Samuel Hahnemann
Encyclopedia
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (10 April 1755 – 2 July 1843) was a German physician
, known for creating an alternative form of medicine called homeopathy
.
, Saxony near Dresden
. His father, along with many other family members, was a painter and designer of porcelain, for which the town of Meissen is famous.
As a young man, Hahnemann became proficient in a number of languages, including English, French, Italian, Greek and Latin
. He eventually made a living as a translator and teacher of languages, gaining further proficiency in "Arabic
, Syriac
, Chaldaic
and Hebrew
".
Hahnemann studied medicine for two years at Leipzig
. Citing Leipzig's lack of clinical facilities, he moved to Vienna
, where he studied for ten months. After one term of further study, he graduated MD at the University of Erlangen on 10 August 1779, qualifying with honors. His poverty may have forced him to choose Erlangen, as the school's fees were lower. Hahnemann's thesis was titled Conspectus adfectuum spasmodicorum aetiologicus et therapeuticus. [A Dissertation on the Causes and Treatment of Cramps]
, Saxony
. He soon married Johanna Henriette Kuchler and would eventually have eleven children. After abandoning medical practice, and while working as a translator of scientific and medical textbooks, Hahnemann travelled around Saxony
for many years, staying in many different towns and villages for varying lengths of time, never living far from the River Elbe and settling at different times in Dresden
, Torgau
, Leipzig
and Köthen (Anhalt)
before finally moving to Paris in June 1835.
After giving up his practice around 1784, Hahnemann made his living chiefly as a writer and translator, while resolving also to investigate the causes of medicine's alleged errors. While translating William Cullen
's A Treatise on the Materia Medica, Hahnemann encountered the claim that cinchona
, the bark of a Peruvian tree, was effective in treating malaria
because of its astringency. Hahnemann believed that other astringent substances are not effective against malaria and began to research cinchona's effect on the human body by self-application. Noting that the drug induced malaria-like symptoms in himself, he concluded that it would do so in any healthy individual. This led him to postulate a healing principle: "that which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms." This principle, like cures like, became the basis for an approach to medicine which he gave the name homeopathy
. He first used the term homeopathy in his essay Indications of the Homeopathic Employment of Medicines in Ordinary Practice, published in Hufeland's Journal in 1807.
Hahnemann began practicing this new technique, which attracted other doctors c.1792. He first published an article about the homeopathic approach in a German language
medical journal in 1796. Following a series of further essays, he published in 1810 'Organon of the Rational Art of Healing,' followed over the years by 4 further editions titled: The Organon of the Healing Art
, the first systematic treatise and containing all his detailed instructions on the subject. A 6th Organon edition, unpublished during his lifetime, and dating from February 1842, was only published many years after his death. It consisted of a 5th Organon containing extensive handwritten annotations (A reading of each edition will demonstrate the extent of the revision and experience based additions) . The Organon is widely regarded as a remodelled form of an essay he published in 1806 called "The Medicine of Experience," which had been published in Hufeland's Journal. Of the Organon, Dudgeon states it "was an amplification and extension of his "Medicine of Experience," worked up with greater care, and put into a more methodical and aphoristic form, after the model of the Hippocratic writings."
, but it has been noted that the list of conditions Hahnemann attributed to coffee was similar to his list of conditions caused by Psora. The coffee theory has been described as "a good example both of Hahnemann's superior mental powers and of his occasional tendency to make up a grand theory from scant evidence".
In early 1811 Hahnemann moved his family back to Leipzig
with the intention of teaching his new medical system at the University of Leipzig
. As required by the university statutes, to become a faculty member he was required to submit and defend a thesis on a medical topic of his choice. On 26 June 1812, Hahnemann presented a Latin
thesis, entitled "A Medical Historical Dissertation on the Helleborism of the Ancients." His thesis very thoroughly examined the historical literature and sought to differentiate between the ancient use of Helleborus niger
, or black hellebore and the medicinal uses of the "white hellebore," botanically Veratrum album, both of which are poisonous plants related to Buttercup and Magnolia
.
Hahnemann continued practicing and researching homeopathy, as well as writing and lecturing for the rest of his life. He died in 1843 in Paris, at 88 years of age, and is entombed in a mausoleum at Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery.
While there are a few living descendants of Hahnemann’s older sister Charlotte (1752–1812), there is only one known living descendant of Hahnemann himself, Mr Charles Tankard-Hahnemann (7th generation descendant of Dr Samuel Hahnemann)
His father, Mr William Herbert Tankard-Hahnemann (1922–2009), the great, great, great grandson of Samuel Hahnemann died on 12 January 2009 (his 87th birthday) after 22 years of active patronage of the British Institute of Homœopathy. As a young boy, William remembered his mother telling him of her visits to her ‘grand-dad Leo’ at Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Later William Hahnemann knew that this was Dr Leopold Süβ-Hahnemann, Dr Samuel Hahnemann’s grandson, the only son of his favourite daughter Amelie (1789–1881). Dr Süβ-Hahnemann was the only member of the Hahnemann family to be present at Samuel Hahnemann’s funeral, apart from Hahnemann’s second wife Mélanie, in Paris in 1843 and at his subsequent re-burial in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in east Paris, where only persons of truly notable distinction are interred. Subsequently Leopold emigrated from France to England where he practised homœopathy in London. He retired to the Isle of Wight and died there at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Dr Leopold Süβ-Hahnemann’s youngest daughter, Amalia had two children, Winifred (born 1898) and Herbert. Mr William Tankard-Hahnemann was Winifred’s son. Apart from serving as the patron of the British Institute of Homœopathy, he also had a distinguished career in the City of London and was honoured by being appointed as a ‘Freeman of the City of London’.
Hahnemann wrote a number of books, essays, and letters on the homeopathic method, chemistry, and general medicine:
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, known for creating an alternative form of medicine called homeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
.
Early life
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was born in MeissenMeissen
Meissen is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche...
, Saxony near Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. His father, along with many other family members, was a painter and designer of porcelain, for which the town of Meissen is famous.
As a young man, Hahnemann became proficient in a number of languages, including English, French, Italian, Greek and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. He eventually made a living as a translator and teacher of languages, gaining further proficiency in "Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
, Chaldaic
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic
Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialect. Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is spoken on the plain of Mosul in northern Iraq, as well as by the Chaldean communities worldwide. Most speakers are Chaldean Catholics....
and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
".
Hahnemann studied medicine for two years at Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
. Citing Leipzig's lack of clinical facilities, he moved to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he studied for ten months. After one term of further study, he graduated MD at the University of Erlangen on 10 August 1779, qualifying with honors. His poverty may have forced him to choose Erlangen, as the school's fees were lower. Hahnemann's thesis was titled Conspectus adfectuum spasmodicorum aetiologicus et therapeuticus. [A Dissertation on the Causes and Treatment of Cramps]
Medical practice
In 1781, Hahnemann took a village doctor’s position in the copper-mining area of MansfeldMansfeld
Mansfeld is a town in the Mansfeld-Südharz district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Wipper, 10 km northwest of Eisleben....
, Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. He soon married Johanna Henriette Kuchler and would eventually have eleven children. After abandoning medical practice, and while working as a translator of scientific and medical textbooks, Hahnemann travelled around Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
for many years, staying in many different towns and villages for varying lengths of time, never living far from the River Elbe and settling at different times in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Torgau
Torgau
Torgau is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.Outside Germany, the town is most well known as the place where during the Second World War, United States Army forces coming from the west met with forces of the Soviet Union...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and Köthen (Anhalt)
Köthen (Anhalt)
Köthen is a city in Germany. It is the capital of the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt, about north of Halle.Köthen is the location of the main campus and the administrative center of the regional technical university Hochschule Anhalt which is especially strong in information...
before finally moving to Paris in June 1835.
Creation of homeopathy
Hahnemann claimed that the medicine of his time did as much harm as good:My sense of duty would not easily allow me to treat the unknown pathological state of my suffering brethren with these unknown medicines. The thought of becoming in this way a murderer or malefactor towards the life of my fellow human beings was most terrible to me, so terrible and disturbing that I wholly gave up my practice in the first years of my married life and occupied myself solely with chemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and writing.
After giving up his practice around 1784, Hahnemann made his living chiefly as a writer and translator, while resolving also to investigate the causes of medicine's alleged errors. While translating William Cullen
William Cullen
William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and one of the most important professors at the Edinburgh Medical School, during its heyday as the leading center of medical education in the English-speaking world.Cullen was also a central figure in the...
's A Treatise on the Materia Medica, Hahnemann encountered the claim that cinchona
Cinchona
Cinchona or Quina is a genus of about 38 species in the family Rubiaceae, native to tropical South America. They are large shrubs or small trees growing 5–15 metres in height with evergreen foliage. The leaves are opposite, rounded to lanceolate and 10–40 cm long. The flowers are white, pink...
, the bark of a Peruvian tree, was effective in treating malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
because of its astringency. Hahnemann believed that other astringent substances are not effective against malaria and began to research cinchona's effect on the human body by self-application. Noting that the drug induced malaria-like symptoms in himself, he concluded that it would do so in any healthy individual. This led him to postulate a healing principle: "that which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms." This principle, like cures like, became the basis for an approach to medicine which he gave the name homeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
. He first used the term homeopathy in his essay Indications of the Homeopathic Employment of Medicines in Ordinary Practice, published in Hufeland's Journal in 1807.
Development of homeopathy
Hahnemann tested substances for the effect they produced on a healthy individual and tried to deduce from this the ills they would heal. From his research, he initially concluded that ingesting substances to produce noticeable changes in the body resulted in toxic effects. He then attempted to mitigate this problem through exploring dilutions of the compounds he was testing. He claimed that these dilutions, when prepared according to his technique of succussion (systematic mixing through vigorous shaking) and potentization, were still effective in alleviating the same symptoms in the sick.Hahnemann began practicing this new technique, which attracted other doctors c.1792. He first published an article about the homeopathic approach in a German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
medical journal in 1796. Following a series of further essays, he published in 1810 'Organon of the Rational Art of Healing,' followed over the years by 4 further editions titled: The Organon of the Healing Art
The Organon of the Healing Art
The Organon of the Healing Art by Samuel Hahnemann, 1810, laid the foundations of all theory and method of homeopathy...
, the first systematic treatise and containing all his detailed instructions on the subject. A 6th Organon edition, unpublished during his lifetime, and dating from February 1842, was only published many years after his death. It consisted of a 5th Organon containing extensive handwritten annotations (A reading of each edition will demonstrate the extent of the revision and experience based additions) . The Organon is widely regarded as a remodelled form of an essay he published in 1806 called "The Medicine of Experience," which had been published in Hufeland's Journal. Of the Organon, Dudgeon states it "was an amplification and extension of his "Medicine of Experience," worked up with greater care, and put into a more methodical and aphoristic form, after the model of the Hippocratic writings."
The coffee theory
Around the start of the 19th century Hahnemann developed a theory, propounded in his 1803 essay On the Effects of Coffee from Original Observations, that many diseases are caused by coffee. Hahnemann later abandoned the coffee theory in favour of the theory that disease is caused by PsoraPsora
Psora is a genus of fungi within the Psoraceae family.-External links:* at Index Fungorum...
, but it has been noted that the list of conditions Hahnemann attributed to coffee was similar to his list of conditions caused by Psora. The coffee theory has been described as "a good example both of Hahnemann's superior mental powers and of his occasional tendency to make up a grand theory from scant evidence".
Later life
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
with the intention of teaching his new medical system at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
. As required by the university statutes, to become a faculty member he was required to submit and defend a thesis on a medical topic of his choice. On 26 June 1812, Hahnemann presented a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
thesis, entitled "A Medical Historical Dissertation on the Helleborism of the Ancients." His thesis very thoroughly examined the historical literature and sought to differentiate between the ancient use of Helleborus niger
Helleborus niger
Helleborus niger, commonly called Christmas rose or black hellebore, is an evergreen perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae...
, or black hellebore and the medicinal uses of the "white hellebore," botanically Veratrum album, both of which are poisonous plants related to Buttercup and Magnolia
Magnolia
Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol....
.
Hahnemann continued practicing and researching homeopathy, as well as writing and lecturing for the rest of his life. He died in 1843 in Paris, at 88 years of age, and is entombed in a mausoleum at Paris's Père Lachaise cemetery.
Descendants
His father, Mr William Herbert Tankard-Hahnemann (1922–2009), the great, great, great grandson of Samuel Hahnemann died on 12 January 2009 (his 87th birthday) after 22 years of active patronage of the British Institute of Homœopathy. As a young boy, William remembered his mother telling him of her visits to her ‘grand-dad Leo’ at Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Later William Hahnemann knew that this was Dr Leopold Süβ-Hahnemann, Dr Samuel Hahnemann’s grandson, the only son of his favourite daughter Amelie (1789–1881). Dr Süβ-Hahnemann was the only member of the Hahnemann family to be present at Samuel Hahnemann’s funeral, apart from Hahnemann’s second wife Mélanie, in Paris in 1843 and at his subsequent re-burial in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in east Paris, where only persons of truly notable distinction are interred. Subsequently Leopold emigrated from France to England where he practised homœopathy in London. He retired to the Isle of Wight and died there at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Dr Leopold Süβ-Hahnemann’s youngest daughter, Amalia had two children, Winifred (born 1898) and Herbert. Mr William Tankard-Hahnemann was Winifred’s son. Apart from serving as the patron of the British Institute of Homœopathy, he also had a distinguished career in the City of London and was honoured by being appointed as a ‘Freeman of the City of London’.
Writings
- Heilkunde der Erfahrung. Norderstedt 2010, ISBN 3842313268 reprinted in
- Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivisFragmenta de viribusFragmenta de viribus is related to Homoeopathic medical science.In year 1805, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann published a book in Latin Language titled " Fragmenta de Viribus medicamentorum Positivis". In this collection the First part was containing the symptoms observed by the Hahnemann and his colleagues...
, a collection of 27 drug "provings" published in LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
in 1805. - The Organon of the Healing ArtThe Organon of the Healing ArtThe Organon of the Healing Art by Samuel Hahnemann, 1810, laid the foundations of all theory and method of homeopathy...
(1810), a detailed delineation of what he saw as the rationale underpinning homeopathic medicine, and guidelines for practice. Hahnemann published the 5th edition in 1833; a revised draft of this (1842) was discovered after Hahnemann's death and finally published as the 6th edition in 1921. - Materia Medica Pura, a compilation of "homoeopathic proving" reports, published in six volumes between vol. I in 1811 and vol. VI in 1827. Revised editions of volumes I and II were published in 1830 and 1833, respectively.
- Chronic Diseases (1828), an explanation of the root and cure of chronic disease according to the theory of miasms, together with a compilation of "homoeopathic proving" reports, published in five volumes during the 1830s., which were gathered by Dudgeon.
- The Friend of Health, in which Hahnemann "recommended the use of fresh air, bed rest, proper diet, sunshine, public hygiene and numerous other beneficial measures at a time when many other physicians considered them of no value."
- Appeal to Thinking Philanthropist Respecting the Mode of Propagation of the Asiatic Choler, in which Hahnemann describes cholera physicians and nurses as the "certain and frequent propagators" of choleraCholeraCholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
and that whilst deriding nurses' "fumigations with chlorine", promoted the use of "drops of camphorated spirit" as a cure for the disease. - Hahnemann also campaigned for the humane treatment of the insane in 1792
- John Henry Clarke wrote that "In 1787, Hahnemann discovered the best test for arsenic and other poisons in wine, having pointed out the unreliable nature of the "Wurtemberg Test," which had been in use up to that date."
External links
- Life History of Samuel Hahnemann
- Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann A historical overview
- Hahnemann Building, Hope Street, Liverpool former site of the Hahnemann Hospital, Liverpool