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.
DR. SAMUEL HAHNEMANN, Member of several learned societies.
Leipsic, 14th February, 1820.
Notwithstanding this excellent defence, the Council of the city of Leipsic, gave judgment, on March 15th, 1820 against Hahnemann, by forbidding him to make, or to dispense his medicine to anyone. Such sentences became valid only after confirmation by the State.
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