SAMUEL HAHNEMANN Kothen, March 4th 1834.
(Question and reply are written in French)
ON DOUBLE REMEDIES.
Hahnemann to Boenninghausen:
Cothen, June 17th, 1833.
I too have made a beginning with smelling two suitably combined remedies, and hope to have some good results. I have also dedicated a special paragraph in the fifth edition of the “Organon” to this method, and in this way introduced it to the world.
Cothen, 15th Sept. 1833.
I was told a short time ago that it had become known to Hufeland (probably through the printer) from my manuscript of the fifth edition of the “Organon” that I have taken up treating with two medicines, and he is already rejoicing at the fact that homoeopathy will have to return at last into the bosom of the only saving church, and would again have to join the old science. As it is never, as we know, absolutely necessary (although at times advantageous) to prescribe for the patient a double remedy, and the advantage gained from the exposition of this sometimes useful method, is, as I see, greatly overbalanced by the disadvantage which would certainly arise from a misinterpretation by the allopaths and allo-homoeopaths, I have, with your approval I feel sure, had the manuscript sent back to me, and have put everything back integrum, and also added a reprimand against such a proceeding, so that the orthodox pope of the old school will be considerably upset when he sees in the “Organon” a publication which will make his rejoicing melt away. I know you approve of my action.
Cothen,
October 16th, 1833.
Your eloquence would have easily persuaded me, if I had been in your position, that is, if I had been as much convinced as you are from a large experience of the possibility and even great utility of giving double remedies. But from many attempts of this kind only one or two have been successful, which is insufficient for the incontrovertible establishing of a new rule. I was therefore, too inexperienced in this practice to support it with full conviction. Consequently it required only a slight momentum to induce me to alter that passage in the new “Organon”, which results in this, that I concede the possibility that two well chosen remedies may be given together with advantage in some cases but that this seems to be a very difficult and doubtful method. And in this way I believe I have done justice to truth on the one side and to my inner conviction on the other. I should be sorry if in that way I have received too much from your wishes.
Paris, September 18th, 1836.
Is it true what Dr. Foissac tells me, that you have written to him and said that you now give two remedies together to your patients with much success? Has not even Aegidi, after much reflection, abandoned such an abdominal heresy which gives the death blow to true homoeopathy, and throws it back to blind allopathy? Even a Dover’s powder cannot always be evenly prepared although Opium and Ipecacuanha are brought under the same conditions, as the one only needs to be a little more stale than the other to become an altogether different remedy.
Hepar sulphuris and the neutral alkalis, which in accordance with the laws of chemistry, always contain their constituent parts in the same proportions, are not subjected to a deviation in the relationship and strength of their composing parts, and are always the same, and can therefore always be used suo jure as simple remedies, and give no excuse for that dangerous heresy and mixture.
Hahnemann remained of this opinion. Six years later when he was preparing the sixth edition of the “Organon” for printing he expressly says in 273.
It is unnecessary in any case of treatment, and for that reason alone inadmissible, to administer to a patient more than one medicinal substance at a time. I cannot see how it can be subjected to the least doubt, whether it be more natural and sensible to prescribe only one single medicine at a time to a patient, or a mixtures of several different ones. The only true and natural homoeopathic treatment does not admit of giving the patient two different medicinal substances simultaneously.
SUPPLEMENT 121.
THE BURDEN OF WORK OF THE SEVENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD MAN.
Hahnemann wrote to Boenninghausen:
Cothen, July 20th, 1831.
As regards myself I must renounce making any kind of correction or improvement that perhaps may seem necessary (however small that may be ) to that large and comprehensive work, ( It contains the tables of questions, or disease formulas drawn up by von Boenninghausen, which was so much praised by Hahnemann — R.H.) and shall have to leave it again to your indefatigable zeal, as my years, of which I feel the burden, render it impossible for me to accomplish more than half of what I could do when I was forty, and yet a correspondence, that cannot be refused, with pupils far and near, with scientific kinsmen, various correspondence with patients living far away, attention to foreigners who are staying here, and are under treatment, as well as the resident ones, occupy every quarter of an hour of my day, when I make allowance for the intermittent social intercourse with my family of four daughters, two meals of a quarter of an hour each, and one hour daily for a walk in my garden.
Cothen.,
May 13th, 1832.
The people who had been restrained by allopathic opponents realise more and more each month, that they are neither tormented by me with bottles of medicine nor otherwise plagued with all kinds of medical martyrdoms, but are cured without any further hardships, by a method which is lacking with these barbarians, and I am besieged by large numbers of sick from morning to night, so that I cannot endure it any longer, but shall break down, if God does not soon show me a way out. In the States of Anhalt no other homoeopath is admitted since the Duke Ferdinand, the originator of my liberty, died, and therefore I do not know where to send the overflow of my patients. My corresponding patients have frequently to wait so long that I shudder at the delay. I cannot find one hour of freedom for my walk, and must therefore be satisfied with my little garden. I have not yet heard one of the thousand nightingales close to the city gates. Only in interrupted quarters of an hour was I able to write, as you wished me, this small preface which follows here. Have pity on me! I do not know how to carry on, and it is a wonder that I have been able to stand it so far.
The enclosed “Preface on the repetition of doses of a homoeopathic remedy” comprises twelve small octavo pages. But several supplements followed; One on May 28th, 1832, a second on June 15th, 1832, on Sulphur comprised two large octavo pages; on July 13th, 1832, a small insertion; and then on August 21st, 1832, a final supplement, with the accompanying words:
Do not laugh at me for sending yet a third insertion ( it was actually a fourth Supplement of two large pages — R.H.) for my preface. I cannot possibly tell the world anything of which I am not yet convinced, and I only became recently quite convinced of the argument which forms this interpolation, so that I can overcome the most different cases of chronic disease by smelling only, and in a remarkably short space of time. Do see that it is inserted. I promise you, that it will be the last with which I will trouble you.
The treatment of this matter of a preface is again a proof of how conscientiously and perseveringly Hahnemann pursued his literary work simultaneously with his professional activities.
PATIENTS IN KOTHEN.
Hahnemann to Boenninghausen:
Kothen, the 9th of March, 1833.
I am nearly succumbing — and I see no way out. For in addition I have the responsibility of some Russian patients, one from Petersburg, one from Silesia, one from Copenhagen, and one from Bordeaux, and more have been announced from Paris, who will arrive in April.
Hahnemann to Dr. Gerstel of Brunn in Mahren:
Kothen, February 12th, 1832.
I have never openly complained about the bitter and cruel enmities which I experienced here during the first or six years, because I prefer to be envied rather than pitied. Yet I avoid the former also. Only during the last years have I succeeded in winning the favour of the public, which had been prejudiced and set against me and my work by the allopaths, chemists, and surgeons, and now this same public is all the more incensed against these physicians and chemists, and gives me the preference over them all, that in the true sense of the world. I do not know how I am to attend to all the patients; they, so to speak, idolise me.
HAHNEMANN’S MEDICAL SUCCESSES IN KOTHEN.
In the “Neue Zeitschrift fur homoopathische Klinik,” No. 13, of July Ist, 1862, we are told:
I had three opportunities latterly of speaking to some admirers of Hahnemann, who knew him personally, and had tested his skill as a physician. The, at one time, Justizrathin, K. of L., had suffered, when a young woman, from a violent migraine, which continued for years, and which no remedy could alleviate. She was advised to go to Hahnemann. After a through examination he promised to cure her completely in six months. This was achieved in two months, in such a radical manner that the lady has one slight recurrence, and spoke of it with fear, as Hahnemann was no longer living. The second case concerned Mrs. v.Z., nee v.M., who now lives here, and who was staying at the time in the vicinity of Kothen. Her physician had tried all his remedies for a very painful gastric trouble, and had ultimately declared that he had exhausted all his art. Did all the important mercurial preparations which he prescribed belong to it? Briefly, the patient consulted Hahnemann, and had the good fortune to be greeted as cured after the sixth visit, and has never had another attack. Both cases had one factor in common worthy of notice, Hahnemann had predicted an aggravation, which occurred, and in the first case lasted 24 hours, and in the second four weeks. It also showed from the details of the diet that he was a great psychologist for he insisted at the same time on an alteration in the household arrangements, which were then probably exciting the patient, and he prescribed rest and a change of residence, etc. The third case concerned Mad. S., who is also living here, and who when a young girl suffered from chlorosis, and while visiting Kothen, had a cataleptic attack. Hahnemann could not be persuaded to visit her, but after a careful description of the case he sent her a medicine to smell. The treatment was continued later, but as the frank young lady during the consultation, declared to Hahnemann that she would not take any homoeopathic remedies, these were given to her in the beverages, and even in broth which was especially prepared for the purpose, and after a time she was completely cured.
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