CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH SAMUEL HAHNEMANN 1755-1843

A brilliant student in science and the languages, Samuel Hahnemann, fluent in German, English, Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic and Latin, was born 10 April 1755 in the seven member family of a German pottery painter of modest means in Meissen, Saxony.

He pursued medical studies in Leipzig and Vienna from April 1775 to October 1777, when financial hardship forced him to abandon his studentship. He then worked for 18 months as a family physician and curator of the museum and library of Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803), Governor of Hermannstadt (now Sibiu, Romania).

Hahnemann registered for the degree of MD at Erlangen in August 1779. In 1781, he took a village doctor’s position in the copper-mining area of Mansfeld, Saxony. Hahnemann married Johanna Leopoldine Henriette Küchler, an apothecary's daughter, in 1782.

Hahnemann moved to Dresden in 1784 and then to Leipzig. By 1790 completely disillusioned with medicine of the times he ceased to practice. In 1791 poverty compelled him to move from Leipzig to Stotteritz. From 1792-1804 he lived in fourteen different towns.

Between 1777 and 1806 he translated 24 large textbooks and numerous articles into German, usually accompanied with extensive footnotes and detailed corrections of his own. His medical views were undergoing a revolution as he slowly accumulated evidence for radically new medical concepts and methods.

In 1790 Hahnemann translated William Cullen’s Materia Medica. Not convinced 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. 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 re-established the validity of the therapeutic maxim, ‘like cures like’ or similia similibus curentur. In 1796 Hahnemann published 'Essay on a New Principle' in which he states 'One should apply in the disease to be healed... that remedy which is able to stimulate another artifically produced disease, as similar as possible, and the former will be healed - similia similibus -- likes with likes.' Homeopathy may be said to originate from around this date.

In 1798 Hahnemann started experimenting with dose reduction, which led to the development of potency scales. There was a revolutionary change from the massive doses he prescribed in 1798 to the unprecedented minuteness of doses prescribed in 1799. By 1800 Homeopathy was born. In 1800 a scarlet fever epidemic gave Hahnemann the opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new type of medicine he was researching, based not only on the Law of Similars but also on the concept of highly diluted, potentized doses. Hahnemann stayed in Torgau from 1804-1811. All his major works were produced in the Torgau period. Hahnemann published, in 1805, the 'Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis' (accounts of twenty-seven provings in Latin), in 1810, the 'Organon', and in 1811, the 'Materia Medica Pura', the last two in German. In 1813 Hahnemann used homeopathy to treat an epidemic of typhus.

Hahnemann's idea at first was simply to reduce the 'strength' or material mass of his drug, but his passion for accuracy led him to adopt a scale, that he might always be sure of the degree of reduction and establish a standard for comparison.

Homeopathy stems entirely from Hahnemann's abandonment of allopathic drugging, during 1782-90 when he resolved to formulate, entirely through experimentation, a more humane, effective and rational system of medicine, as opposed to strong drugging.

In 1812 Hahnemann moved back to Leipzig with the intention of taking on the allopathic establishment. His lectures to medical students were bitter assaults upon the medical mainstream and he lost the sympathy of his audience. Orthodox attacks upon him and upon homeopathy became increasingly coordinated, amounting to a vicious campaign of persecution, which soon made his life in Leipzig intolerable. He was obliged to leave Leipzig in 1821. At a later stage in his life he became intolerant of contradiction, viewing with suspicion anyone who did not agree with him in every detail.

Duke Ferdinand of Altona-Coethen passed an edict giving Hahnemann approval for a position in Coethen. Hahnemann moved there in June 1821. This allowed Hahnemann to prepare his own medicines. He remained in Coethen from 1821-1835. He continued to publish essays and books, updating the Organon, and Materia Medica Pura. Hahnemann published in 1828 'The Chronic Diseases', exploring the underlying causes of disease as rooted solely in three ancient dyscrasias: skin diseases (Psora), gonorrhoea (Sycosis) and Syphilis. The theory did not receive unanimous support from his followers.

His first wife, Johanna died in 1830. In 1831 Hahnemann used homeopathy to treat a cholera epidemic. In 1835 Hahnemann married Melanie D’Hervilly Gohier (1800-1878) in Coethen and moved to Paris later in the same year. He established a thriving medical practice in Paris with his second wife, becoming a celebrity and the preferred physician of the rich and famous. Sixth Organon (1842) was written but was not published until 1922, long after his death in Paris on 2 July 1843 at the age of 88.