It is not known that Hahnemann replied but according to his own note he did reply to the letter.
Hofrath.
Very esteemed Master,
Your star has also risen for me and I follow its light! I have tried to become acquainted with homoeopathy for some time, and for the last four months I have made it my only study. Now I am disgusted with the method of treatment (allopathy) which I have persevered with for the last 27 years; but at present I feel too weak to come forth as a homoeopath.
My most ardent with is to come and see you at Cothen, and train myself, under your guidance in homoeopathy. My inquiry is: will you allow it? and my petition is: do grant it to me. Do not sen d me to one of your pupils, for I would really like very much to drink from your pure spring.
I am ready to start on the journey at any time and await your consent.
With deep veneration I sign myself, Your most humble servant, BREDENOLL, Dr. Medorrhinum
Erwitte, Duchy of Westphalia.
Jany. 27th, 1833.
Hahnemann replied:
Dear Doctor Bredenoll,
My time is very limited on account of the large number of patients. But, in order not to drive away an eager student, such as you appear to be, I will allow you to come. I hope that you will be satisfied with the time that I can give you. And you will not omit to repay me for my efforts with a monthly fee.
In the meantime I remain, Yours, S.H.
Feby. Ist, 1833. Bredenoll wrote again later: Erwitte, April 5th, 1833.
I arrived back safely to my family on March 15th and immediately began my practice; already in Paderborn I had patients, and the number treated, or still under treatment is 203. Of these 5 have died, and of the others, some have recovered and others are still under treatment.
According to this, the course with Hahnemann must have lasted a little more than a month.
Hahnemann wrote to Boenninghausen:
Cothen, March 9th, 1833.
The physician from Bremen, who inquired from you about our method of treatment, was perhaps Dr. Hirschfield, who stayed with me for seven days. I expect great deal of good from this skilful and eager convert. A less important one from Erwitte, near Soest, will also do some efficient work; he has already been here a fortnight. However I made a wonderful acquaintance within three days, in the person of Geh. Hofrath Dr. Kramer, physician-in- ordinary to the Grand Duke of Baden, who took lessons for two months from one of my good pupils of Leipsic (Hornburg) and was instructed by him in the practice of homoeopathy. To my great pleasure he was really well initiated and instructed in his 60th year. He will gain great advantages for our science in Baden.,
With regard to Dr. Hirschfeld of Bremen, see Supplements 117 and 181.
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS FOR A HOMOEOPATH.
A Dr. Steinestel of Stuttgart wrote Hahnemann a long letter. He declared himself to be a follower of homoeopathy, and that he had already established close connections with leading physicians in Paris, Switzerland, and Baden, and he mentioned these persons by their correct names. In Stuttgart where he was staying, at the time for a rest-cure, and as a missionary teacher, he is said to have attracted much attention through some successful cures which he had carried out, and had even gained the protection of the King. But the Board of Health was persecuting him, and he was threatened with expulsion from the town unless he has able to prove that he had the right to practise as a homoeopathic physician. For this reason he asks Hahnemann to give him a written testimony, stating that he had the necessary knowledge to practise homoeopathy. Hahnemann was careful not to grant his request without further proof, and he put ten examination questions to the petitioner instead,-whom he did not quite trust, on account of his letter.
Dear Mr. Steinestel,
I have much pleasure in making your acquaintance, and in answer to your request I put the following questions to you, and from your answers to them I shall be able to judge of your capability to practise homoeopathy, and to treat patients of all kinds.
1. What course does the true (homoeopathic) physician pursue in order to ascertain the disease symptoms, and consequently what does he treat him for?
2. Why does the name of a disease not suffice to instruct the physician as to what he has to do to cure the patient? Why for instance should be not give at once Cinchona-bark, when the patient tells him that he has a temperature (as the Allopath does)?
3. How does the true physician learn what each medicine is useful for and consequently in what particular diseased condition it will help and cure?
4. Why does the true physician view with horror the mingling together of several medicinal substances in one prescription, ordered for a patient.
5. Why does the true physician consider it an abomination to see blood drawn from a patient whether by venesection, or blood- sucking leeches, or by cupping glasses?
6. Why is it an abomination for the true physician to see poppy-juice prescribed by the allopaths for all sorts of pains, for diarrhoea, or for sleeplessness?
7. Why does the homoeopath prepare gold, plumbago, lycopodium-pollen, culinary salt, etc., by triturating them for hours with a non-medical substances, such as sugar of milk, and by shaking a small dissolved portion of them with water and alcohol, which process is called potentising?
8. Why must the true physician not give his patients medicine for one single symptom (for a single morbid sensation)?
9. when the true physician has given the patient a small dose of medicine which has been selected by reason of its similarity to the most characteristic symptoms of the disease, and the dose has been successful (as might naturally be expected)- when will it be time again for him to give another dose of medicine?
How does he than perceive what medicine he ought to give?
HAHNEMANN’S OCCUPATIONS IN KOTHEN
10. Why can the homoeopathic medicines never be dispensed by the apothecary without injury to the public?
When you have replied to these questions for me in writing, I shall be able to judge if you are a true homoeopathic practitioner.
Hail to the King who cherishes only wholesome truth, and who with a vigorous hand overthrows many injurious and time-honoured customs; such an one is the vice-regent on earth of the all- bountiful and all-wise Godhead.
Yours faithfully, S.H.
Cothen, June 20th, 1834.
Nothing had become known of an answer to these questions, and there is no further mention of a “Dr.” Steinestel, or rather later on he was unmasked, by the homoeopathic periodicals, as a swindler. But the questions themselves are certainly laid the greatest stress, and which of them he considered of the greatest value in his system of treatment.
AS PUPIL OF HAHNEMANN AT KoTHEN.
Dr. med. and chir. Hermann Hartlaub, writes in a letter of February, 15th, 1834 (“Journal of the Berlin Association of Homoeopathic Physicians,” Vol. VI, page 151).
My three months sojourn at Cothen with Hahnemann, in the year 1833, where I was received by him in a very homely manner is to me the high light of this period. I was daily with him, and also was present every morning at his consultations (in the afternoon Hahnemann only answered letters from patients). In the evenings, he, and his assistant Hofr. Dr. Lehmann and I walked in his little garden (when it grew dark we had a small hand- lantern): and at mid-day I was present when he had guests (strangers who had come to see him and make his acquaintance). I had commenced my duties with him, and had to take volumes which contained notes of patients (quarto folios, 5-7 centimeters thick, bound in cardboard, of which there were about 30) to my room (my place at Cothen) and make extracts for him. In these “Journales” (records of patients) he had two sings in the margin, one of them (N.B.) signified “cured” and the other (!) “symptoms produced by the medicine”; he has extracts made of both, so that he might utilise them in the publication of Materia Medica.
SUPPLEMENT 101
THE APPOINTING OF HOMOEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS.
On May 12th, 1831, Hahnemann wrote to Dr. Stapf:
When you call attention, in the Archive, to the favourable event concerning Cammerer, please do not forget to announce that Dr. Aegidi from Tilsit has been appointed by the Princess Friedrich of Prussia, in Dusseldorf, as her homoeopathic physician-in-ordinary, with a yearly salary of 600 thalers, and also travelling expenses and free-passes, and a written permission from the authorities, to prepare and dispense his own homoeopathic medicines; and that he has already begun his new duties.
And in a letter of November 22nd, 1832, we read:
I have received, from several Prussian cities, anonymous requests to procure for them a capable homoeopathic physician. I shall do that very willingly and irrespective of trouble and small expenses, but they must choose a fearless and reliable man, with whom I could exchange letters on the subjects.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.
September 23rd, 1631
I am glad of your good idea of wanting to enlist the valiant Attomyr (Austrian homoeopathic physician-R.H.) in my name and with my kind regards, for England. The post is so good that the can save 1,000 thalers every year, and win honour and reputation for himself, while at the same time he can convert all England with his ardent zeal. He is th one I would choose first for it, and he would enjoy were the most select and best society in the world, and live in the country, so please do engage him for it. He is so active that he will soon learn sufficient French if he wishes to do so, and probably he has already a good foundation in this language.
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