Write by the next post if you accept this, and I will in the meantime prepare an advertisement, as you wish, for the A.L.Z. and send it to you immediately.
I generally keep my promise. To this punctuality I owe a great part of my success.
You shall receive the manuscript in one, or better still, in two batches, but I cannot consent to send it in separate sheets.
I expect the remuneration immediately after it is printed. If in course of time a German edition should become necessary, I make the condition that I only shall compile it, this you will probably consider reasonable and appropriate.
With profound esteem, Yours faithfully,
DR. SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
Eilenburg. October 30th, 1803.
Mr. Joh. Ambr. Barth, publisher and bookseller in Leipsic.
The first and smaller part of the book contains the symptoms of all the remedies which Hahnemann had proved on himself, in so far as they are not taken from other Toxicological observations, while the second part consists of the repertory.” This work, containing the first collection of remedies which had been proven on a healthy subject, deals with the remedies which we give below, together with a number of symptoms found by proving.
Symptoms Symptoms from from Hahnemann. others.
Aconitum napellus 138 75 Acris tinctura (Causticum) 30 0 Arnica montana 117 33 Belladonna 101 304 Camphora 73 74 Cantharides 20 74 Capsicum anuum 174 3 Chamomilla 272 3 Cinchona 122 99 Cocculus 156 6 Copaifera balsamum 12 8 Cuprum vitriolatum 29 38 Digitalis 23 33 Drosera 36 4 Hyoscyamus 45 290 Ignatia 157 19 Ipecacuanha 70 13 Ledum 75 5 Melampodium (Helleborus) 32 25 Mezereum 62 34 Nux vomica 257 51 Papver somniferum (Opium) 82 192 Pulsatilla 280 29 Rheum 39 13 Stramonium 59 157 Valeriana 25 10 Veratrum album 161 106
Although Hahnemann says in the preface to the book: “Nemo me melius novit, quam manca sint et tenuia” (nobody knows better than I do, how imperfect and insufficient it all is) it shows much diligence, extensive observation, and fearless love of truth. In “Hufeland’s Bibliothek,” Vol. 16 page 181, the essay is said to be “Uncommonly interesting and creditable.” In the scientific translation of the ges med-chir. Literatur of the year 1805 (page 409) Augustine calls the book ” the results of excellent experiments on the effect of medicines on the human organism.” Yet this work was and remained a fragment as Hahnemann modesty declared. A carefully prepared second edition, with numerous additions-the original of which is in the possession of Dr. Rich Haehl, Stuttgart, has probably for this reason not appeared in print, whilst the whole of the results of provings on a healthy subject were published in the Materia Medica Pura.
The following letter, the second part of which deals with.
ALBRECHT VON HALLER’S MATERIA MEDICA.
is of interest in the history of culture.
Torgau, January 28th, 1805
Dear Mr. Steinacker,
For old acquaintance sake you shall have it for the mere sum of 25rl (This probably concerns the payment for “AEsculapius in the Balance.” This little book of seventy pages appeared in 1805 published by Steinacker.); but with the condition that it remains strictly anonymous, and a free copy on writing paper. I must also ask for myself a catalogue of Baldinger’s library which is to be sold.
The book-selling trade is at a crisis, the miserable, harmful and ephemeral literature of fashion will perish together with its publishers, and people will regain the taste and desire for the useful arts and sciences. The book-selling trade can only flourish and exist through books of real and lasting value. That time is not far off. The advance of knowledge and the increased remuneration of the teachers in many important countries give us reason for such an outlook.
I have in hand a translation of Albrecht von Haller’s Materia Medica, with additions by Vicat, a French book which is almost unknown in Germany, I have arranged it for the German reader, so that what concerns Switzerland only is abbreviated. It will be about 18 sheets (a little more a little less). Can I offer it to you. Please write to me what you can offer for the sheet? (The book was afterwards published by Steinacker, 1806.) Haller’s famous name will not let it remains unsold, it is really filled with much that is useful.
Please suggest to me a young scholar in Leipsic who would be able to procure new foreign books and scientific news for me at a small remuneration.
Your obedient servant,
HAHNEMANN.
Mr. Steinacker, publisher and bookseller, Leipsic.
From a letter to the same publisher it becomes evident what amount of enumeration Hahnemann was working for at that time. The letter is again addressed to the publisher Steinacker, and was written on August 11th, 1805. He says in it: I accept your offer to deliver the translation of Haller’s Materia Medica by Easter, and after sending the manuscript to pay 36rl. and at Easter the whole (after deducting the 36rl.), also to pay 4rl. for each sheet.
I must ask you for a favour, will you procure for me from the surgical instrument shop in Leipsic (I have forgotten its name) one of Stark’s midwifery forceps, a pair of craniotomy scissors, and a hook, in advance for my work, and to send these on soon, deducting the cost from the 36rl. which are due to me. You would do me a great favour by it as I need them very much.
This was Hahnemann’s last translation.
“On Objections to a Proposed Substitute for Cinchona.” “On the Present Want of Drugs Extraneous to Europe.” “On Substitutes for Foreign Drugs,” etc.
Napoleon had ordered a Continental blockade in order to destroy the commerce and shipping of England, that meant no English goods were any longer allowed to be landed at any Continental harbour. The consequence of this was naturally that in a short time there arose a great scarcity of drugs extraneous to Europe, because at that time drugs were prescribed in very large doses, and Cinchona bark especially was almost unobtainable, so a great many substitutes for it were advertised. As other medicinal substances were also in demand the medical faculty in Vienna tried to find a way of helping by declaring in the “Allgem. Anz der Deutsch.,” 1808, No,. 305, that a number of foreign medicines were quite unnecessary. Hahnemann gave his opinion in the three above named essays. He declared:
“Substitutes” in the sense that most physicians understood them were non-existent; the best help would be to carefully watch where one medicine was indicated, and then not give as large as dose as hitherto.
Substitutes, which completely take the place of medicines, which do not act chemically but specifically, there are not, and there cannot be, as one medicine differs from another-and substitutes which partly and half and half take the place of others (if such were necessary) can only then be found when the properties of every single drug have been accurately and completely displayed before the eyes of the world, for a complete comparison.
Prof. Hofrat Hecker of Berlin, also spoke against the opinion of the faculty in Vienna, by declaring: Cascarilla was not only as good as Cinchona bark in healing properties, but was to preferred.
Hahnemann says to this:
I say he maintained what he has said is nothing more than saying in a thousand words what the faculty in Vienna has said in two words (by declaring this remedy as quite superfluous); he makes statements and proves nothing, he does not give a single illustration.
This draws from Hahnemann the accusing statement :
No science, no art, even no craft, has progressed so little with the march of time, no science has remained so far behind in its original imperfection as the science of medicine. Our medical science requires a complete reformation from head to foot. Treatment is not undertaken according to conviction but according to opinion, the more ingenious and learned it appears the less is its value all these modes of procedure however much opposed, have their authorities and their famous men as examples; nowhere do we find a really good and helpful rule which has justified itself through the centuries.
And so Hahnemann returns again to the demand that the properties of the individual medicines should be proved. God had created and so arranged them “that unchangeably everyone of them has its definite use, its definitely established healing properties, which in very small doses could be used for the great healing of humanity.”
SUPPLEMENT 48
LETTER OF HAHNEMANN TO THE PUBLISHER SCHAUB OF DUSSELDORF REGARDING THE SIXTH EDITION OF THE “ORGANON”
Dear Mr. Schaub,
I have just finished after eighteen months work the sixth edition of my “Organon,” which has now become the most complete., It will consist of 20 to 22 sheets calculated from the previous publication of the Organon,” but as I wish a more liberal edition it will take at least 24 sheets. I require the whitest paper and the most recent type for its production, as it probably will be the last.
If you wish to undertake such a handsome publication you can fix the fee yourself, either for the whole or by the sheet-just as you like-we want to earn honour with it. As Mr. Arnold has printed a portrait of me in front of all previous editions, which has little if any resemblance to mr, I shall see to it, that you receive at least a correct drawing of my facial expression which you can have engraved in Dusseldorf, so that posterity can form a conception of my face. I only ask for ten free copies. If this meets with your approval please answer by return of post.
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