You will see how I have dealt with some people in my book, in my usual style of writing. COMPLAINTS AGAINST GRIESSELICH’S PROCEDURE.
Boenninghausen wrote to Hahnemann:
Munster, November 25th, 1837.
Since you, my friend, have left Germany, the scandalous conduct of the scientific demagogues, under the leadership of Griesselich as a fighter in the front ranks, has steadily increased, and will soon have reached the summit. Unfortunately many of your true followers have been misled by it, because the man who agrees with scientific methods, cannot bear the reproach of being unscientific, and then only too easily will clutch at pseudo-scientific methods in order to save his reputation. We others who firmly and faithfully follow your excellent teaching without vacillating, have therefore plenty to do to check the homoeopaths in our immediate neighbourhood. I have succeeded very well in this so far, and it is probably to this success that I owe the great honour paid me recently by the “Allg. Anzeiger der Deutschen” (of Oct, 6th of this year, No. 272) when they mention me only, as being your truest follower and successor in the strict and true practice of homoeopathy. Such an attribute is the most appreciable of all, and as long as no one doubts it, I laugh at all the attacks of Griesselich and Trinks without troubling to reply. But I have many good reasons for strictly adhering to your precepts, among which the foremost is, that your axioms when rightly applied have never yet led me astray, and, therefore, I consider it absolutely necessary for the sake of the good cause, that your school should be kept free from any foreign admixture.
The old luck which I have experienced in the practice of homoeopathy has not forsaken me, and I attribute that solely to the care which I employ in making the choice of the remedy, together with the smallness of the doses which I administer with sparing repetition. I have not infrequently found that when an improvement was forced by larger and more frequent doses, especially in chronic afflictions, this improvement did not last, as if the life force wished to react against the morbid condition without being able to do so, and caused in the end, only a tumult of all the forces, under the influence of which the diseases only struck deeper roots.
Our friend Muhlenbein gave me the pleasure of a visit a few weeks ago. He is just the same as of old, and more than ever in favour of small and infrequent doses. He undertook a long journey, and related that when in Carlsruhe he inquired a long time for Griesselich, whom no one there seemed to know, even the people in the Hotel in which he stayed did not know him, although ultimately he found that Dr. Griesselich lived in the same road, and only a few houses distant. So you see this obscure physician is the antagonist of a man like you, whose well-founded reputation has penetrated to the remotest parts of the earth, and to whom enlightened posterity will erect statues. I certainly consider it an honour, that the literary Bajazzo has tried to bring me into discredit, just as he has done with you, dear friend, and also with Stapf and Gross.
HAHNEMANN TO BOENNINGHAUSEN.
Paris, January 5th, 1838.
The conduct of Griesselich and Trinks is bad, but as it is only built up on trashy literature and untruths, I hope that in a few years time it will be cast aside like old iron. As long as I have you and a few faithful followers left, our science will continue to progress.
Paris, October 23rd, 1840 (dictated).
The homoeopaths of Germany have fallen so low that they could not fall lower. I am now told, that they were beginning to hesitate and retrace their steps a little. I have absolutely nothing to do with them. The coming generation will discern more clearly what will be of service to humanity.
Paris, June 1st (probably 1841; dictated).
My daughter Amalie Liebe was enjoined to visit my wife’s aunt at Dusseldorf, and then to take to you at Munster a small portrait of me as I am now, together with a copper etching, which on the whole is a good likeness, although it is not quite my usual cheerful expression; it seems rather to represent one of those rare but unfortunate moments, when I am struck with the wrong conduct of my alleged German pupils. Therefore, I would ask you to think of my face as much brighter.
Paris,
September 24th, 1842 (dictated, in the same woman’s hand writing as before; the date and signature by Hahnemann are still fairly firm and decided).
Of course I have lived through the most monstrous events in connection with our science-the worst of it in Germany. What attempts have not the pseudo-homoeopaths, with their envy and jealousy, made, to mix the old allopathic leaven into my work, so as to make the treatment of patients as easy as possible for themselves, when I did nothing for the sake of fame, and under- took my work solely for love of truth and duty, and for the sake of suffering humanity. Consider that even that sensible man, Rau, became part of their clique, and undertook to substitute for my “Organon” a second one, yet he had to leave this world, in his best years through the lancet of the allopaths. One and all came under this specific sect, in which they asserted that they could cure as thoroughly by administering palliatives as by using homoeopathic remedies.
Here, in Paris, the enemies of the true Art have formed an affiliation, with the help of Griesselich, which consists of three gentlemen, who spread as much evil as they can; this however attracts very little interest. Trinks also sent one of his pupils (Simpson) to England; he is only despised there.
See the last letter of Hahnemann to Dr. von Boenninghausen, of March 24th, 1843. Supplement 181.
SUPPLEMENT 142
RUPTURE WITH BARON VON BRUNNOW.
In a letter from the Baron of November 4th, 1832, addressed to Hahnemann, the following remarks appear in Hahnemann’s writing:
Brunnow. I gently reproached him some time ago for his mongrel statements in the practice to his translation.
Ernst von Brunnow wrote to Hahnemann:
Dresden, May 15th, 1834.
I received yesterday a letter from Dr. Rummel at Magdeburg, in which, to my great joy, he writes that a reconciliation with you has taken place. Rummel is certainly a capable man, who is in earnest about the good cause, and who for that reason has frequently to suffer from persecutions in Magdeburg.
As regards myself, my very esteemed friend, you can rest assured that no one has despised this so-called rational medicine more than I have… When in my preface to the second French translation of the “Organon,” I spoke of the possibility of an antipathic and a sympathetic therapeutic method, and a relative possibility of their auxiliary relationship to the homoeopathic method, I truly did not think of those mixed therapeutic methods of that torture of human beings with moxa, acupuncture, vesicatories, etc., which I detest with my whole soul. If I have been carried too far by theoretical speculations, I regret it, and will not raise the subject again. That otherwise my preface is a useful work is proved by Mr. von Boenninghausen, who in his book for laymen has taken several pages of it for his third chapter.
With deep esteem and affection, Your faithful and devoted, ERNST VON BRUNNOW.
Hahnemann wrote on this letter: “Just 2nd, 1834. Replied to Brunnow, and asked him to withdraw.”
The request to recant read as follows:
Dear Baron,
I would like you to withdraw your disparaging statements about homoeopathy, in the preface to your French translation of the “Organon” (which is an unheard of example for a translator) by some new publication in French or German, as soon as you feel that you no longer agree with those unfavourable utterances.
You will come to this better conviction all the more easily if you consider what success one single individual has achieved with our science by practising it free from all allopathic admixture (as I and my colleague Dr. Lehmann have done here for thirteen years), then it becomes obvious that failure must be due to the deficiencies of the practitioners, and not to the science, if these were unable to do without the inferior help of that “rational” science. Such a withdrawal of your public depreciation of our Art, which in character is completely removed from all, even the smallest amount of allopathic leaven, would bring you honour in the eyes of your contemporaries, and of posterity.
Your devoted, S.H.
Cothen, June 2nd, 1834.
Brunnow replied:
Very esteemed Sir,
In your letter of the 2nd inst. you asked me to publicly withdraw my deprecatory remarks published about homoeopathy. I am not conscious of any such depreciation. When in my preface, page XLVII, I declare that I consider homoeopathy the most perfect therapeutic system, but however add, that it could not dispense entirely with its sisters, the other therapeutic systems, this truly is no depreciation of homoeopathy. It was then a conviction, and it has remained so until this hour. I was allowed to express in a private letter to you, that I would be sorry if I had gone too far. Yet I would never withdraw my statements publicly, because I should have to act contrary to what appears to me to be the truth, and that must be sacred to every man. On no account would I stand before the world, or you, as a hypocrite. I am a faithful friend of homoeopathy, and will remain that until the end. But on that account I cannot repudiate all that has been thought, found, observed, and discovered in the science of therapeutics; I cannot consider everything as deception and lies, and declare every cure as impossible, if it has not been accomplished by the procedure which you have now adopted. I believe in the existence of an antipathic and antagonistic method, within a certain limited sphere, not in its present form, but in a future and more purified one I do not believe in the Isopathic method, because it contradicts common- sense.
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