Very esteemed Hofrath, You were so good as to supply the Capital, Cothen, with the prophylactic for cholera free of charge, and master-mason Busse, who has seen you, says that you are willing to do the same for us, if we request you to do so.
We should not like to miss the opportunity of making use of this patriotic offer, and request of you, Sir, the remedies for this town, and to ask you, at the same time, to kindly state, when and how they are to be fetched.
We recognise your kindness with deep gratitude, and are glad of this opportunity to assure you of our deep esteem.
We are, dear Sir, THE MUNICIPAL SANITARY COMMISSION OF THE EARLDOM OF WARMSDORFF.
(First signature unreadable.) CASTRILIUS.
Goslen, October 23rd, 1831.
Hahnemann’s marginal note reads:
They must send an intelligent man who knows how to arrange for the distribution and care of the preventative and curative remedy.
Answered November Ist.
The following letter is remarkable in so far as Hahnemann repudiates every preventative remedy whilst in his pamphlet, “Appeal to thinking philanthropists ” (1831), page 15, he definitely says:
If doctors would be warned, and make themselves immune by taking a few drops of Camphor solution before approaching cholera patients, etc.
Either Hahnemann did not know the accurate effect of Camphor when writing this letter, or else he wished to prevent people from putting too much trust in the prophylactic remedy, and neglecting the necessary precautions in regard to food, and therefore especially emphasis the latter in the letter which reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Ob.L.G. referendary,
There is not and cannot be a prophylactic against cholera, apart form a regular mode of living, and trust in the Ruler of all, a cheerful disposition, and avoidance of suspicious strangers and cholera patients.
SAM.HAHNEMANN.
Kothen, July 20th, 1831.
SUPPLEMENT 117
HOMOEOPATHIC SUCCESSES WITH CHOLERA
Dr. Lovy related to Hahnemann:
Prague, October 18th, 1831.
I sent a short time ago, a number of questions concerning the homoeopathic treatment of cholera to Vienna, and received from Father Veith a letter in his own handwriting which I enclose. Father Veith has a medical degree, and in his earlier days wrote books on botany and veterinary science (he was Director of the Institute for veterinary surgeons), later he studied theology, and for a time was a Ligurian, now he is a secular priest and preacher at the Cathedral. He has practised homoeopathy for years, and has embraced it with the same ardour as in earlier days he did other sciences. He has a very versatile intellect generally, and is highly esteemed by the most important people in Vienna. Homoeopathy may except a great deal from him. He intended at first to write an essay on the homoeopathic treatment of cholera for the Hofrath, but was afraid of the censor, and therefore wrote on the subject in the form of a letter which need not be submitted to censorship. The sender of Veith’s letter, a friend of mine, and a cousin of Veith, told me I could not only send V’s letter to the Hofrath, but had his permission to have it printed just as it is, which would be of great use to homoeopathy and harassed humanity. I also know that Father Veith would very much like to get in communication with you, and he would certainly be very glad if you honoured him with a letter, which I too consider the best reward for his unselfish zeal.
Veith’s brother, professor of veterinary science, is also a homoeopath, and has not lost one cholera patient.
HAHNEMANN TO FATHER VEITH
After receiving the above letter Hahnemann sent the following to Father Veith:
3rd October, 1831 Dear Colleague, I had already heard of your successful activity in fighting the prevailing cholera epidemic in Vienna, with the help of homoeopathy, and also recognized from your letter to my friend Dr. Lovy, in Prague, that you are a worthy pupil of our beneficient science and one who has very nearly attained mastership. Accept therefore a warm handshake, and the assurance of my great esteem. You have been the first to make physicians who are not in touch with the Asiatic epidemic, acquainted with the nature of those partial cholera conditions, that reflections of cholera, in localities already attacked by the epidemic, with the signs of what you name cholerine, those moderate ailments produced by the rarified contagious substances emanating from patients seriously attacked by cholera. You have acquainted us with your excellent homoeopathic treatment of rattling and rumbling in the intestines with lienteric diarrhoea, by means of Phosphorus and moderate application of cold, and also with a like procedure in similar conditions in more advanced stages of cholera. Homoeopathy owes you much recognition, but your own consciousness alone can reward you. I am glad to have found such an active and useful co-worker for the great and immortal work constructed for the welfare of humanity, and express herewith my great respect.
SAM. HAHNEMANN
FATHER VEITH TO HAHNEMANN.
Vienna, March, 7th, 1832 Venerable Hofrath,
I am ashamed and have good reason for it, that I have not answered your kind letter long ago; much excuse is to be found in the routine of my existence, which consists of zizgag, and in the impossibility of consistently pursuing a good and pure purpose. How much I would like to carry out what I discussed with the valiant Dr. Schmit a long time ago, if it were not for the thousand hindrances that constantly arise. Many would like homoeopathy, or like it a little, but would desire to acquire it comfortably, without study and without trouble as in the famous land of utopia. How rich your life must be, and what a fulness of immense discoveries, full of blessedness. Truly, only rarely does any one of us think sufficiently deeply to conceive what science owes to your endeavors. I, on my part, abstain from asserting, that I am one of those who can grasp this conception, but feel longingly, what good fortune it would be, to be guided, for a short time, by your hand into that vast and fertile realm. I will dare, in future, to put before you through Dr. Schmit, some questions, doubts, and half understood matters, that you may have the kindness to explain. Accept the statement of a man as something real, who gladly looks up to the light which Eternal Wisdom has placed before him in you. I owe you much, and willingly acknowledge it.
(Veith puts before Hahnemann at the same time some cases of disease for his opinion.)
SUPPLEMENT 118
LETTER TO THE KING OF PRUSSIA.
Hahnemann sends to his friend, Councilor Becker of Gotha, editor of the “Allg. Anz. der Deutschen, ” the following letter:
Dear Friend,
I feel that the time has come to speak our boldly, and to take one more step towards better things. And who else but I, who am independent and neutral, should take this important step, and with whose help but your philanthropic kindness, which has already achieved untold good for humanity?
Lay my enclosed protestation before the eyes of the whole world, perhaps even Friedrich Wilhelm, so great in goodness, may read it.
Your faithful friend, S. HAHNEMANN.
Cothen, November 7th,1831
AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS MAJESTY KING FRIEDRICH WILHELM THE THIRD.
Perhaps You of all the German sovereigns will read the loyal “Allg. Anzeiger der Deutschen,” and in this way learn what no one has yet told You, of the possibility of minimising the number of cholera victims in Your otherwise prosperous country.
Do not let them minimise the loss of lives to You — “only so many in a thousand” — in order to make it appear small before Your eyes. The wholesale dealer reckons up the small expenses by thousands, but a humanitarian Sovereign like You must be deeply grieved about the loss of a life of one faithful subject that could be avoided.
What was the love of the Roman Emperor Augustus, what that of Heinrich the Fourth for his subjects, compared with Yours!
Realise form the terrible death-roll, that Your physicians know perhaps some things. But not how to cure.
If they had a fixed honorarium for this epidemic, and were not allowed to accept fees for their treatment (the whole country would willingly subscribe these salaries, and I personally, a foreigner, would gladly contribute), truly their harmful readiness for service would cool, and many patients would remain alive.
Also the expensive distribution of the many deadly tools from the apothecary, which are a burden to the cities, would cease, if only the country had beneficient homoeopaths who only earn their living from curing patients, without charging for their medicines, and without sending bills, after deaths, to the mourning relatives. But You Great Monarch, who find Your only happiness in the welfare of Your subjects, have no, or nearly no homoeopaths (true physicians) in Your state, which is otherwise so favourably disposed to free intellectual activity.
Your medical potentates have suppressed homoeopathy as much as possible fearing to be overshadowed by it.
Do not let it be suppressed humanitarian Monarch! The present generation and posterity will bless You for it, and reward Your sympathetic attitude!
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