(“Zeitung de homoeopathischen Heilkunst von Schweikert,” 1832, No. 50 and “Allgem. Anzeiger d. D.,” No. 154).
Excellency,
Your edict of March 31st, 1832, rests on the important confusion of the accepted meaning in the existing medical laws, of the word medicament (medicine) and the dispensing of simple remedies which are not yet mentioned in any laws of medicine (before the violent attack of the old school) because the wish of the dominant doctors of the Old School in the State is to hinder in every way the healing scientists of the new school from continuing to cure the sick, who have been already ruined and almost made incurable by the old school doctors who desire to obscure and throw down homoeopathy quovis modo.
Even the apothecary who has no right to treat patients gives simple remedies (simplicia) unhindered, in the Prussian States, as in all countries, to the patients themselves, over the counter for money, and triturates cinchona bark, for instance, in the mortar before giving it to the patients, and no law of medicine has so far, made it a crime for the apothecary to carry on self- dispensing, when he gives the finely triturated cinchona bark, or the shaken up solution of tartar emetic, as a mixture for the patient, in spite of the fact that this happens daily.
Why? Because in the wording of the medical laws no simple remedy (simplex) be it triturated powder, or solution, is ever considered a medicine (medicamentum) which in the language of these laws only means: a mixture of several simple remedies, sometimes scientifically united into one mass, according to the prescription of the physician on the basis, compounded of some adjuvantibus, also perhaps corrigentibus and a constituents. Only such a mixture, in accordance with a prescription of the physicians of the old school, was ever called by the medical laws in all German countries, medicine (medicamen, medicamentum) and the German apothecary alone had the privilege over these mixtures and amalgamations of simplicibus, that is, no one in the country, apart from the apothecary was allowed to presume to undertake such mixing and combinations of several simple ingredients-so that they might be made into one medicine (medicamentum). In the observances of the old school no physician was allowed to prescribe anything for patients, except medicines, that is, mixtures composed of several simplicibus, from one basis, from adjuvantibus, corrigentibus, and a vehicle or constituents, and he was not allowed to let anyone prepare these mixtures except a privileged chemist.
On the question whether a physician should be allowed to prepare mixtures of simple substances himself, all the existing laws are silent until the advent of homoeopathy.
Now while the apothecary sells directly to a patient, his simple fine powdered cinchona bark, and solution of a couple of grains of simple tartar emetic, and with this, is looked upon in all the states simply as a vendor and dispenser of simplicibus (so long as he does not mix a second or third ingredient with it, and therefore, according to the sense of the medical laws, does not dispense medicine (medicamentum) to the patient) it becomes a glaring injustice, when a person who is lawfully qualified, and given by the State the right to exercise his curative powers, which being a homoeopath he is more competent to do than any other, only because he is a thorn in the flesh of the old school physician, is not allowed to give his patients (free of charge) a simple trituration, or solution of a very minute dose, seeing that in accordance with the medical laws it is not a medicine. What an injustice it is to desire to forbid him to do this and to want to place him so much lower than the apothecary who is ignorant of the science of medicine, and is not allowed to practice it, and yet can sell for money directly to the sick his simplicias in trituration or solution in large doses, which if wrongly administered can be very harmful!
The craftiness of the old school physicians in power, was admirable when they attempted to suppress homoeopathy by re- coining the ancient expression, used in the medical laws, for medicine (medicamentum) in order to honour with this name, a simplex, of the most minute doses as given to its patients by the rules of the New Science, homoeopathy. This was done only for the purpose of making it a criminal offence in the criminal offence in the eyes of the Law, to dispense them, so that it might be called a forbidden dispensing of medicine, which never meant anything but a mixture of several ingredients.
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