own obvious faults, are what is required by
the allopaths, and for this vulgar vituperation is a very
poor substitute. When they have put their own camp in
order they will cease to marshal their forces in order to
attack Hahnemann's system, they will joyfully receive and
assimilate its important and everlasting truths.
History will then recall the remarkable circumstance
that the truth in therapeutics was discovered by medical
practitioners who received no State-support, and that the
universities which were established in order to search out
430 Ecce qiiam bomnn et juciindiun
truth trampled upon this truth for many years, and wan-
dered in the pernicious paths of therapeutic error.
Legislators whose medical counsellors are all allopaths,
should weigh well the following facts : — Homoeopathy is a
power that must be reckoned with, since it has already
millions of zealous adherents in Germany alone. If the
allopaths had not been exclusively listened to, if the
homoeopaths had been admitted to free competition, the
empire of the bleeding and purging therapeutics would
soon have come to an end ; the lives and health of many
citizens which have, under the present conditions, fallen a
sacrifice to allopathy, would have been preserved.
They should not permit themselves to be guided ex-
clusively by allopaths who represent homoeopathy as the
enemy of science and of scientific investigation. Allo-
pathic therapeutics is a pseudo-science, a science of the
same sort as the phlebotomizing therapeutics. The allo-
paths of that day, with similar emphasis, called their
treatment " scientific " and " rational," while they des-
troyed their fellow-creatures who regarded them as their
saviours.
At present, too — as we saw above — health and life are
too often sacrificed to allopathy. Is it always to be like
this? Or does anyone suppose that the allopaths will, of
their own accord, abandon their barbarous treatment in
the coming centuries ? Those who indulge this hope know
little of the history of medicine.
Let homoeopathy be admitted to free competition, let a
position corresponding to its importance be given it in the
hospitals, which the public will thankfully and exten-
sively avail themselves of, and let the condition be at-
tached that only medicines in homoeopathic preparations
shall be used, and that the occasional use of allopathic
methods shall alv/ays be specially recorded. This would
not be giving free licence to the ideas of a fantastic
dreamer in a field where an earnest spirit of investigation
should be at work for the preservation and restoration of
the chief blessing of mankind. Homoeopathy cannot be
seriously compared with " sympathy and moonshine cures,"
Jiabitare fratres in wiuni ! 43 1
notwithstanding the efforts of its opponents to establish its
relation to these absurdities.
Those medical men who leave all to nature, the " na-
ture doctors," ought to have an opportunity given them of
demonstrating their right to exist, that is, if they can show
a sufficient number of adherents among the public. An
institution in which doctors had an opportunity of ob-
serving the healing powers of nature would be of great
importance. Physicians would then have a tertium com-
parationis to enable them to estimate the value of the
results obtained by their own peculiar treatment. So
much misfortune would not have befallen mankind through
medical men, if an opportunity had been given them of
observing the action of the vis medicatrix natura;.
The Universities ought to have gratefully received the
offer of the " nature doctors " and their adherents. The
fact that they scornfully rejected it throws no favourable
light on their belief in their own powers.
The dispensing of medicines by the practitioner — this
natural right of all medical men of whatever way of think-
ing — of which the allopaths make the freest use, in spite
of the privileges of the apothecaries, in their employment
of subcutaneous injections, ought to be allowed in the
case of homoeopathic medicines, the genuineness of which
in the present state of analytic knowledge it is impossible
to control. The allopathic apothecaries are the natural
enemies of homoeopathy, they have given proof upon proof
that they ardently wish for the overthrow of this system,
which they openly denounce as quackery ; some even cheat
the public who want homoeopathic medicines, and hold
it no sin to give their customers simple spirit instead of
medicine. Some governments force the homoeopaths into
a disastrous dependence on their arch-enemies, and compel
them to get their prescriptions dispensed by such hostile
persons, who look upon it as a matter of no importance
whether they are prepared well or ill. Is it not then a
most just and fair demand that the homoeopaths should
be allowed to dispense their own remedies beyond the
third or fourth decimal potency?
432 Fiat jiLstitia^ mat ccchun !
Any Government which seeks to put in practice the
reasonable proposals we have just made will, indeed, raise
a storm of indignation in certain quarters, but will confer a
lasting benefit on mankind, and will both deserve and re-
ceive the thanks of the more enlightened of their contem-
poraries and of future generations.
INDEX.
Ahelard and Hdoise, Hahnemann's trans-
lation of, 165
Aconite, Hahnemann's large doses of,
117; his early therapeutic uses of, 1 18 ;
powerless extracts of, 142
Adelung's friendship for Hahnemann, 153
Adulterations of chemicals commonly
practised, 9, 10
Adulterations of dn/gs, Hahnemann's
work on, 21
/Esculapius, Hahnemann compared to,
273
^sadapms in the Balance, by Hahne-
mann, 86
Ague, bark in, Cullen's theory of, 103 ;
caused by quinine, 401
Alberti said to be the author of homoe-
opathy, 308
Albrecht's account of Hahnemann, 158;
testimony to Hahnemann's great know-
ledge, 164, 165
Alchemists, 2
Alkali pneum, 288
Allgenieiner Anzeigei; history of, 178 ;
used as a professional organ by physi-
cians, 179; Hahnemann's contribu-
tions to, i8c : on the treatment of
homoeopaths, 251 ; favourable to spread
of homoeopathy, 2S3
Allopathic treatment by homoeopaths,
alleged, 364
Allopathy, Hahnemann on, 213, 229 ;
therapeutics of, easily learned, 368 ;
sad account of, by its friends, 369, 370,
424 _
Aloes in hemorrhoids, 362
Alteratives, Hahnemann's opinion of, 77
Amatus, complex prescriptions of, 79
America, homoeopathy in, 277 ; attempt
to boycott homoeopathy in, 375 ; the
code of ethics in, 376 ; persecutions
in, 376 ; probable failure of Inter-
national Congress in, 376
Amusement, Hahnemann on, 61
Andral's trial of homoeopathy, 315
Annesley's alleged success with bleeding
in cholera, 240 ; shown to be false by
himself, 241
Antimony, large doses given by Hahne-
mann, 117, 120
Antipyretic treatment of pneumonia,
412, 418 ; laudation of, 414 ; sympto-
matic character of, 419 ; typhus, the
test of, 415
Apoplexy said to be caused by neglect of
venesection, 214
Apothecaries, Hahnemann on the, 139 ;
ignorance of the, 141 ; Hahnemann's
arraignment of the, 143 ; guild of the,
144; desirable qualities in, 196; irri-
tation of, at homoeopaths being al-
lowed to dispense their meolicines,
367 ; abuse homoeopathy, 373 ; power-
less in Great Britain, 375 ; the enemies
of homoeopathy, 430
Apothckerlexicon, by Hahnemann, 32-38
Appreciation of Hahnemann by olol-
school doctors, 168-171
Archiv, anii-hoiucvopathic, 285
Archiv, Stapfs, appearance of, 189
Areometer, Hahnemann's improved, il
Arsenic, poisoning by, Hahnemann's
work on, 15-18; supposed composition
of, 15 ; Hahnemann's tests for, 16 ; in
ague, Hufeland objects to, loS ;
Hahnemann's reason for not recom-
mending, 123 ; Hahnemann's small
doses of, 122, 127
Attacks of the allopaths on homoeopathy
caused by their anxiety for the public
weal, 261
Attomyr's derivation of *' rational," 213
Auenbrugger's percussion, 377
Augustin on homoeopathy, 274
Australia, homoeopathy in, 277
Austria, treatment of cholera in, 245 ;
suppression of homoeopathy in, 251 ;
313, 314 ; mesmerism forbidden in,
334
Austrum, a supposed new metal, 289
434
Index.
\
Autenrieth on itch-sequclce, 70, 71, 341
Avarice, Hahnemann's alleged, 287, 354
Bacilli, transformation of one kind into
another, 390
Bacteria the alleged cause of many
diseases, 389 ; produced by papayotin,
390 ; the killing of, the test of a true
medicine, 391
Bacterial therapeutics, 391, 392, 426
Bakody's successful treatment of cholera,
249 ; made professor of homoeopathy
in Buda-Pesth, 255
Baldinger, praise of Hahnemann's Laho-
rant by, 24 ; laments the ignorance of
physicians, 57 ; recommends Hahne-
mann's first medical book, 64
Balogh, J. von, flowers of rhetoric by,
250
Balogh, P. von, abused by Kovats, 254
Bark, Hahnemann's first proving of, 103,
104 ; duration of action of, 114
Baumann on pathological chemistry, 386
Baumes, system of, 52
Baumgarten, action against, 231
Bavaria, law against homoeopathy in, 279
Bazire, killed by quinine, 399
Becker, principium inflammabile of, 1,2
Beddoes, treatment of consumption by,
51
Belgium, number of homoeopaths in, 277
Belladonna, Hahnemann's large doses of^,
117; small doses of, 123; in scarlet
fever, Hahnemann's early doses of,
129 ; preventive of scarlet fever, 236
Beneke on pathological chemistry, 386
Bergmann on tartar emetic, 23
Berlin, grant of funds for homoeopathic
hospital in, 318
Bernhard on itch, 69
Bernstein, laudation of Hahnemann by,
75 ; prophecies the downfall of homce-
opathy, 272
Bertholet supports Lavoisier, 5
Bichat strives to give an anatomical basis
to medicine, 376
Bile, Hahnemann's experiments with, 20,
132
Binz on the Vienna school, 416 ; on saly-
cylic acid in rheumatism, 416, 417
Bischoff, testimony to Quarin's friendship
for Hahnemann, 152 ; praise of Hahne-
mann by, 168 ; on homrcopathy, 187,
200 ; treatment of cholera by, 246 ;
refusal to test homoeopathy by, 310 ;
success of, in pneumonia, 41 1 ; com-
parative trial of homoeopathy by, 411
Black refused fellowship of Edinburgh
College, 375
Bleeding, Hahnemann's employment of,
67 ; in nervous fever, Frank on, 67 \
Hahnemann's denunciation of, 68, 371,
Hufelar.d blames homceopaths for not»
196 ; the sheet-anchor of medicine,
Bischoff, 200 ; Puchelt, 201 ; Hein-
roth, 201 ; Wedekind, 202 ; Groos,
202 ; Miickisch, 203 ; Fischer, 204 ;
Hufeland, 207 ; Simon, 207 ; Zeroni,
208 ; Riecke is sure homceopaths will ^
return to, 210; Gmelin, 211; Win-
disch, 215 ; Broussais, 217 ; protests of
homceopaths against, 217 ; Kriiger-
Hansen opposed to, 217 ; Bontekoe
opposed to, 218; reasons for, 218;
in pneumonia, Dietl's cases of, 220 ;
in cholera, 237-246, 418 ; wonderful
success of, 241, 286; deaths ascribed
to neglect of, 262, 282 ; palliative relief
from, 418 ; unsuccessful attempts to
rehabilitate, 425
Bleekrode, his work on homoeopathy,
361 ; on Paracelsus, 361
Bliss expelled for serving with a homce-
opath, 376
Blisters do not throw off peccant humours,
76 .. ,
Blood, ideas concernmg composition of,
50 ; Haller's, 50 ; Blumenbach's, 50,
51 ; Kapp's, 51 ; Virchow's ideas con-
cerning the, 381
Blue aqua fortis, 9
Blumenbach on composition of blood,
50, 51 ; approval of judicial torture by,
66 ; account of Harvey's discovery by,
304
Bock performs p.m. of Schwarzenberg,
187
Bonomo, discovery of itch-mite by, 69
Bontekoe, substitutes tea for bleeding,
218
Borax, varieties of opinion regarding
composition of, 289 ; pneum proved to
be, 288
Borbonium, a supposed new metal, 289
Boswell's dose of ambra, 120
Bouvard's treatment of Louis XHL, 259
Boyd's success from bleeding in cholera,
241
Brand on antipyretic treatment, 415
Bride, or the action of salycylic acid on
the ear, 402
Brieger on pathological chemistry, 3S6
Bristowe, on homoeopathy, 374
Britain, number of homreopalhs in, 277 ;
state of medicine in, 424
Brodie, experiments on the blood of, 237 J
on homoeopathy, 374
Brodowicz recommends bleeding in cho-
lera, 246
Index.
435
Broussais, sanguinary treatment of, 217 ;
his doctrine of gastro-enteritis, 377
Brown's system, 45, 53, 69 ; Hahne-
mann's appreciation of, 95 ; adherents
of, oppose homoeopathy, 424
Bruce, the traveller, 133
Bruckenthal, Hahnemann's appointment
by, 152
Brueckmann's attack on Hahnemann,
293 ; Hahnemann's reply to, 295, 296
Bruguiere's thesis on similia, 308
Brunnow's account of Hahnemann, 156-
158
Buchner observes the transformation of
bacilli, 390
Bucholtz praises Hahnemann's work, 18
Burmann wants the State to forbid
homoeopathy, 278
Burrell's success from bleeding in cholera,
241
Busch's treatment of consumption, 51
Bushnan on homoeopathy, 374
Cadet supports Lavoisier, 5
Camphor, Hahnemann's large doses of,
118
Canada, homoeopathy in, 277
Cantharides resolve morbid humours, 76;
in urinary affections, 362
Carbolic acid, germicide and anti-pyretic
action of, 389.
Caries, Hahnemann's treatment of, 63
Cascarilla pronounced superfluous, 102
Case against homoeopathy, a trumped up,
214
Caspar's refutation of Eigenbrodt, 311
Caustic, lunar, black colour of, ascribed to
copper, 23
Cavendish opposes Lavoisier, 5
Cavour, last illness of, 259
Cellular pathology, Virchow's, 379-382 ;
of no therapeutic value, 393
Censors of the press prohibit homoeopathic
publications, 251
Cesalpino said to be the discoverer of the
circulation, 305
Chamomile, febrifuge power of, 1 15
Change of medicine too frequent, 196,
398,
Charge, trial of homoeopathy by, 316
Charlotte, Princess, death of, 261
Chemical changes the cause of morbid
processes, 3S4
Chemical terms, Lavoisier's, 5
Chemical therapeutics of Baumes and Gir-
tanner, 52
Chemistry, in Hahnemann's youth, 2 ;
uselessness of, to therapeutics, 133
China, homoeopathy in, 277
Chloral hydrate, fatal effects of, 402, 403,
404
Chlorate of potash, collateral effects of,
405; in diphtheria, 421
Chlorosis, action of iron in, 385; Virchow
denies the curability of, 385
Cholera, pathology of, 235; bleeding the
only remedy for, 235, 238; emetics
advised for, 236; list of remedies re-
commended for, 237; Loder objects to
bleeding in, 239; small bleedings of no
use in, 239; Corbyn's success with bleed-
ing in, 240; Hasper's statistics of, 240;
Scott on, 240; Annesleyon, 241 ; Krli-
ger-Hansen on, 242; Sachs on, 242;
Kieser on, 243; Von Rein on, 243;
Brodowicz, Wawruch, Obersteiner, Bis-
choff, Wirer on, 246; Szots, Sterz,
Hufeland on, 247; superiority of ho-
moeopathy in, 248; at London Homoeo-
pathic Hospital, 248, 321; the water-
cure in, 337
Cholerills, the germs causing cholera, 242
Chronic Diseases, Hahnemann's, 137
Ciliary movements excited by alkalies, 385
Cinchona, Hahnemann's large doses of,
119 (see Bark)
Clarus aol vises homoeopathy to be tested
in a hospital, 185; proposes impossible
conditions for such a trial, 316; signs
report of Schwarzenberg's p.m., 187J
medical censor at Leipzic, 251
Classification of diseases, Hahnemann's
objections to the, 1 16
Cleanliness, Hahnemann on, 62
Clinical instruction in universities, de-
ficiency of, 57
Coal, Hahnemann advocates use of, 12
Coethen, Hahnemann at, 155; Duke of,
Hahnemann's protector, 155
Cohnheim's pathology, neglect of chemis-
try in, 388
Cold bath treatment of pneumonia, 407
Collateral effects of medicines, 398
Colledge insists on bleeding in cholera,
241
Colombia, homoeopathy in, 277
Columbus's egg, 80
Combustion, spontaneous, explanation of,
49; Lie big's refutation of, 49
Conium, Hahnemann's large doses of, I17
Consumption, cramming treatment of, 421
Contradictory opinions of medical authori-
ties, 102, 103
Contraria contrariis, 105, 135
Converts to homoeopathy, fate of, 373
Copper, Hahnemann's mode of adminis-
tering, 126
Corbyn's success with bleeding in cholera,
240
436
Index.
Coroner's inquests employed to annoy
homceopaths, 227, 375
Corvisart introduces percussion, 377
Cousin supports Lavoisier, 5
Cox expelled for consulting with Bliss, 376
Craw's success from bleeding in cholera,
241
Crell, defence of phlogiston by, 6, 7; An-
nalc7i of, 18; on the composition of
borax, 2S9
Crystallization, Hahnemann's analysis by,
13
Cullen's Materia Medica, Hahnemann's
translation of, 65, 103; theory of action
of bark in ague, 103
Curschmann on anti-pyretic treatment,
416
Dahlberg thinks it possible that water is
earth, 2
Damerow, sees signs of decay in homoe-
opathy, 273; denies that Paracelsus
taught homoeopathy, 302
Daniels testifies to Hahnemann's merits,
75
Darkness, HomaopatJnc vjorks of, 190
Deafness after salicylic acid, 39S, 402;
after quinine, 400
Death of homoeopathy announced, 281
Declat, the real author of Listerism, 424
Demachy's Procedes CIiiDiiques, 8-12 ;
Hahnemann's translation of, 8; Struve's
translation of, 8
Demachy's Art da Vinaigner, Hahne-
mann's translation of, 39
Demachy's Distillateur Liqitoriste, trans-
lated by Hahnemann, 39
Demarquay's experiments with quinine,
401
Dempster's success from bleeding in
cholera, 241
Devil, Hahnemann likened to the, 191
Diagnosis should be verified on dissecting
table, 416, 425
Diet, inattention to, by allopaths, 195
Dietl opposes bleeding, 219; comparative
treatment of pneumonia by, 220, 412,
418
Digitalis the febrifuge par excellence, 395,
408
Dilutions, Hahnemann's mode of making,
128
Dioscorides, untrustworthiness of his ma-
teria medica, 98
Diphtheria, varied treatment of, 421-423
Dispensatory, Edinlmrgli, Hahnemann's
translation of, 81
Dispense medicines, Hahnemann asserts
the right of physicians to, 144, 430;
Hufeland on the right to, 193; Fischer
on, 196; Rigler on, 348
Distillation, Hahnemann's'improved mode
of, II
Doellinger an adherent of the natural
philosophical school, 378
Doesdorff's friendship for Hahnemann,
153
Dollfuss defends phlogiston, 5
Dolorin a cure for every grief, proposed
manufacture of, 367
Domestic medicines, indebtedness of old
physic to, 98
Doses, large, Hahnemann's denunciation
of, 126
Doses, small, Hahnemann's denunciation
of, 119; Hahnemann commences to
give, 121, 123, 124; sensitiveness of
diseased organism to, 129; Hahne-
mann's defence of, 130
Dropsy, different kinds of, 114
Druggists, adulterations and falsifications
of, 140
Drugs, impurity of, 139
Dumeril's experiments with quinine, 401
Duration of homceopathy, allopathic
opinion of the probable, 270
Dynamism, Hahnemann's, 136
Dyscrasia, production of, 381; chemical
changes the cause of, 381; local origin
of, 382
Earth, three kinds of, i
Eigenbrodt's report on homoeopathic
hospitals, 311; refuted by Caspar, 311
Eisenmann on psora, 341
Electricity, views concerning composition
of, 52, 53
Electuary, Hahnemann disapproves of
the, 125
Elias on homceopathy, 204; rejoices over
the speedy extinction of homoeopathy,
272; wants facts against homceopathy,
310
Ennemoser on mesmerism, 333
Epilepsy, Hahnemann's belief of cura-
bility of, 292
Epileptic patient, Hahnemann's letter to
the father of an, 292
Epsom and Glauber salts, comparative
analysis of, 23
Erastus approves sini. siiii., 300
Erdmann's condemnation of Trinks's
treatment, 223
Erlangen, Hahnemann graduates at, 153;
Hahnemann's thesis at, 153, 343
Erxleben on composition of electricity,
52
Eschenbach on Hahnemann s wine test,
29
Index.
437
Eschenmeyer's admiration of Hahne-
mann, 170; on homceopathy, 209; on
mesmerism, 333
Esenbeck on mesmerism, 333
Ewald's ignorance of Rademacher, 397
Examination of the patient, Hahne-
mann's, 113
Experience, Medicine of, Halinemann's,
177 ; condemnation of, 178
Experience, sciences of, 133
Extracts, Hahnemann's mode of pre-
paring, 126
Fabbroni's Wine Manufacture, translated
by Hahnemann, 39
Fashion in medicine, Hahnemann's con-
tempt for, 76
Fickel, the homoeopathic impostor, 342
Fire, nature of, 7
Fischer, criticism of Hahnemann's first
essay by, 173 ; on homceopatliy, 194,
197, 204 ; regrets to hear of homoe-
opathic cures, 206, 320; wants the
State to suppress homceopathy, 279
Fleischer complains of the ingratitude of
those who would test homoeopathy,
3.17
Fleischmann's homoeopathic treatment of
cholera, 248
Fletcher's estimate of Hahnemann's work,
171
Foerster says homoeopathy is despised
out of Germany, 275
Fontana on snake poisons, 237
Forbes, Sir J-, his estimate of Hahne-
man's genius, 171 ; on homoeopathy,
374
Fourcroy supports Lavoisier, 5 ; wine-
test of, 27
Fragmenta de virihus medicainentorzini ,
Hahnemann's, loi, 177
France, homoeopathy in, 277 ; persecu-
tion of homoeopaths in, 376
Francis I., treatment and death of, 256
Frank on bleeding in nervous fever, 67;
on the treatment of other diseases, 68;
on the itch, 70
Fredault expelled from Anatomical So-
ciety, 376
Friedheim prefers bleeding to homce-
pathy, 311
Fritze on venereal disease, 64
Froriep's testimony to Hahnemann's
genius, 170
Fuchs on the composition of borax, 289
Gabalda expelled from Anatomical So-
ciety, 376
Galen, persecution of, 304 ; the alleged
originator of homoeopathy, 308
Galileo's recantation, 80
Garnett's treatment of consumption, 51
Gartenlauhe, attacks on homoeopathy
^ in, 322
Gendre, le, supports Lavoisier, 5
Gerhardt on diphtheria, 421, 422
Germany, number of homceopaths in,
277 ; fancy description of, by a French-
_ m-in, 359
Giacometti on toxic effects of quinine, 399
Girtanner's treatment of consumption, 51 ;
system, 52 ; description of medical
science, 56
Glauber salt prepared with alum, 9
Gmelin, testimony in favour of Lavoisier
of, 8; on homoeopathy, 21 1; re-
proaches homceopathy for rejecting
bleeding, 363 ; owns that homoeopathy
has been unfairly used, 363
Goenne's condemnation of Trinks's treat-
ment, 223
Goethe's opinion of homoeopathy, 257 ;
Hufeland s estimate of, 257 ; allopathic
treatment of, 25S ; on mesmerism, 335
Goettling on proportions of constituents
of Glauber salt, 14; decision in Hahne-
mann's favour of, 31
Gohier, Melanie d'Hervilly, Hahnemann's
second wife, 165 ; an artist, 344 ; her
affectionate care of Hahnemann, 344
Gravier's success from bleeding in
cholera, 241
Greding's use of narcotics in mania and
nervous affections, 362
Gren's chemical views, 3 ; opposes La-
voisier, 7 ; on oxygen, 8 ; unaware of
composition of white lead, 23 ; on
mere, sol., 31
Griesselich, account of Hahnemann by,
161, 162, 163; defence of Hahnemann
by, 299
Groh's denunciation of homoeopathy, 189
Groos, his admiration for Hahnemann,
169 ; on homceopathy, 202
Grosvenor, Lord R., moves for parlia-
mentary paper on cholera returns, 248
Guersent on toxic effect of quinine, 399
Haeseler, Hahnemann's father-in-law,
153
Haeser accuses Hahnemann of pla-
giarism, 306; rebukes the opponents
of homoeopathy, 342 ; on homoeo-
pathy, 343 ; calumniates Hahnemann's
second wife, 343 ; accuses Hahne-
mann of vanity and avarice, 345 ;
quotes Bleekrode, Stieglitz and Gmelin,
363
438
Index.
Hahn, the first hydropathist, 338
Hahnemann, services to chemistry of,
1-14; first appearance as a chemist of,
8; learning of, 10, 17; v^oxVqw. Arsenic
Poisoning of, 15; chemical essays of,
18-20; on Aditltcraiions of Drugs, 21;
chemical accuracy of, 22; wine test, 24-
27; test for metals, 27; soluble mercury,
30-32; Apothekerlexicon, 32-38; trans-
lation of Demachy's Lahorant, 8-12;
translation of Demachy's Liqiiciirfabri-
canf,T,(); translation of Demachy's Vi7ie-
gar tnannfacture, 39; translation of
Fabbroni's Wine Manufacture, 39 ;
translation of De La Metherie on Pure
Air, 40; translation of Monro's Materia
Aledica, 40; translation of Edinburgh
Dispensatory, 41; translation of Cullen's
Materia Meciica, 65, 103; services to
chemistry acknowledged by distin-
guished chemists, 41, 370; as a phy-
sician, 42-58; services to medicine of,
58, 370; first medical work of, 59; con-
tempt for authority in medicine of, 59;
on folk's medicine, 60; on exercise, 60;
the founder of hygiene, 61; on amuse-
ment, 61 ; on the cold water cure, 62;
on baths, 63; treatment of ulcers, 63;
treatment of caries, 63 ; on Venereal-
Diseases, 64; non-restraint treatment of
insanity, 67; employment of bleeding
by, 67 ; views on itch of, 69 ; on elec-
tricity, 74; reputation as a physician of,
74> 75> 90> 370; as a medical reformer,
76; attacks on orthodox therapeutics of,
87; works of, 145-150; birth and
parentage of, 150 ; education of, 151 ;
first thesis of, 151; father of, 150, 151;
first wife of, 153, 158, 159, 160, 329;
in Hermannstadt, 153 ; wanderings of,
I53i 154; domestic life of, 157; reli-
gion of, 158; personal appearance of,
162 ; dislike of praise of, 162 ; dislike
of controversy of, 163 ; confidence in
the triumph of homoeopathy of, 164 ;
handwriting of, 164; second marriage
of, 166; removal to Paris of, 166; death
of, 166, 167; leaves Leipzic for Coethen,
187 ; silenced by the censor, 251 ; de-
scribed by Kovats, 253 ; calumnies re-
specting, 285 ; alleged avarice of, 287,
354 ; will of, 288 ; explanation of the
mistake about pneum, 290, 291 ; accused
of stealing his doctrine from other
authors, 300; degree of, how obtained,
343 ; number of medicines proved by,
347 ; first wife of, 350 ; second wife of,
344 ; on his right to dispense his own
medicines, 356
Hahnemann, Frederick, account of, 159;
reply to Hecker by, 183
Hale, recall of diploma of, 232
Haller's test for arsenic, 16 ; on proving
medicines, 331, 361
Hanak's abuse of homceopaths, 252
Hansen (Kriiger), testimony to Hahne-
mann's learning and skill of, 170 ; on
allopathic treatment of cholera, 242,
246; silenced by the censor, 251
Hansen the mesmeriser, 332 ; allopathic
abuse of, 420
Hardy's case of death from quinine, 400
Harlem, prize offered by Academy of, 7
Harvey, refusal of Aberdeen faculty to
continue his examination, 232
Harvey, persecution of, 304, 305
Hasenohrl (see Lagusius)
Hasper, treatment of cholera by, 237 ;
reasons for bleeding in cholera of, 239-,
411; cholera, statistics of, 240; on
Herrmann's homoeopathic treatment in
Russian hospitals, 313 ; asserts that
homoeopathy is injurious, 319
Hassenfratz a partisan of Lavoisier, 5
Hecker, commendation of Hahnemann's
mode of making extracts by, 35 ; tes-
timony of, to the value of Kaempfs
clysters, 45 ; on spontaneous combus-
tion, 49; attacks Hahnemann's first
homoeopathic essay, 172 ; attacks
Hahnemann's Organon, 180 ; replied
to by F. Hahnemann, 183; his idea of
simplicity in prescribing, 180
Heinroth on homceo):)athy, 201; on
proving drugs, 268; prophecies the
speedy extinction of homceopathy, 271;
reasons for refusing to test homce-
opathy, 310
Hellchorisni of the Ancients, Hahne-
nemann's, favourable notices of, 184
Hencke praises Hahnemann's work on
arsenic, 18
Henderson's conversion to homoeopathy,
323 ; ejection from clinical jDrofessor-
ship, 375
Hennecke's estimate of Hahnemann, 161
Henschel accuses Hahnemann of pla-
giarism, 306
Hering on Hahnemann's theories, 330
Hermannstadt, Hahnemann's residence
Hermbstiidt, sides against Lavoisier, 5
goes over to Lavoisier's views, 7; on
the composition of milk-sugar, 9; on
pneum, 290
Herrmann's treatment of cholera by
emetics, 247
Herrmann's homoeopathic treatment in
Russian hospitals, 312, 313
I
Index.
439
Heubner on local treatment of diphtheria,
422
Hildebrand on the solution of mercury in
nitric acid, 30
Hindostan, homoeopathy in, 277
Hippocrates, simple treatment of, 79;
advocacy o{ sini. siin. by, ill; Hahne-
mann compared to, 273; accusations
against, 303; said to be the author of
homoeopathy, 305-307
Hirschel on mesmerism, 334; medical
works of, 351
Hoffmann, C. L., his system, 53
Hoffman, F., on bleeding in cholera, 238;
on proving medicines, 361
Hoffman, L., his system, 42
Holscher prophecies the speedy extinc-
tion of homoeopathy, 215
Horner's adoption of homcEopathy, 320;
persecution of, 321, 375
Homoeopathy, origin of, I; comparative
trial of, 41 1
Herz, a critic of orthodox medicine, 56
Hornburg, persecution and death of, 229
Hospital, homoeopathic, for children, es-
tablished by Prussian Government, 247
Huber's reply to Juergensen, 331
Hufeland, denunciation of abuse of
opium by, 55 ; neglects hygiene, 61 ;
on the itch, 71; on arsenic in ague,
108; testimony to Hahnemann's che-
mical knowledge of, 132; testimony to
Hahnemann's medical knowledge of,
169; modified approbation of Hahne-
mann's prophylactic of scarlet fever,
175 ; modified assent to the thera-
peutic rule of siiii. siin., 176; states
advantages and disadvantages of ho-
moeopathy, 192; blames homoeopaths
for not bleeding, 196; makes out ho-
moeopaths to be murderers, 207, 228;
on liberty, 252; on mesmerism, 334;
on psora, 341
Humboldt opposes disease-matter, 50;
testifies to the reality of magnetic cures,
333; thinks Lavoisier's chemical dis-
coveries will help therapeutics, 391
Hungary, treatment of cholera in, 246;
treatment of homoeopaths in, 254
Hunter on inflammation, 376
Husemann on the danger of chloral
hydrate, 402 ; on digitalis in pneu-
monia, 408
Ignatia, Hahnemann's large doses of, 120
Individualisation, Hahnemann's advo-
cacy of, 116; Juergensen on, 41 1
Infarctus the cause of all diseases, 43-45
Infinitesimal doses, powerful effects of,
194
Insanity, usual treatment of, 66; Hahne-
mann's non-restraint treatment of, 67
Insincerity of homreopaths, alleged, 364
International Medical Congress, probable
failure of, in America, caused by anti-
homceopathic bigotry, 376
Iodine a cause of atrophy and albumin-
uria, 403
Iodoform, unable to arrest the decompo-
sition of albumen, 389
Ipecacuanha, powerful effects of small
doses of, 194
Irritation, want of proper definition of,
384
Isopathy, not accepted by homoeopaths,
331
Itch, maladies following suppressed, 208
Itch insect, discovered by Bonomo, 69;
known to Hahnemann, 72, 73
Jahn, Fried., on the itch, 70; extinguishes
Hahnemann, 269
Jahn, Fried., on the itch, 70
Jahr's account of Hahnemann's death,
166, 167
Jani's modified assent of to prophylactic
power of bell, in scarlatina, 175
Jean Paul Richter's opinion of Hahne-
mann, 257
Jousset expelled from Anatomical So-
ciety, 376
Juergensen on homoeopathy, 329; doses
of fjuinine and chloral hydrate, 329 ;
says homoeopathy has never done any
good, 330; on isopathy, 331; accuses
Hahnemann of mesmerism, 332; al-
leges Hahnemann first appealed to the
lay public, 335; condemns bleeding in
pneumonia, 336, 340; favourable to hy-
dropathy, 336; on the psora theory,
340; wagon-axle illustration of, 388;
his treatment of pneumonia, 407-41 1;
on digitalis in pneumonia, 408; his
doses of chloral hydrate, 409; on anti-
pyretic treatment, 415; on diphtheria,
422
Kaempfs clysters, 43, 53
Kairin the latest anti-pyretic, 395
Kammerer on the vis medicatrix naturce,
299
Kant on mesmerism, 335
Karpfs flowers of rhetoric, 250
Karsch, Wonders of Honuvopatliy by,
324; denies Hahnemann's sincerity,
324; on tests for arsenic, 326; quoted
by Rigler, 354
Karsten sides with Lavoisier, 7; discovers
Ruprecht's chemical errors, 289
440
Index.
Kieser, a critic of okl-school physic, 56;
on cholera, 243; advice to sham doc-
tors, 243; on hleeding in cholera, 244;
prophecies the speedy extinction of
homceopathy, 270; an adherent of the
natural philosophical school, 378
Kiesselbach silenced by the censor, 251
Kirwan, theory of, 3; defends phlogiston,
5; takes the other side, 7
Klaproth smells phlogiston, 6; takes the
other side, 7; discovers Ruprecht's
chemical errors, 289; his diamond spar,
291
Klebs declares Virchow's cellular doc-
trine to be improbable, 392
Klockenbring, insanity of, Hahnemann's
cure of, 67, 154 ; large doses of tartar
emetic given by Hahnemann to, 120,
328 ; Karsch on, 327
Kluge prohibits Hahnemann's works, 251
Koeppe attributes homoeopathy to Alberti,
308 ; on homoeopathy, 342 ; laudation
^ of, 365
Kolowrat's repeal of law against homceo-
pathy, 248
Kopp believes in 30th dilution, 210,
267 ; on homoeopathy, 263 ; character
of, 263
Kovats abuses homoeopathy, 253
Kranzfelder, an opponent of homceo-
pathy, 185
Kraus prophesies the speedy extinction of
homceopathy, 271 ; reveals the secret
of the spread of homceopathy, 283
Kriquet's case of death from quinine,
,399
Kuechler, Henriette, Hahnemann's first
wife, 153; death of, 155, 156; con-
flicting accounts of, 158, 159, 160
Kuhn's persecution of Trinks, 223, 226
Laborde's experiments with quinine, 400
Labour, Brownian treatment of, 55
Laennec introduces the stethoscope, 377
Lagusius, treatment of Leopold H. by,
88-91
Landriani discovers composition of water,
5
Landsberg discovers Hippocrates to be a
homceopath, 305
La Plata, homoeopathy in, 277
Lassone's method of obtaining tartar
emetic, 23
Lavoisier, state of chemistry before, i ;
opposes phlogiston theory, 4 ; opposi-
tion to, 5 ; accused of plagiarism, 6 ;
wine test of, 28 ; execution of, 8
Lay origin of many medicines, 340
Lead, composition of white, shown by
Hahnemann, 22 ; Hahnemann's mode
of administering, 125
Lecomte's experiments with quinine, 401
Lehmann, Hahnemann's assistant, 156;
treatment of Leischke by, 225
Leiner on the composition of electricity,
53 .
Leipzic, Hahnemann at, 157 ; proposed
trial of homoeopathy at, 316
Leischke, case of, 225
Lenhardt, on the death of Leopold IL,
90-92
Lenhoscek, the Hungarian censor taboos
homcfiopathic publications, 249-251
Leopold H., treatment of last illness of,
88-91 ; autopsy of, 92 ; Karsch on, 325 ;
Rigler on, 349
Lesser appeals to posterity against
homojopathy, 212 ; calls Hahnemann
an ignoramus, 215 ; announces the
death of homreopathy, 274 ; finds
bleeding superior to homceopathy, 31 1;
on Wislicenus's public trial of homoeo-
pathy, 312 ; on psora, 341
Leube's humoral explanation of the ac-
tion of mineral waters, 393 ; his praise
of the stomach pump, 394 ; on diph-
theria, 422
Libels on homoeopaths, allopaths pun-
ished for, 365, 368
Lichtenstadt on mesmerism, 333
Liebermeister, his doses of veratrin in
fever, 406 ; his antipyretic treatment of
pneumonia, 412-414 ; on the anti-
pyretic method, 416, 417
Liebreich on homoeopathy, 342
Ling, the founder of medical gymnastics,
339
Link's appreciation of Hahnemann, 170
I^innasus on the itch-mite, 69
Lippich on homoeopathy, 254
Listerism, decline of, 424
Lockner on the nullity of homceopathy,
212
Loebel and Stifft, anecdote of, 255
London Homreopathic Hospital, treat-
ment of cholera in, 248, 321
Louisa, Queen, death by bleeding of,
35.0
Lowiz, on acetic acid, 3
Lucian, saying of, 345
Ludwig's use of narcotics in nervous
affections, 362
Luedecke, on prescribing, 397
Macht's nach ! 309
Macloughlin on treatment of cholera in
London Homoeopathic Hospital, 249,
I
Index.
441
Magnesia from brine, Hahnemann's
mode of separating, 13
Major's treatment of pneumonia, 412
Mannsfcid accuses Hahnemann of steal-
ing from Paracelsus, 300
Marenzeller's homceopathic treatment in
Vienna hospital, 313 ; biography of,
314 ; letter of William IV. to, 314
Markus proposes bleeding for hospital
fever, 337
Massage, 339
Materia medica, Hahnemann's criticism
of the actual, 97
Mayntzer's reply to Juergensen, 342
Medicine, state of, in Hahnemann's
early days, 42
Medicine of Experience, Hahnemann's
Medicines, different actions of, 107 ;
Hahnemann's mode of preparing, 1 17
Meissen, Hahnemann's birthplace, 151 ;
freedom of, conferred on Hahnemann,
Melicher's refusal to accept conditions
for a homosopathic hospital, 318
Mercurial fever required to cure syphilis,
103, 118
Mercury, Hahnemann's soluble, 30-32 ;
Karsch on, 327 ; hurtful effects of,
4°4 .
Mesmerism, the practice of, attributed to
Hahnemann, 332 ; adopted by modern
German professors, 332, 420 ; history
of medical, 333 ; periodicals devoted
to, 333
Messerschmidt, homceopathic cures by,
194
Metherie, de la, on vegetable acids, 3 ;
opposes Lavoisier, 5 ; on Pure Air,
translated by Hahnemann, 40 ; on
borax, 2S9
Mexico, homoeopathy in, 277
Miasmatic diseases, 116
Mietau, offer to Hahnemann of a profes-
sorship at, 75
Mixtures of medicines, excuse for giving,
397
Mongaz supports Lavoisier, 5
Monro unaware of carbonic acid in white
lead, 22; believes Epsom and Glauber
salts to be identical, 23; complains of
uncertain strength of tartar emetic, 23;
Materia Medica of, Hahnemann's
translation of, 40, 104
Monstrosity, homoeopathy a, 275, 280
Monte Video, homoeopathy in, 277
Morgan, Vaughan, offer to St. George's
hospital of, 321
Morphia poisoning, frequency of, 405
Morveau on the light principle in phos-
phorus, 3; supports Lavoisier, 5; ar-
senic test of, 16
Most on homreopathy, 215
Mueckish on homoeopathy, 203; on prov-
ing drugs, 270; on rational medicine,
329
Mueller, principal of Hahnemann's
school, 151
Mueller, J., his physiology, 37S
Mueller, Moritz, account of the Trinks
trials by, 222, 224 ; persecution of,
233
Munk cannot conscientiously test homoe-
opathy, 311; on Andral's trials of ho-
moeopathy, 315
Muriatic acid, supposed composition of,
3; Hahnemann's new test for, 12
Musk, powerful effects of small doses of,
194
Naples, trials of homoeopathy in, 315
Narcotics, faulty preparation of extracts
of, 141; Hahnemann's method of
making extracts of, 141; great use of,
395' 425
Natural philosophy, its evil influence on
medicine, 97
Nature doctors, 430
Naumann's praise of Hahnemann, 169
Navier on the composition of arsenic, 15;
test for arsenic of, 16, 326, 327
Neumann, strange chemical notions of, I,
2 ; denies the existence of magnesia,
13 ; failure to find a sure test for
arsenic of, 15, 16; attempt to find a
soluble mercury of, 30 ; bad method of
preparing extracts of, 34
New Zealand, homoeopathy in, 277
Nicolai says Hahnemann is idiotic, 283
Niemeyer's therapeutics, 406, 408
Nihilism, the reign of, 37S
Nitric acid, impurity of, 9; Hahnemann's
improved mode of manufacturing, 12
Nolde's approval of Hahnemann's simple
practice, 174
Nostrum vending by physicians, 52, 179,
180
Nothnagel on fatal doses of opium, 40G
Obersteiner's treatment of cholera, 246
Oertel, the founder of hydropathy, 337 ;
attacked by the allopaths, 417
Olbers on mesmerism, 333
Ontology in medicine, 54
Opium, Hufeland's denunciation of the
abuse of, 55 ; Rossbach on fatal doses
of, 406
Organon, preface to second edition of.
442
Index,
134-136 ; appearance of, iSo ; criticism
of, 181
Oxydes, discovery of, 6
Oxygen, discovery of, 4
Papayotin, a bacteria producer, 390
Paracelsus, a denouncer of orthodox
medicine, 98 ; said to be the inventor
of homceopathy, 300, 355; real doctrine
of, 302, 361
Parasites of homoeopathy, 352
Pareira-root in renal and vesical
diseases, 114
Paris, Hahnemann's removal to, 166
Parthenium, a supposed new metal, 289
Paternity, Hahnemann on, 160
Pathological anatomy, neglected by the
Brownians, 56 ; Rokitansky's develop-
ment of, 378
Patient, examination of the, Hahne-
mann on the, 112
Patin on Peracelsus, 303
Pearce found guilty of the manslaughter
of his brother, 227
Perfection already attained by old school,
211
Periodical to oppose homceopathy, 285
Periodicals, homoeopathic, in Germany,
277) 352 ; in other countries, 277
Persecuting fury of the allopaths, 234
Persecutions of the homoeopaths, 233
Pfaff on mesmerism, 335
Phlogiston, doctrine of, i, 2, 3
Phthisis, the cramming system in, 421
Physiological research, pursuit of, 425
Pierer on Hahnemann's new essay, 173
Piorry introduces the plessimeter, 377
Pitschaft on Goethe, 257
Place, de la, supports Lavoisier, 5
Ploucquet's quotation from Erastus, 300
Pneum, history of, 288-290
Pneumatic apparatus, transient favour of,
395
Pneumonia, Dietl's statistics of, 220 ;
bleeding used for, down to 1867, 221 ;
Juergensen's treatment of, 407, 411 ;
quinine in, 407 ; veratrin in, 408 ;
chloral hydrate in, 409 ; diet in, 409 ;
turpentine in, 410 ; antipyretic treat-
ment of, 412, 418
Poerner befriends Hahnemann, 152
Poisons are medicines, loi, 129
Pope, rejection of, by Edinburgh ex-
aminers, 232
Prescriptions, secundum artem, 79;
simple, Hahnemann's advocacy of, 86,
87, 94; composite, 54, 82-87, 97, 194;
simple allopathic, 397
Priessnitz the water-curer, 338; abused by
the allopaths, 417
Priestly's dephlogisticated air, 4; defends
phlogiston, 5
Professional courtesies, 57
Provers before Hahnemann, 99
Proving of drugs, 99, loo; Hahnemann's
loi, 104; and poisonings the source of
the materia medica, 100; allopathic
opinions of, 268; Heinroth on, 268;
Miickisch on, 270
Prussia, law allowing homoeopaths to
dispense their medicines in, 364
Prussian blue, search for the colouring
matter of, 2
Psora theor}', Hahnemann's, 138 ; re-
jected by his disciples, 138; professed
by many allopaths, 341
Puchelt's opinion of Hahnemann's talents,
168; on mesmerism, 334; on homoeo-
pathy, 183, 187, 201
Purgatives, great consumption of, in
England, 425
Quantity not always proportional to
effect, 131
Quarin, his influence on Hahnemann, 58;
his friendship for Hahnemann, 152
Quinine the fashionable antipyretic, 395;
poisonous effects of, 398; hydrocyanate
of, effects of, 399; amaurosis from,
400 ; deafness from, 400; action on the
heart of, 401; ague caused by, 401; in
pneumonia, 407
Quixote, Don, Hahnemann compared to,
283
Raab, Bakody's successful treatment of
cholera at, 249
Rademacher on Paracelsus, 301, 302;
alleged long prescriptions of, 213
Rapp, conversion to homoeopathy of,
323; persecution of, 323
Rational, Attomyr"s derivation of, 213
Rau on itch sequelce, 72
Recamier's case of death from quinine,
399
Reich's secret remedy for fevers, high
price paid for, 52
Reil's doctrine, 49 ; Hahnemann's criti-
cism of, 132
Rein's treatment of cholera, 245
Reith, turned out of Aberdeen Hospital,
375
Richter condemns allopathic treatment of
pneumonia, 220
Richter. (See Jean Paul)
Riecke on homrecpathy, 210
Riess on anti-pyretic treatment, 414
Rigler, lecture at the West Berlin Medical
Society by, 345; his unveracity, 346-
35 1; his work on homoeopathy, 349;
Index.
443
his remarks on Hahnemann's first wife,
350; his mirror of truth, 352; praises
of, by allopathic journals, 353, 360-368;
his grotesque account of Hahnemann's
career, 353; his travesty of Hahne-
mann's doctrines, 354; abuses Hahne-
mann's literary style, 355; admits that
homoeopaths should be allowed to dis-
pense their medicines, 356; strong lan-
guage of, 358; punished for libel, 365,
.368
Ringer's bastard homoeopathy, 425
Rochel on homoeopathy, 254
Roeschlaub and Hufeland, 264
Rokitansky, the champion of patholo-
gical anatomy, 37S
Ronchi declares Hahnemann mad, 316
Roose on professional courtesies, 57
Rosenberger on septic poison, 390
Rossbach's experiments with papayotin,
390 ; on fatal doses of opium, 406
Rothamel's definition of cholera, 242
Routh's homoeopathic statistics, 375
Royal Society, vivisection surest passport
to, 426
Rudolphi on mesmerism, 335
Ruehle's humoral treatment, 417
Rummel on homoeopathy, 194; defence
of Hahnemann's originality, 301
Ruprecht, chemical errors of, 289
Russia, homoeopathy in, 277
Russian princess, fable of Hahnemann
and the, 286
Sachs likens Hahnemann to the devil, 19;
declares Hahnemann mad, 212; scien-
tific reason for treating cholera with
opium by, 243; his opinion of Kopp's
work, 267; says homoeopathy is dead,
273; wants the State to suppress ho-
moeopathy, 279; accuses Hahnemann
of misquoting Hippocrates, 305; scoffs
at a trial of homoeopathy, 311
Salicylic acid the great anti-pyretic and
anti-rheumatic, 395 ; deafness caused
by, 398, 402; toxic action of, in medi-
cinal doses, 401, 402
Salkowsky on the urine, 386
Saltpetre, Hahnemann's mode of refining,
23
Samuel's pathology, neglect of chemistry
in, 388
Sande, van der, work by Hahnemann
and, 21
Sander, says Governinent should suppress
homoeopathy, 281; says homoeopathy
was less successful than bleeding in
cholera, 319
Sapere atide, Hahnemann's first use of,
131
Satan reproving sin, 376
Sauvages, on bleeding in cholera, 238
Sax accuses Hahnemann of killing Prince
Schwarzenberg, 186; signs report of
autopsy, 187
Saxony disgraced by being the birthplace
of Hahnemann, 198
Scheele searches for the colouring matter
of Prussian blue, 2; opposes Lavoisier, 5
Schelling's natural philosophy, 46
Schenck on bell, in scarlatina, 184
Scherer's rebuke of Trommsclorff, 291
Scherf approves of Hahnemann's wine
test, 29
Schmit, article on cholera by, 249
Schoenlein, the founder of exact clinical
research, 378
Schreiber, treatment of Leopold H. by,
89
Schubert on mesmerism, 333
Schultz asks Government to forbid homoe-
opathy, 278; says Paracelsus invented
homoeopathy, 301, 355; alleges the
cellular theory to be of French origin,
355
Schuster on homoeopathy, 254
Schwarzenberg, Prince, case of, 186
Schwerdtner, on cold water treatment,
. 338
Science, allopathic, unscientific character
of, 419
Science, unscientific, 423
Scott, on bleeding in cholera, 240
Seitz, dangerous doses of opium of, 406;
on veratrin in pneumonia, 40S; on digi-
talis in pneumonia, 408; on the anti-
pyretic method, 416
Sentence passed on Trinks, Wolf, and
others, 226
Sganarelle on the change of practice of
physic, 377
Siebenhaar's account of the Trinks trial,
225 ; his praise of bleeding, 228
Similia similibus, 103, 104, 107, 108,
109 ; advocated by older authors. III ;
acknowledged by Hufeland, 176
Simon on homoeopathy, 207 ; considers
Hahnemann an ignoramus, 208 ; his
opinion of Kopp, 267 ; says homoeo-
pathy is nearly dead, 273 ; accuses
Hahnemann of imposition, 305 ; on
ALarenzeller's treatment in Vienna hos-
pitals, 313 ; on homoeopathy in Russia,
319 ; pays Hahnemann homoeopathi-
cally, 372 ; on Bischoffs trial of
homoeopathy, 412
Simple prescriptions, Hahnemann's re-
commendation of, 78 ; condemned,
183 ; approved, 209
Simpson, Sir J. Y., on homoeopathy, 374
444
Index.
Single remedy, Hahnemann's recom-
mendation of the, no
Skoda, an advocate of bleeding, 219 ;
teaches physical modes of investiga-
tion, 378
Societies, scientific, of which Hahnemann
was member, 75
Soda from common salt, Hahnemann's
mode of obtaining, 19
Sorge, reply to Juergensen of, 342 ; reply
to Rigler of, 347 ; exposes his inaccu-
racies, 348
Specifics, the search for, 100, 106, 115;
different meanings attached to the
word, 100 ; the discovery of, a pious
wish, 417
.Speculative medical systems, Hahnemann
on, 95 . .
Sponitzer's objection to simple prescrip-
tions, 174
Spread of homoeopathy, 276 ; in Ger-
many, 276 ; reasons for, 282
Sprengel appreciates the value of mer-
curius solubilis, 32 ; on Hahnemann's
Venereal Diseases, 65 ; calls Hahne-
mann's attack on Leopold H.'s physi-
cians, "fanatical," 93; testimony to
Hahnemann's learning and skill, 170;
on Hahnemann's first homceopathic
essay, 173 ; denies that Hippocrates
taught homoeopathy, 305 ; his im-
partiality, 345
Sproegel's test for arsenic, 16
Stachelroth defends homoeopathy, 280
Stahl, on phlogiston, i, 2
Stapf, persecution of, 233 ; homoeopathic
treatment at the Berlin Charite, 312
State help, appeal for, 58, 278, 348, 365
Statue of Hahnemann, Rigler's abuse of
the, 356
Steffens, his system, 47
Stern's trials of homoeopathy at Miskoltz,
317
Sterz on emetics in cholera, 247
Stieglitz testifies to Hahnemann's intelli-
gence and knowledge, 170 ; testifies
to Sachs's talent, 212 ; says homoeo-
pathy is dead, 274, 362 ; succeeded
by Weber as physician to King of
Hanover, 274, 363 ; gives his reasons
for refusing to test homoeopathy, 31 1 ;
his account of Marenzeller's trials, 314;
declares that homceopathy is only as
successful as dietetic treatment, 319 ;
admits Hahnemann's literary skill, 355
Stifft, anecdote of, 255 ; his treatment of
Francis I., 256; gets homoeopathy sup-
pressed in Austria, 278, 315
Stoeller's sneers at Hahnemann's, 89
Stoerck treats Leopold H., 89; Hahne-
mann's defence of, 93 ; his use of nar-
cotics in nervous affections, 362
Stoll, his system, 43, 53, 417
Stomach-pump, the highest development
of therapeutics, 394 ; going out of
fashion, 394; in phthisis, 421
Sulphur in haemorrhoids, 362
Sulphuric acid, Hahnemann's new test
for, 12
Sycosis, one of Hahnemann's chronic
miasmata, 138
Symptoms, treatment of, Hahnemann's
condemnation of, 112; allopathic treat-
ment of, 395, 396, 414, 419
Syphilis, one of Hahnemann's chronic
miasmata, 138; transmission of, various
ways of, 390; antipyretic treatment not
applicable to, 417
Szot5, on bleeding in cholera, 247
Tartar emetic, Hahnemann's mode of
obtaining pure, by crystallization 23;
in pneumonia, Dietl's cases of, 220;
large dose of, in Klockenbring's case,
120, 328
Tessier, trials of homoeopathy by, 316;
expelled from Anatomical Society, 376
Therapeutics in Hahnemann's youth,
state of, 42 •
Thesatirits medicaminum, Hahnemann's
translation of, 8, 113, 114, 115
Thouret's test for lead, 28
Thucydides, principle of, 345
Tissot's denunciation of tobacco, 53
Toad, proving of, falsely ascribed to
Hahnemann, 347
Toeltenyi proposes publicity in order to
extinguish homoeopathy, 283; thinks
publicity has killed it in England,
France, and Germany, 284
Torture, judicial, Blumenbach's approval
of, 66
Transcendental school, the, 96
Traube on digitalis, 395
Treviranus on mesmerism, 333
Trials of homoeopathy, by its opponents,
308-311; public, by its adherents, 312-
321
Trinks, criminal process against, 222;
letter to Hufeland of, 233
Triumph of medicine, the, is to verify
diagnosis on dissecting table, 416, 425
Trommsdorff, praises Hahnemann's Apo-
thekerlcxicon, 37; testifies to the im-
purity of drugs in chemists' shops, 141;
denounces Hahnemann's unexampled
impudence, 290; denies the existence
of oxygen in oxyde of mercur)', 291
Trousseau on toxic effects of quinine, 399
Index.
445
Turkish baths invented by a layman, 339
Turpentine in pneumonia, 410
Typhus, Brownian treatment of, 55; the
test of anti-pyretic treatment, 415
Ucay's precipitated mercury, 30
Uhle and Wagner's pathology, neglect of
chemistry in, 388
Ulcers, Hahnemann's treatment of, 63
Unanimity, wonderful, of allopaths, 418
Universities, number of, 57 ; neglect of
clinical instruction in, 57 ; medicine
as taught in the, 375
Urban 's estimate of Hahnemann, 169
Vaccination, a kind of isopathy, 331
Vandermonde supports Lavoisier, 5
Van Valzah deposed for taking homceo-
pathic medicines, 376
Variability of medical practice, 98
Vater, on bleeding in cholera, 238
Venereal Diseases, Hahnemann's, 64; cri-
ticisms on, 65
Venesection, Fischer's life saved by, 205
Veratrin, antipyretic action of, 406
Vetter"s Venereal Diseases, 65
Vienna, Hahnemann's residence at, 152;
homreopathic hospital of, 248 ; com-
parative trial of homreopathy in, 411
Vinegar, Hahnemann proves that oxy-
gen forms, 20 ; Demachy's work on the
manufacture of, 39
Virchow denounces mesmerism, 332 ;
cellular doctrine of, 379, 382 ; denies
the curability of chlorosis, 385 ; op-
posed by Klebs, 392 ; says morphia
seldom does harm, 405
Vis medicatrix naturoe, Hahnemann's
alleged denial of the, 296 ; proved to be
erroneous, 297, 300
Vital force, reintroduction of a, 383
Vogel, Goethe's physician, 258
Vogt's elements, 3
Vulpian's experiments with toad poison,
347
Wagner's friendship for Hahnemann, 153
Wagon axle theory of disease, 388
Waldenburg and Simon's work on pre-
scribing, 396
Walker, an adherent of the natural phil-
sophical school, 378
Water only transparent earth, i ; com-
position of^ discovery of, 7
Water-cure, the founders of the, 337
Wawruch's treatment of cholera, 246
Weber succeeds Stieglitz as physician to
King of Hanover, 274
Wedekind, his portrait of a doctor of his
time, 53 ; on the uncertainty of physic,
56 ; begs for government aid to protect
the physician, 58 ; testifies to Hahne-
mann's talent, 168 ; lauds bleeding and
purgatives, 202 ; on the psora theory,
341 ; composite prescriptions of, 396
Westrumb, on the composition of vege-
table acids, 3 ; maintains phlogiston, 7 ;
praises Hahnemann's method of distil-
ling, 39
Wichmann on the itch insect, 69 ; his
reasons for not writing short prescrip-
tions, 175
Widnmann on homoeopathy, 194
Wiegleb defends phlogiston, 6; com-
mends Hahnemann's test for arsenic,
18
W^ildburg prophecies the downfall of
homceopathy, 272
Wilde, Sir W., on the homreopathic
treatment of cholera in Vienna, 248
Williams, C. J. B., on homoeopathy, 374
W^indisch on homoeopathy, 215; says
homoeopaths are liars, 216
Wine test, Hahnemann's, 24; Wirtem-
berg, 25
Winterl's odd notions respecting metals, 3
Wirer's treatment of cholera, 246
Wislicenus, homoeopathic treatment in
the Berlin Hospital by, 312
Witzler's Horitccopatliy at its last gasp, 272
W^olf, condemnation of, 226
Wunderlich on digitalis as a febrifuge,
395
Zeroni on homoeopathy, 208
Zimmer, quinine manufactory of, 401
Zimmermann on Paracelsus, 303
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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