My method of treatment has nothing in common with the ordinary medical science, on the contrary it is exactly its opposite. It is a Novum quid, to which the existing measurement of medical prescribing can in no way apply.
The old method of treatment requires compound medicines, each consisting of several ingredients of considerable weight. The compounding of these prescriptions, as a rule consisting of several medicines, requires skilful, often laborious preparation with expenditure of time; the practitioner cannot give either to it, as his time is occupied with visiting patients, and as a rule does not possess the skill to mix several frequently heterogeneous medicines, and must therefore have a scientific helper-the apothecary-at hand, who will prepare these laborious and time-wasting medicinal mixtures, which a physician sometimes prescribes, more than once a day. He takes over the preparation and dispensing of medicines instead of the physician. Because where medical laws speak of dispensing, always and without exception is understood by it: exdiversis pensis componere (dispensare), and nothing else can be implied by it, as all existing medical prescriptions are compounded, that is, prescriptions put together from several ingredients; as even to this day in all Universities, in the Medical Colleges, as well as in the Clinical Hospitals, and in the Dispensaries, all treatment of disease is only taught by making out a prescription, that is, giving the apothecary a list of the medicines he is to combine into one preparation. Even young physician who presents himself for examination must before promotion have studied and acquired the art of writing a prescription contain several medicines for the patient, as in the present medical science more than medicine, and several medicines together have to be written in a certain oral and so fashioned as to be exclusively left to the apothecary and the art of pharmacy for combination and union.
This right of skilfully preparing for the physicians, their compound medicinal remedies, that is, of dispensing, has been by the laws of medicine explicitly reserved for the apothecaries, so that no one should spoil the prescription through ignorance, or by the use of unsuitable drugs, while the physician who is busy with his patients has not always the skill or the time to do it himself.
All the Royal mandates on medical matters point out, that to the privileged pharmaceutical chemist, only, belongs the dispensing of compound and complex medicinal formulas. This is the right of the pharmaceutical chemists, but THE ONLY RIGHT, WHICH IS EXCLUSIVELY RESERVED FOR THEM by Royal decree. The new science of treatment, Homoeopathy, so entirely opposed to the ordinary existing medical science, has no prescriptions to hand over to the apothecaries, and no compound remedies, but for each single case of disease only one single simple remedy.
The word dispensing does not apply, and the State Laws which reserve to apothecaries the exclusive right of dispensing (prepare compound medicinal substances in a skilful manner) cannot in any form apply to the homoeopathic science of treatment.
As every science in the course of centuries must admit of improvements, which ought to be welcomed by every civilized state, so also the science of healing must go on to greater perfection.
If through the wisdom of Providence there arises a science capable of curing disease without compound remedies (more easily and with greater certainty and permanence) and there are physicians who know how to treat disease with one simple efficacious remedy, this privilege of dispensing compound remedies should not hinder them; it should not, in its beneficial progress, prevent this new science of healing from developing, and it should not hinder the physician, to whom all the powers of Nature ought to be available, from helping suffering humanity, from curing human beings by any method that has proved most suitable for this purpose, such as, personal administration of mesmerism, galvanic current, electricity, or the application of the magnet, and in the same way through the personal dispensing of any medicinal substance in which he could not be restricted by any law of medicine, nor has been restricted by it.
Where do we find one single clear syllable in all the Royal Decrees which forbids the medical profession to give simple remedies to their patients?
And as long as no such prohibition is present in the Medical Laws, and further, there is no expression of exclusive apothecaries’ privileges in the dispensing of simple remedies, and even the ignorant sellers of roots, and the old women vendors of herbs have permission to sell in the weekly market to those who seek help, simple medicinal roots and herbs for money, it will remain permissible for the scientific physician, with a knowledge of Nature and the powers of its products, and familiar with human ills, to dispense to his patients simple remedies for their help without selling them, when he considers these most serviceable in their illness.
Richard Haehl was also an editor and publisher of the homeopathic journal Allgemcine, and other homeopathic publications.
Haehl was responsible for saving many of the valuable artifacts of Samuel Hahnemann and retrieving the 6th edition of the Organon and publishing it in 1921.
Richard Haehl was the author of - Life and Work of Samuel Hahnemann