Samuel Hahnemann

German homeopath

• Born: April 10, 1755
• Birthplace: Meissen, Saxony (now in Germany)
• Died: July 2, 1843
• Place of death: Paris, France

Hahnemann founded the science of homeopathy, a healing method that follows the principle of treating like with like. That is, diseases are treated with substances that, used on a healthy person, create the very symptoms of the disease, but that, used in minute amounts, are believed to cure the symptoms in a sick person.

Early Life

Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (HAH-neh-mahn) was the son of Gottfried Hahnemann, a painter of fine china for a well-known pottery factory in Meissen. Hahnemann began studying in the local Latin School. Before he could finish, however, economic disaster struck the community when the factory was raided by a neighboring prince. The factory suffered a great loss, and the Hahnemann family was thrown into financial hardship. Thinking that his son needed to prepare for a trade so that he could more quickly make his own living, Hahnemann’s father withdrew him from school and apprenticed him to a grocer. Hahnemann was, however, unwilling to leave his studies, so he ran away and returned home, where his schoolmaster arranged for him to continue his studies tuition-free in exchange for assisting in the teaching.

Hahnemann was a passionate scholar who often studied late into the night, even against the wishes of his parents. The fact that his schoolmaster recognized his brilliance is clear, both from the arrangements he was willing to make to return Hahnemann to school and from the fact that he put the young boy in charge of a class of students of Greek. Early on, Hahnemann’s interests began to be focused in the sciences, his favorite school subjects being botany, mathematics, and geometry.

Life’s Work

In 1775, Hahnemann completed his local schooling and went on to Leipzig University; he later moved to Vienna, and he received his medical degree from the University of Erlangen in 1779. His early adult years were spent restlessly, moving from one town to another. In the city of Dessau, he attached himself to a pharmacist named Herr Haseler, with whom he carried out experiments in chemistry. While there, he became acquainted with Haseler’s stepdaughter, Henriette Kuchler, whom he soon married.

The couple and their five children continued to move several times, Hahnemann always growing more and more disillusioned with current medical methods. Eventually, he gave up traditional medical practice altogether, leaving the translation of scientific writings as his only income. It was in the town of Stotteritz in 1790 that he translated a book discussing an herb known as cinchona bark, which had been found to cure malaria. Intrigued with this substance, he began to take it himself experimentally. He took rather large doses over a period of several days, finding himself becoming feverish and sick as a result. When he stopped taking the substance, he quickly got well.

Hahnemann’s experiment formed the basis both for his later theories of homeopathy and for the method he used for identifying homeopathic cures, that is, experimenting on his own body and those of other volunteers. The principle he identified from this experiment was the idea that substances that in large doses harm the body, causing certain symptoms, can in small doses cure those very same symptoms. This principle he called Similia Similibus, or the law of treating like with like.

In 1796, Hahnemann wrote a paper in which he explained why traditional cures did not work. These treatment methods he called “allopathic,” meaning that cures were attempted by introducing the opposites of the disease symptoms. For example, laxatives given for constipation are allopathic treatments, as is opium for insomnia and pain. Each tries to affect the body by opposing the symptoms. Sometimes, Hahnemann admitted, these methods work, at least temporarily, allowing the body to heal itself. However, another allopathic method popular at the time—the practice of bloodletting—was not so benign, and Hahnemann argued against it. Many diseases were thought to be caused by an excess of blood, so an allopathic method was to cause the patient to bleed. Needless to say, many patients died of this treatment, even though it was considered a useful and important technique.

During this time, Hahnemann was collecting records of a variety of medicines accidentally taken in too large doses, and their effects on the patients. In addition, he continued to experiment on his own body and on those of a group of volunteers. He called this process “proving.” At first, the practice of homeopathy was not known much beyond Leipzig, but a scarlet fever epidemic in 1799 further publicized the method.

At that time, Hahnemann was treating a family of several children. One daughter was particularly fragile; however, she did not get scarlet fever. On investigating, Hahnemann noted that she had been taking belladonna, a usually poisonous substance sometimes taken as medicine, for another medical problem. Surmising that it was the belladonna that kept the girl from getting scarlet fever, he also gave it in small doses to the other children in the family, and none of them became sick. He then noted that healthy people who accidentally take belladonna, which comes from the red berries of the common plant deadly nightshade, suffered symptoms similar to those of scarlet fever. This case further popularized his method, and by 1838, the use of belladonna to prevent scarlet fever had become common practice in Saxony.

In 1810, Hahnemann published Organon of Rational Healing, which he later retitled Organon of the Healing Art . In this book, he outlined the principles of homeopathy and the homeopathic remedies he had discovered. The work remains a classic of homeopathic medicine. In 1812, his methods again found some popular support, as Napoleon’s armies straggled home from Russia, bringing with them the deadly disease typhus. Hahnemann’s homeopathic cures proved far superior to allopathic methods, and his fame continued to spread.

Hahnemann, though, was never without detractors. Some of his most vocal critics were the apothecaries, or pharmacists, of Leipzig. The doses he was prescribing were so small as to be unprofitable to the apothecaries, who were further cut out of the business when Hahnemann began making his own remedies and giving them to patients. In 1820, the Apothecary Guild of Leipzig brought Hahnemann to court for making his own remedies, under a law that restricted the compounding of medicine to apothecaries. He was convicted and barred from making his own remedies, although the government eventually allowed him to continue, under certain restrictions. In addition, a few apothecaries who were willing to be trained by Hahnemann learned to prepare medicines according to his requirements.

During this period, a publisher, in an effort to discredit Hahnemann’s work, commissioned a young man named Constantine Hering to write a book denouncing homeopathy. As part of his research, Hering carefully studied Hahnemann’s work and even worked with him, helping him prove his remedies. In the end, Hering was converted; he later went to America and in 1848 founded Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia.

Life in Leipzig became increasingly difficult, however, and in 1821 Hahnemann was invited by Duke Ferdinand of Anhalt-Coethen to live and practice in Coethen. There he lived for eleven years, watching the fame of his cures spread. Homeopathy was gaining in popularity, and in 1829 his friends organized a jubilee celebration to honor his fifty years in the medical profession. Visitors and greetings arrived from all over the world. His time in Coethen, an otherwise peaceful period for Hahnemann, was saddened by the death in 1831 of his wife Henriette at the age of seventy-five.

Hahnemann’s work was not finished, however, for another epidemic again found him in controversy and providing homeopathic cures that were superior to traditional methods. During the 1830’s, the Asian disease of cholera was spreading through Europe, and there were no allopathic remedies that could be counted on to cure it. Hahnemann was asked to find a cure; without seeing a single case, relying only upon a description of the symptoms, he discovered that camphor produced similar symptoms if taken in large doses. Publication and use of this remedy saved many lives.

Hahnemann’s life was soon to take a new path. In October, 1834, a young Frenchman arrived at his house for treatment and was given hospitality for the night. In the morning, it was discovered that the young man was in fact a young woman, who had heard of Hahnemann and his practice and wanted to learn from him. Three months later, the woman, Marie Mélanie d’Hervilly, became Hahnemann’s wife. Soon after, the couple moved to Paris, to the chagrin of Hahnemann’s two daughters, who had devoted their lives to assisting their father in his work. Hahnemann began a homeopathic practice in Paris, and there he died in 1843.

Significance

Although the principles of homeopathy were first stated by Hippocrates in the fourth century and also were a basis of traditional Chinese medicine, Hahnemann was the first to name and popularize the practice of homeopathic cure. Having learned medicine during a time when dangerous practices such as the letting of blood were commonly used, Hahnemann provided a valuable alternative that saved many lives.

Nevertheless, homeopathy has always been controversial. Traditional modern medicine, while open to more varieties of treatments and constantly seeking more reliable cures, is primarily allopathic in philosophy. Homeopathic remedies are discounted as quackery, partly because they treat the symptoms of the disease rather than search for its cause, and partly because the use of infinitesimally small doses in homeopathic remedies seems counterintuitive and, to critics, absurd. During the late twentieth century, however, the increased popularity of alternative therapies prompted renewed interest in homeopathy and in Hahnemann’s legacy.

Bibliography

Cook, Trevor M. Samuel Hahnemann: The Founder of Homeopathic Medicine. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England: Thorson, 1981. A very readable biography, clearly written and including photos and maps. Divided into sections that detail the various stages of Hahnemann’s life.

Gumpert, Martin. Hahnemann: The Adventurous Career of a Medical Rebel. New York: L. B. Fischer, 1945. Focuses on Hahnemann’s rebellion against traditional medical practices and the difficulties and conflicts he encountered. Also gives a complete biography, beginning with Hahnemann’s life as a young physician and the events that led to his unorthodox discoveries.

Handley, Rima. A Homeopathic Love Story: The Story of Samuel and Mélanie Hahnemann. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, Homeopathic Educational Services, 1990. Dual biography of Hahnemann and his wife, Mélanie, a Parisian artist and poet. Describes Mélanie’s role in the development of homeopathy.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. In Search of the Later Hahnemann. Beaconsfield, England: Beaconsfield, 1997. Examines Hahnemann’s medical practice in the final years of his life, when he moved from Germany to Paris. Using Hahnemann’s casebooks and other sources, Handley describes his experiments and medical discoveries during this period.

Hobhouse, Rosa Waugh. Christian Samuel Hahnemann: A Short Biography. Ashingdon, Rochford, Essex, England: C. W. Daniel, 1961. This brief book is meant as both an update and summary of Hobhouse’s earlier biography. Although its flowery language makes the book seem quaint, it does provide a good and succinct overview of Hahnemann’s life.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Life of Christian Samuel Hahnemann. London: C. W. Daniel, 1933. Hobhouse’s original biography of Hahnemann, which goes into much greater detail than her later short biography. Includes photos of places and objects in Hahnemann’s life and portraits of him and the people around him. Written in somewhat flowery prose, the book nevertheless is well organized and gives a good portrayal of the subject.

Mitchell, George Ruthven. Homeopathy: The First Authoritative Study of Its Place in Medicine Today. London: W. H. Allen, 1975. Begins with a good biography of Hahnemann and goes on to describe the history of homeopathy as a science. Included are discussions of Hahnemann’s followers and disciples and an explanation of homeopathy and its history.