This is similar to my case, with my new science of treatment which is something entirely different from the prevailing method. In my new book on the science of homoeopathy, all the compound recipes and medicinal mixtures are entirely excluded, and in every case my teaching is to use only one simple substance (M.S. “Organon of the Art of Healing,” second edition, 1819, 297, 298, 299).
I have treated according to this more perfect art of healing, even serious diseases hitherto considered incurable, with very small doses of simple substances, by dissolving minerals and several metals in pure spirits of wine without the assistance of any acid (a preparation which is known to me, but unknown to chemistry and therefore unknown to the pharmaceutical chemist) sometimes by similar small doses of vegetable and animal substances (always in single doses of one simple medicine in each prescription) doses that are so small that they are not noticeable in the ordinary vehicle (sugar of milk or diluted spirits of wine) neither by the senses nor by any conceivable analysis or chemical reagents.
This infinitesimal size of the dose of a simple medicinal substance, in this new art of healing, removes all possible suspicion of harmful strength in the simple dose dispensed to the patient.
The apothecaries, who are incapable of acquainting themselves with fact that the beneficial results shown in the strong curative power of such small doses of simple medicines, consist of a hitherto unknown peculiar choice of the suitable remedy for the disease in question, so far undreamt of by the ordinary medical science, smile at these small doses which contain nothing, because the senses as well as chemical analysis cannot detect anything in the vehicle (sugar of milk and diluted spirits of wine).
Now, even if the apothecary who is jealous of the new art of healing, can detect nothing in the form of medicines and poisons in the remedies used by the true homoeopath, and nothing of a medicinal strength (apart from too much strength which could be harmful to health) how much more satisfied State supervision should be in its care for the welfare and health of its citizens, when it sees what good results can be obtained with such harmless small doses which homoeopathy gives to its patients! It can be infinitely more satisfied with this than with the sale to the public, by the apothecaries, of these same medicines in doses a million times heavier in weight, without any consideration for any one (citizen or peasant), and to people who know nothing of the harm these things can do if used in the wrong way; the only restriction being arsenic, sublimate, opium and a few others which must not be sold to unknown persons.
I draw the attention of the Medical Police to this.
The homoeopathic physician cannot even use the apothecary as an assistant. The medicines used by such physicians are so delicate, so unrecognizable, that when the apothecary has put them into the respective vehicles according to the physician’s prescription (a thing that the physician can do himself in a minute without wasting much time) the homoeopathic physician himself would be unable to detect them, unless they had been dispensed under his own eyes, either by his senses or by chemical means, or find out whether the apothecary had put the right remedy into it, or another, or nothing at all.
This impossibility for the homoeopathic physician to control the proceedings of the pharmaceutical chemist makes it impossible for the physician of the new school to make use of an assistant, be he who he may. He can only rely upon himself, he alone can know what he had done.
Yet this infinitesimal smallness of the dose of all medicines that act dynamically is unavoidably necessary for the treatment of diseases, and particularly so in the treatment of serious chronic diseases hitherto considered incurable and therefore abandoned; it is so absolutely indispensable in every way that one is impossible without the other. Now if the spirit of the Medical laws is chiefly concerned with the Salus publica, and if the most pitiable diseases hitherto abandoned as incurable can only be changed into health by this new science of healing, such as is proved by the cases I have cured, and which have aroused the jealousy of many of the ordinary physicians, to the point of bitterness, there remains no doubt that the Sanitary authorities will give preference to the welfare of the suffering public; before considering any unfounded personal right they will consider the new art of healing as worthy of their protection, and will not force upon it the assistance of the ordinary science of the dispensing apothecary, originally only concerned with the preparation of prescriptions composed of several strong ingredients, because this would only hinder and not help it.
I say, and I am right: “unfounded private claims,” and I add, “inconsiderable and insignificant.” Because how much could an apothecary earn when he puts to a vehicle of three grains of sugar of milk for instance, one drop of a spirit solution of one grain of zinc, a million times diluted, or a drop of rhubarb, or of cinchona bark (just as a homoeopathic physician does with scarcely any expenditure of time)? He earns according to the tariff of the apothecaries of the present day, which are all estimated according to the weight of the ingredients in an ordinary prescription, and on the labour expended in mixing them (which does not happen in the new art of healing), he earns, I say, by preparing such a homoeopathic prescription, in all, what amounts to nothing.
And if he earns as good as nothing in preparing homoeopathic medicines, one would be afraid that if the apothecaries of Leipsic were still to insist on their illegal demand, that there were other secret driving forces at work which would influence them to their own disadvantage, to force themselves upon homoeopathic physicians as assistants. I hope that it is not the intention to put an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the newly fledged most important and irreplaceable new art, of healing, as at least several physicians, who are jealous of the good results seem to wish.
Also the true homoeopathic doctor does not stand in the way of the apothecary as a vendor of medicines, as such a physician cannot charge his patient for the infinitely small dose of a simple medicine which no apothecary could detect in the vehicle; he can only request payment, in this more beneficient art of healing, as is only fair, for his greater labour in research in the discovery of the condition of disease, and the choosing of the most helpful remedy.
As the already existing treatment by means of compound prescriptions, which is the only right that the apothecaries have to defend, has nothing in common, or resembles in any way the new art of healing, in so far that it does not deal with mixtures of bulky quantities of medicines, but with infinitesimally small doses of a simple remedy, prepared in a way that the apothecary can hardly grasp, it follows that the six hundred year old science of chemistry, could not have rights over an entirely new, previously non-existent method of treatment. I tender with good reasons and most humbly:
“That the apothecaries of Leipsic be forced to return to the limits of their own privileges, and be given to understand that their authority does not extend to a new art of healing previously not in existence, and which far from requiring prescriptions of the former kind, consisting of heavy compound medicines (the preparation of which belongs to the apothecaries) requires on the contrary for its method of treatment (decided by the apothecaries) inexpressibly small doses of simple medicines, therefore only Simplicia, which no sovereign has yet forbidden the physicians to administer to their patients, and which there- fore naturally remained permissible in all medical laws.”
I look all the more calmly and confidently for this grant, because this new science of healing has already obtained public significance, on account of its irreplaceable importance, and because in all countries where the German tongue is spoken, men are rising who know how to treasure it as a great benefit for suffering humanity.
Finally, so far as my pupils are concerned, I am not in any way connected with them, and since they are of different calibre I do not represent them. I consider no man my disciple who, next to an absolutely blameless and thoroughly moral life, does not so practice the new art that the remedy which he administers to his patient in a non-medicinal vehicle (sugar of milk and diluted alcohol) contains so small a dose of the medicinal substance that neither the senses nor chemical analysis demonstrates the smallest amount of an absolutely harmful medicine or even the smallest amount of a medicinal substance proper; this supposes a minuteness of doses of medicine which absolutely does away with the necessity of exercising anything like official supervision and care on the part of the authorities.
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