Introduction


In this very critical and searching evaluation of Hahnemann’s contribution and other people who mattered during Hahnemann’s time, Dudgeon has extensively quoted from the writings and communications of Drs. Hering, Gross, Aegidi, Wolf, Trinks, Henriques, Lippe, Mure, and numerous other. …


LECTURES ON THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF HOMOEOPATHY by R.E. DUDGEON, M.D.

Dr. R.E. Dudgeon, M.D. has been one of the greatest contributors and critics of Homoeopathic literature. He is the famous translator of Hahnemann’ s Organon. His translation of Organon has not been surpassed by anyone and has been accepted as the textbook in homoeopathic institutions all over the world ever since it appeared. There have been other versions or translations of Organon but we cannot dispute the authenticity and the authority of this translation. But very few people know that Dudgeon gave, also, a very interesting series of lectures on the theory and practice of Homoeopathy at Hahnemann’s School of homoeopathy. These lectures were, later on collected together and published as such.

He gave these lectures about eight years after the death of Hahnemann, and thus whatever he has related and quoted must have been in his memory. While through these lectures, one feels, as if one has been transported back to about one and a half centuries and meets with people and listens to their reactions to the new revolution in medicine.

In this very critical and searching evaluation of Hahnemann’s contribution the views held by Hahnemann and other people who mattered during Hahnemann’s time, are a very interesting and stimulating study. He has extensively quoted from the writings and communications of Drs. Hering, Gross, Aegidi, Wolf, Trinks, Henriques, Lippe, Mure, and numerous other. His essays on doses, the emergence of potencies and how Hahnemann came to stumble upon the high potencies or dilutions for treating the patients on homoeopathic principles is a very relieving study. He has brought out clearly how Hahnemann used material or comparatively massive doses in beginning of his practice, and that he was partly and if not wholly driven to use infinitesimal doses because apothecaries of those time were after his blood and it is to escape their persecution and legal implications that he subdivided the doses to such an extent that no chemist or pharmacist could discover the quantum of medicine.

We may not agree with everything what Dr. Dudgeon has expressed but one thing is certain that this exposure to such critical discussions should be very stimulating both to medical students and practitioners and helps us in scientific evaluation of what has been written and said about Homoeopathy, both by Hahnemann and his followers. It is only by this critical analysis that one can move further ahead. Dudgeon has already mentioned that we need not accept everything what Hahnemann wrote and said, but the basic laws enunciated by him cannot be disputed; but there are various other hypothesis, theories or favourite ideas, which have to be accepted after a thorough scientific evaluation.

I am sure, the profession as well as the Homoeopathic Institutions will welcome this book and consider it a valuable addition to their libraries.

Dr. Jugal Kishore.

R.E. Dudgeon
Robert Ellis Dudgeon 1820 – 1904 Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1839, Robert Ellis Dudgeon studied in Paris and Vienna before graduating as a doctor. Robert Ellis Dudgeon then became the editor of the British Journal of Homeopathy and he held this post for forty years.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.