Dr. Arkasali Homoeopathic Treatment Center
Address : Shop No.4, Suyog Plaza , Main Road, Roha. Tal.: Roha ,Dist. : Raigad.
Maharashtra State- 402109 . India
Mobile: 8805245266
e-mail: ppadr@rediffmail.com

Biography of Great Dr.Samuel Hahnemann – Father and Founder of Homoeopathy

Dr.Samuel Hahnemann Hahnemann was born on April 10, 1755, to Christian Gottfried and Johanna Christian Hahnemann, in Meissen, Germany. Samuel Hahnemann was the third child and eldest son of a pottery painter in the porcelain town of Meissen in Saxony. As a child, he showed a remarkable aptitude for study excelling both in languages and in science; he was fluent in English, French, Greek and Latin. Hahnemann was highly intelligent but not physically strong as a child. His early schooling was often interrupted sohe could help to support his family. Even when in school, his family also hadtrouble affording his tuition. When he was 15, his teachers proposed giving this bright student lessons for free. He was especially gifted in languages and later turned to translation for part of his income. After finishing schoolin Meissen in 1775, Hahnemann enrolled in the University of Leipzig to study medicine. At Easter 1775, he enrolled at the University of Leipzig to study medicine, but he soon became disappointed with its poor facilities, as medical students at Leipzig had "neither clinic nor hospital at their disposal." While there, and to enhance his income, he undertook translation work for a fee, such as translating four books from the English and teaching French to a wealthy Greek man "in order to help him earn his living." Early in 1777, he transferred as a medical student to Vienna, to gain greater clinical experience, though this proved very costly on his paltry allowance. After only nine months [October 1777], and after being robbed 11, 20], financial hardship forced him to abandon his studentship. However, he had so deeply impressed the physician to the royal court, Professor von Quarin [1733-1814], that he secured for him a secondment to practise medicine for a rich patron in Transylvania, the Governor of Hermannstadt Samuel von Brukenthal [1721-1803]. On moving to Dresden in 1784, and by this time hugely dissatisfied with the harmfulness and inefficacy of medicine, he gave up medical practice entirely to devote himself to translation work on a full-time basis. In Dresden, Hahnemann...practised his profession only to obtain definite proofs against it." He soon came to be highly regarded as a translator of scientific and medical texts from French and English for the Dresden Economical Society. At this stage, his future as a respected translator for the scientific community, was assured: "the more definitely Hahnemann passed into oblivion as a doctor, the greater grew his reputation as a writer on medical subjects. Orders for translations poured in on him from Leipzig." In spite of honors heaped upon him by some learned societies], could such a fate have even remotely satisfied the ambitions and talents of this man? The first hints of homeopathic medicine appeared in a 1788 paper authored by Hahnemann in which he recommended a highly diluted solution of silver nitrate to treat chronic sores. In 1789, he and his family moved back to Leipzig where he devoted himself to research, translations, and writing about chemistry and medicine. While living in a rural suburb of the city, Hahnemann came across a reference to cinchona bark, which was used to treat malaria. It was in 1790, while translating William Cullen's Materia Medica that the first evidence emerged for the great things still to come. Unconvinced by Cullen's theory that Cinchona was a specific for Malaria because of its tonic action on the stomach, Hahnemann decided to take a small dose of Cinchona over several days to observe its effects. In this first proving experiment, Hahnemann observed symptoms broadly similar to those of malaria, including spasms and fever. With Cinchona, he had "produced in himself the symptoms of intermittent fever," which suggested to him a medical principle. He thus established anew the validity of an old therapeutic maxim: 'like cures like' or similia similibus curentur. With his family and friends, he then undertook further drug provings. "Day after day, he tested medicines on himself and others. He collected histories of cases of poisoning. His purpose was to establish a physiological doctrine of medical remedies, free from all suppositions, and based solely on experiments." In his search for new remedies to prove, "Hahnemann sent his children into the fields to collect henbane, sumach, and deadly nightshade. They grew up like young priests of the Asclepieion of Cos...they felt the leaves, blossoms and tubers with small but expert hands...everyone was obliged to join in the work...for there was no other way to succeed in his titanic plan of rescuing the wealth of natural remedies from the quagmire of textbooks, and displaying it in the bright light of experience." 93-94] His family and friends became central to his task: "the family huddled together; and every free moment of every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest, was made use of for the testing of medicines and the gathering of the most precise information on their observed effects." The results of his investigations were meticulously catalogued: "Hahnemann neatly and conscientiously assembled and numbered his observations of the symptoms excited in himself and his children by the most varied of medicines." However, another fifteen years elapsed before his thinking, study and experiments finally bore rich fruit. In 1796, his Essay on a New Principle consolidated the work with Cinchona, extending it into a general principle applicable for all drugs, and this laid the foundation for a complete system of medicine based on similia. By 1796 he was also practicing medicine again, but "he did not charge for the medicines which he produced himself." [Cook, 77] In summary, we can see that the essence he had distilled from his wandering was: single drugs in moderate doses, employed for conditions seen when they are proved on healthy volunteers. From this alone, he was inspired to commence a lot of writing of his own. . Hahnemann conducted many experiments, which he called provings, to determine the precise effects that a substance would have on a healthy person.In 1810, he published Organon der rationellen Heilkunde (Handbook ofRational Healing), the book in which he set out the principles of homeopathicmedicine. The first principle was the law of similars, and the second principle was the law of infinitesimals. These two laws reflected Hahnemann's theory that provoking symptoms similar to those caused by a disease could help the body fight off the disease. He used herbs and plants, minerals, and other materials and proposed that they were most effective when they were highly diluted (present in infinitesimal amounts). The third principle had to do with prescribing homeopathic medicines. Hahnemann based prescriptions on the whole person with regard to his or her lifestyle and temperament, rather than just the symptoms of a disease. After publication of the book, Hahnemann began publicizing homeopathic medicine and giving lectures. He later published Materia medica pura (Pure Materia Medica) which included details about his provings and treatments of specific complaints. Hahnemann's theories were met with scorn by the medical community, arguing that homeopathy was ineffective and science was on their side. A major argument against homeopathy is that substances are diluted so much that they no longer exist in a solution. In several places, laws against homeopathy were passed. To avoid prosecution and to continue his studies, Hahnemann and his familymoved frequently. In 1830, Hahnemann's wife died, and five years later, at the age of 80, Hahnemann remarried. His new wife was Melanie D'Hervilly, a Frenchwoman. Shortly after they married, they moved to Paris where Hahnemann died in 2 July 1843. Hahnemann died in Paris due to bronchitis, 2 July 1843 and was buried first in Montmartre, but later reentered in a more grandiose tomb, paid for by American subscription, in the more prestigious Cimitiêre Pere Lachaise, where many famous people are buried [e.g. Edith Piaf and Chopin]. Partly through attracting great controversy, and partly through impressive clinical results, homeopathy spread rapidly in Europe, Russia, India and the Americas, where it always found the sympathy of the rich and titled, as a safe alternative to bleeding and purging.

Home | Contact us |  Homoeopathy in details |  Pictures of Hahnemann & Biography |  Dr. Arkasali's Published Articles |  Other articles |  Homoeopathic & other Important Sites |  Homoeopathic Cases |  Photos before and after treatment |  Right to Information Act |