Shortly after publishing the Organon, Hahnemann applied to the University of Leipsic for permission to teach medicine. Being granted this request, he quickly gathered around him a circle of very excellent men, some of them professors and lecturers; others more enthusiastic students and open-minded physicians. The advantage of teaching by the living voice, under the authority of a great university, cannot be over-estimated. From this time onward, he gave regular lectures at the university for which his “Organon” served as a basis.
For eight years, he continued thus to teach and practice, and thereby gathered about him a band of enthusiastic workers, who co-operated with him in his drug provings. Their names are known to us as the earliest and best provers of our medicines-Stapf, Gross, Franz, Ruckert, Hartmann, etc. When we consider what is implied in the persecution of one’s col-leagues by ridicule and contempt, and being shunned as a heretic and outcast, these brilliant young men deserve our greatest gratitude in having preferred to follow Hahnemann and the truth rather than go with the crowd along the wide road of therapeutic error.
These men stood in intimate relation to Hahnemann. They counted the hours passed in his house among the happiest of their lives. Publication of the “Materia Medica Pura,” in six volumes, followed his life in Leipsic, where he had a very extensive practice, led an exemplary life and was at the head of a considerable number of talented physicians who had declared for Homoeopathy. Up to this time, he had no thought of separating himself from the established school, and it was none of his doing that the split in the school took place. But an unforeseen circumstance stayed for a time this growing opposition.
His fame as a physician had spread throughout Europe, and now the celebrated Austrian Field Marshal, Prince Schwartzenberg, came from Vienna to Leipsic to place himself under Hahnemann’s care. Schwartzenberg was at the head of the allied forces, three hundred thousand strong, that faced Napoleon, and the most celebrated public man at that time. In consequence of Hahnemann’s medical treatment of him, this modest physician was placed in daily communication with royal and imperial councillors and dignitaries and was the observed of observed. For a short time, calumny ceased and abuse was hushed.
Hahnemann was at the very pinnacle of his career. But in the short time of six months, all was ended, when Schwartzenberg’s disease proved fatal. The opposition to him was now renewed, and after being allowed to practice and dispense his own medicines for ten years, this privilege was withdrawn the very next month. He was notified that a fine of fifteen thalers would be imposed upon him for every dose of medicine he dispensed.
Hahnemann did not attempt to evade the law. He preferred to retire from the practice of medicine-to be banished from his beloved fatherland, from the city where he had been a student, where he was a professor and taught his new medical philosophy, and where he achieved his greatest triumphs as a practitioner. It must have been a terrible blow, but the law-abiding instinct of the German, even if the law is unjust, is the strongest national trait, and so he submitted to banishment from Leipsic, his home and his friends. Some of the things he had hoped for and labored for while in Leipsic had been accomplished. Some were of so ambitious a nature that a century later has hardly seen their realization.
The points for which he was determined to contend were : for the untrammeled practice of Homoeopathy at the bedside of the sick, for its recognition and application by the State, for the free dispensing of medicine, for an independent professor’s chair in all the universities, This idea of a chair of Homoeopathy, in an otherwise orthodox medical school, has not, in the author’s opinion proved satisfactory. At present there are three such-two in Germany and one in the U.S.A. A staff sympathetic to those interested in Homoeopathy is most necessary besides the clinical lecturer. Hospital beds and clinics are also needed.
Many years ago this whole idea was appreciated and well expressed by Garth Wilkinson : “There is no reason to expect that truth, however great, will prevail with large lasses of men born and bred in the opposite falsity. They are organic and iron-clad against it. Their wills are self-made and self-set against it. Being well- banded hosts, they support each other with confirmations of multitude and cannot be reached by instruction.” for the establishment of dispensaries and hospitals, or at least wards in hospitals, for the appointment of Homoeopathic physicians to posts of honor and emolument, if otherwise capable. In short, for the recognition and legal reception of Homoeopathy by the authorities and endowment of it with all the rights and advantages which the physicians of the dominant school possessed.
The sudden termination of his active career of professional life in Leipsic always seemed to many of his followers as an unfortunate thing for the future development of Homoeopathy. While there his teachings were free from hypothesis and speculation, he kept on the firm ground of observation and experience. But on the other hand, it may be held with much show of reason that the complete development of Homoeopathy as a distinctive therapeutic method needed the further refinements of study and additional evolution of its principles that could only come to Hahnemann in the seclusion of his new abode where the opportunities for watching carefully the course of chronic diseases were specially abundant.
After long wandering from state to state, he had an asylum offered him by the friendly Duke of Anhalt. He gave him rank and protection at his little capital, Coethen, which Hahnemann accepted. Here, he entered upon a haven or rest from persecution and a carrer of continued activity in developing Homoeopathy. Though banished, he still could keep up communication with his adherents and guided them in practice. At this time, came an unlooked-for factor to the aid of the new method. Cholera proved to be the most potent ally Homoeopathy could possibly have. And other epidemics in their courses fought for Homoeopathy. The superiority of the new school was so convincing in the treatment of these dread diseases, that it did much to interest many earnest men, and thereby gain strong and enthusiastic supporters.
Hahnemann remained in Coethen fourteen years, one of the busiest and most honored scientific men in all Europe. We find him at the close of 1834, a man of seventy-nine years, active, strong, full of enthusiasm still, though the many persecutions may have made him intolerant of criticism. It was here he published his great work on Chronic Disease and prepared new editions of the Organon and Materia Medica Pura.
In 1835, he was persuaded to move to Paris. His presence there was also a great aid to the establishment and development of the new school in France. By special royal decree, he received permission to practice. The newspapers took up his cause, he was great and popular, patronized by the nobility and great ones of the land, and they rallied to the support of Hahnemann and Homoeopathy.
Hahnemann survived his migration to Paris eight years. He retained his mental faculties to the last moment, and died early on the morning of July 2, 1843, aged eighty-nine years. He lived to see his labor crowned with wonderful success-the practice of Homoeopathy thoroughly established throughout the world, and its reforming influence over the old school generally conceded. He had brought health and happiness to generations of men. Well might he make the solemn declaration : “My conscience is clear. It bears me witness that I have ever sought the welfare of suffering humanity, that I have done and taught what seemed to me the best.”
Thus passed away one of the world’s greatest physicians. His creative genius was united with a critical mind of the highest order. Care and caution are characteristic of all of Hahnemann’s work as the original case books (preserved in Dr. Haehl’s museum at Stuttgart) testify. Much of Hahnemann’s work still remains unpublished, and the indefatigable labor of the man may be appreciated best by reading Haehl’s life above referred to.
In a speech before the ninth quinquennial international Homoeopathic congress held in London in 1927, Dr. Haehl said, ” The legacy (referring to his successful purchase of Hahnemann’s manuscripts from his heirs) contained an almost overwhelming amount of most reliable material-for instance, 54 case books containing the records of all patients treated by Hahnemann from 1799 to 1843; four large volumes of some 1500 pages each, alphabetically arranged repertories, none of which had ever been published; the sixth edition of the Organon completely revised by Hahnemann in 1842; some 1300 letters of physicians from all parts of the world…” We are impressed with his indefatigable industry as demonstrated in his ten volumes of provings, covering experiments with ninety-nine drugs on his own body.
American homeopath - Ann Arbor - Michigan.
Son of William Boericke.
Books:
A Compend of the Principles of Homeopathy.
Homoeopathy