QHD 2005 - Homeoxls

that time, his celebrated essay on a “New Principle
for Ascertaining the Curative powers of Drugs.”
In this he gave to the world for the first time his
principle – Similia Similibus Curentur, explaining
how he had experimented and the result. It was
only after six years of constant trial and study that
he had shared his wonderful secret with the medical
world.
During the last year of the life at Konigslutter
an epidemic of Scarlet fever occurred, and
HAHNEMANN found his new found knowledge to
the proof, and declared that Belladonna, in as much
as it would produce a similar drug condition would
cure Scarlet fever, - and it did; and because he first
tested the cure on the sick and did not reveal its
name until he was sure of its effect, his enemies
even to the present day, have accused him of
dealing in secret remedies and nostrums.
But in prescribing with his own medicines for
these patients he had offended against the Law, and
the jealous apothecaries of Konigslutter hounded
him forth to fresh wanderings. In the autumn of
1799 he packed all his goods and his family into a
large wagon, some sunshine, and started on the
road to Hamburg. On the journey over a
precipitous part of the way the wagon was
overturned; the driver was thrown from the seat;
HAHNEMANN himself was injured; a daughter’s
leg was broken; an infant son ERNST was so hurt
that he soon died, and his property was damaged by
falling into a stream. At the nearest village of
Muhlhausen he was obliged to remain six weeks at
a considerable expense.
He settled after this at Altona and did not go to
Hamburg until 1800. It was in this year that
FLEISCHER, the Leipsic publisher, gave to
HAHNEMANN to translate an English book
containing medical prescriptions. He translated the
text into good German, but added an original
preface in which he so ridiculed and satirized and
belittled the compound prescriptions of the great
lights of the English medical world that it put an
end to his employment by that publisher. His only
further translation was the Von HALLER Materia
Medica from the Latin, which was published in
1806. At this period he wrote several articles for
Hufeland’s journal. In 1802 he went from
Hamburg to Mollen in the Duchy Lauenburg, and
from there journeyed to Eilenburg in beloved
Saxony. He was not allowed to remain there
however, as the Health Officer ordered him away.
From thence he went to Machern, a village five
miles from Leipsic, where poverty again distressed
him. It is related that after toiling all day at
translating (at the Haller Materia Medica) he often
assisted his wife to wash the family clothing at
© Centre For Excellence In Homœopathy
night, and as they could not purchase soap, they
employed raw potatoes instead. The portion of
bread allowed to each was small that he was
accustomed to weigh it out in equal proportion.
From Machern he went to Wittenburg, departing
soon after for Dessau, where he lived for two years.
HAHNEMANN left Hamburg about the
beginning of 1802. He could not have remained
long in one place. He was poor and persecuted,
driven from town to town. He passed about two
years at Dessau, and, according to a letter written
by him, he was in June, 1805 domiciled at Torgau,
where he remained until 1811, when he went to
Leipsic. As his essays in the medical journals only
brought him into condemnation he afterwards
published his articles in the “General German
Gazette of Literature and Science.”
HAHNEMANN’s first collections of provings
– ‘Fragmenta de Viribus’ was published in Latin
while he was at Torgau, in 1805. Five years later
the first edition of the Organon appeared. In this
he gave to the world a careful explanation of his
new medical discoveries and beliefs. It contained
everything relating to the new medical method and
in it he for the first time mentioned the name
“HOMŒOPATHY”. [HAHNEMANN has used
the term ‘Homœopathy’ for the first time in 1807 in
the penultimate paragraph of his article
“Indications of the Homœopathic Employment
of Medicines in Ordinary Practice” = KSS.] The
work appeared in 1810, from the press of his friend
and patient, ARNOLD. The book consists of an
Introduction and the Organon itself. The
Introduction is entitled “Review of the
Medication, allopathy and palliative treatments”
that have prevailed to the present time in the old
school of medicine and comprise the first one
hundred pages of the Organon.
HAHNEMANN here presents the curious story
of the efforts of mankind to conquer disease……
HAHNEMANN devoted about sixty pages to
quotations from the writings of old physicians from
HIPPOCRATES to SYDENHAM, describing cures
effected according to the Dotrine of Similars. Each
cure is plainly stated with a reference in each case
to the medical writer responsible for the statement.
The book itself is devoted to instructions in
practical Homœopathy. HAHNEMANN never
claimed to discover the Law of Simili, but he did
claim that he was the first person to make any
practical demonstration of that Law.
It is needless to say that the propositions
advanced in the Organon brought down upon the
head of the reformer an avalanche of abuse. He had
raised his hand against the traditions of years and
he was attacked by the medical journals of the day.
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