All were persons capable of carrying out observations, and of absolute honesty of purpose, so that I could vouch for them, and I do; each was striving for the holy purpose of seeking these new and indispensable discoveries for the welfare of suffering humanity, giving his time, even sacrificing his health, so as to carry out with true zeal, the best possible work for the good cause. In this way I continue even now to perfect the true art of healing. Those who are not satisfied with the simple carefulness required to reach the desired goal, which is all that is necessary, and those who seem to think unnecessary the pure zeal for holy truth and the strict conscientiousness in these medicinal provings that were not done for the sake of money, let them enquire from the great talker of Carlsruhe (he means, Dr. Griesselich-R.H.) who does not trouble so much about truth and conscientiousness, and zeal for the welfare of humanity, (He conducted his military hospital unashamed on allopathic lines. and who still endeavours to keep the world, which has been deceived for thousands of years, in these deceptions by writing in No. 10 of the eighth vol. of the Allgem. hom. Zeit., 1836, of more perfect new medical provings, that his wisdom is dreaming about, for the price of twelve ducats, and who appoints the so- called judges who are to award the prize for the best (?) essay. Among whom he is included, who also shows his inexperience in homoeopathy by asserting that: “Hahnemann’s Causticum, does not exist” (is nothing). Why? This so important, so extremely powerful, healing and indispensable medicinal substance he does not even know it!)
All that is to be quoted in it, is such voluminous scribble and so unworthy of notice, that a big pamphlet is to be expected from every single remedy. Every outsider, every unknown quisquis sit, can contribute, and that which can only be discovered with difficulty by close and careful intercourse with the provers, is not mentioned. That is, (1) if the prover is capable of carrying out accurate observations upon himself, or if he follows the right diet, and observes the correct conduct for body and soul, and is capable of putting before us in the most adequate words and sentences, what he has observed. (2) If he is so thoroughly imbued and animated by pure and unselfish desire, as to be willing to sacrifice his time and even jeopardise his health for the acknowledgment of truth.
Of this the judge who has to allot the prize has already been able to convince himself, after reading the scribble of the unknown Quidem, and declare himself satisfied, while he can do nothing else but crown the most voluminous and drawn out essay of the unknown, of whom he can assume rightly, that he must be in great need of money, if he is willing to write so much for twelve ducats! It is impossible for the judge to elicit more from the scribble, and he cannot possibly be so impudent as to presume that this scribble be pure truth; he cannot find out from it, if it (in the best of cases) is not at least partly incorrect, if the symptoms recorded are not altogether false, as a few years ago Fickel (to whom had been handed over by his colleagues in Leipsic, the post of physician to the homoeopathic hospital) invented all the printed symptoms, in his so-called proving of the chemical preparation, Osmium, which he had never seen, for the sake of snapping up a bookseller’s fee.
How can anyone expect that by offering miserable money prizes to unknown contributors, for the exploration of unknown experiences and experiments, which can only be obtained by honest self-scratching zeal for the welfare of suffering humanity, it could be anything more than mystifications and untruths-this the all-wise talker of Carlsruhe did not see in his conceit, and thus he deceives the world.
Fickel’s colleagues in Leipsic imitate him, honouring his wisdom as non plus ultra, and let the homoeopathic hospital disintegrate in order to obtain from the proceeds of the small local money similar prizes for such imaginative self-provings.
Dear humanity, who art in need of pure truth for the healing art, be no longer deceived.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
Paris, 5th May, 1838.
SUPPLEMENT 60
HOMOEOPATHY WITHOUT PROTECTION.
Hahnemann writes to Stapf: (Stapf’s Archiv, Vol. 21, Part 2, p. 128.)
That you will find a great man, who will come over to our side is, in the nature of things, impossible. If he be already a man of celebrity as you represent him, he can have become so only by means of the gross empirical art, which he contrived to support, after some new fashion, by compiling in manuals the thousand times ruminated trash of common medicine, or by hatching some in-elaborate unintelligible, fine-spun system, or by processes and fooleries of the ordinary sort, which he carried further than his colleagues, and raised himself above them only by telling greater and more audacious falsehoods than they. Such an one has long ago decided on the part he must play; he can worship only the false and sophistical system which raised him to his place of honour. Never would he be able to recognise from the wilderness of his multifarious knowledge the dignity of simple, humbling truth; and he would take care to consider them as little as ever he could, should some rays of it tumble upon him, because they would expose the falsehood of all his former knowledge, by which he has become so great, and would leave nothing sound or entire about him, and destroy himself in his knowledge. He would first have to tread underfoot all his mock-consequence before he could even begin to be our pupil; and where would then be the great man, who could have raised us by his high position, when his previous infallibility falls in the dust, and he has to extinguish completely the light of that wisdom to which he owed his exalted station, and learn the new truth, before he could become a worthy pupil of ours? How could he become our protector without first receiving the truth we teach, that is, without having first entered our school? And then must be thrown away all that rendered him great in the eyes of the world; and even to perform a moderate service in our cause he would need our protection, not we his.
Our science requires no political levers, no worldly decorations. At present it grows with slow progress amid the abundance of weeds which luxuriate about it; it grows unobserved, from an unlikely acorn into a little plant; soon may its head be seen overtopping the tall weeds. Only wait-it is striking deep its roots in the earth; it is strengthening itself unperceived, but all the more certainly in its own time it will increase, till it becomes an oak of God, whose arms unmoved by the wildest storm, stretch in all directions, that the suffering children of men may be revived under its beneficient shadow.
Kind regards from my family and myself.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN. Leipsic, 19th September, 1815.
SUPPLEMENT 61
WORKS AND ESSAYS WRITTEN BY HAHNEMANN DURING HIS SOJOURN IN LEIPSIC.
1811-1821. Materia Medica Pura. Dresden, Arnold.
Part I, 1811, 248 pp.; 2nd amplif. edit., 1823; 3rd amplif. edit., 1830.
Part 2, 1816, 396 pp.; 2nd amplif. edit., 1824; 3rd amplif. edit., 1833.
Part 3, 1816, 288 pp.; 2nd amplif. edit., 1825.
Part 4, 1818, 284 pp.; 2nd amplif. edit., 1825.
Part 5, 1819, 306 pp.; 2nd amplif. edit., 1826.
Part 6, 1821, 255 pp.; 2nd amplif. edit., 1826.
1812. His Dissertation on Helleborismus Veterum. (Lesser Writings).
1813. Spirit of the New Medical Doctrine, “Allg. Anz. d. Deutschen,” March, pp. 626 (later completed and printed in front of Part 2 of M.M.P.).
1814. Method of Treatment for the Now Prevailing Nerve and Hospital Fever (“Allg. Anz. der Deutschen,” No. 6). (Lesser Writings).
1816. On Venereal Diseases and its Ordinary Improper Treatment. (Ibid., No. 211). (Lesser Writings).
1816. On the Treatment of Burns. (Ibid., No. 156 and 204). (Lesser Writings).
1819. On Uncharitableness towards Suicides. (Ibid., No. 144). (Lesser Writings).
1820. On the Preparation and Dispensing of Medicines by Homoeopathic Physicians themselves. Reply to an accusation of the Leipsic Apothecaries. (Stapf, Lesser Writings).
1821. Medical Advice on Purpura Miliaris. “Allg. Anz. d. Deutschen,” No. 26. (Lesser Writings).
The separate volumes of the Materia Medica Pura frequently contain very particular and detailed Symptom-Index of the individual medicines.
These were always preceded by instructions on the preparation of medicines for Homoeopathic use, together with an historical account on the use of the respective medicine, and the chief disease symptoms in which this medicine is to be used. Special mention is made of the co-operation of his pupils in establishing the effect of medicines.
Of the third edition of the Materia Medica Pura, only the two first volumes appeared; the four others did not appear. C. Hering writes on this in “North. Amer. Jour. of Hom.” (Vol. 22, p. 102):
We have not received the last four volumes of the third edition of Materia Medica Pura, because the “anti-Hahnemannians” have by their shouting and boasting brought such disrepute on this work that the Materia Medica as well as the greater part of the second edition of Chronic Diseases, 1835-1839, became void.
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