Hahnemann’s Second Marriage



Your devoted.

LOUISE PR. FR. V. PREUSSEN.

SUPPLEMENT 165

THE DIPLOMA OF HONOUR OF THE GALLIC HOMOEOPATHIC SOCIETY.

The Diploma, which is a very handsome cooper-engraving on a half-sheet quarto-folio, reads as follows :

“Societe Homoeopathique Gallicane Diplome de Member d’honneur

delivre a Monsieur le Conseiller Dr. Samuel Hahnemann.

President Dufresne, Dr.

Secretaire CH. G. Peschier, Dr.

(L.S.)

The Seal of the Society represents a circle formed by a serpent biting his tail, with the words, “Societe Homoeopathique Gallicane” and the year 1832 inscribed around it. A lamp before the date is meant to represent his industry, a cock behind the lamp is symbolical of Hahnemann’s name and also represents France. The symbols are set in a wreath of stars over which are the words. “Similia Similibus,” and from which many rays stream over one third of the earth’s globe.

The margin of the document is adorned with equally good state and thoughtful care. The two upper corners have an eye surrounded by rays, the symbol of Divine Providence; the two lower corners have a cup around which twines a serpent, the symbol of medical science, and an antique lamp. In the centre at the top, a star sheds its rays over a third of the Earth-ball. Beneath the star is the name “Hahnemann”; above it (therefore between the star and Hahnemann) are the words “Similia Similibus,” underneath the name is a setting of two branches of laurels.

In the spaces of the upper margin, to the right and left of the middle star, are the medicinal plants, Chamomilla and Pulsatilla; opposite to them, in the middle of the lower margin of the document, Bryonia and Thuja are represented; between these two, surrounded by a wreath of laurel, is the “Organon.” The left hand margin shows Belladonna and Veratrum, and between them a book with the title “Maladies Chroniques” On the right-hand side are Arnica and Aconite, and between them again a book entitled “Materia Medica Pura.” Over both books a laurel wreath is placed.

This diploma of honour was accompanied by the following letter:

From the Secretary to the Great Hahnemann: Hofrat and very revered master, The first thought of the Founders of our Homoeopathic Society, which originally congregated at Geneva and afterwards at Lyons, was to put our scientific and philanthropic society under your mighty patronage. This thought is now being realised through the diploma of honorary membership which we kindly ask you to accept. The society has resolved to give the diploma to you only.

Indeed, on one deserves this distinction more than you, Sir; because whatever the degree of perfection to which your followers may bring homoeopathy they will never do more than gather one flower from the bunch that belongs to you, for only genius deserves to be crowned, and you are the genius of homoeopathy, without whom this glorious science would yet have to be born.

Homoeopathy-thanks to the bright light which you have shed over medical science-makes more rapid progress in France now than it made in Germany during the last quarter of a century. The Gallic Homoeopathic Society has for its object the increase of the increase of the rapidity of this progress: it not only undertakes to form a society of converted physicians, but it also desires to make general this wonderful science by asking the men of all classes, who are interested in the welfare of humanity, and anxious for the health of its members, to join them.

Already last year a numerous took place at Lyons; we live in earnest hope that the one which will take place on September 15th in Geneva, may be still more numerous, and that the one planned for the 1835, at Paris or Bordeaux, may surpass the two previous.

You revered name, Hofrat, will always be mentioned with the deepest regard it commands, and with the title of benefactor of mankind, for ever united with that of a promoter of science.

The Secretary of the Society very much appreciates the honour of having been charged to express to you, the respectful veneration of all the members; he hardly dare mention the deeply- felt gratitude which he so rightly feels towards

CH. G. PESCHIER, DR. President of the Medical Society of Geneva.

Member of the Medical Society of Zurich, Berne, Vaud, and Correspondent for the Society of Rio de Janiero, etc., etc., etc.

Geneva, May 12th, 1834.

HAHNEMANN’S LETTER OF THANKS FOR THE DIPLOMA OF HONOUR OF THE GALLIC HOMOEOPATHY SOCIETY. “Bibliotheque Homoeopathique,” 1835, Vol. V, page 61.

Very esteemed Sirs,

I received your letter of May 12th 1834, and am deeply affected by the kind feelings you show to me, and which your honourable Secretary knew how to express in such a beautiful manner. I accept with pleasure the Diploma of Honorary Membership which you send, and ask you to accept my sincere thanks for the attention you have shown me. Our beneficent science is progressing, as you tell me, in France, and the Paris Homoeopathic Society which has elected me Honorary President announces the same.

I love France and its noble, great and generous people, who are so determined to reform abuse by adopting new and better methods. This predilection has been increased in my heart through my marriage with a noble French lady, worthy of her country. May God, whose instrument I am, bless your efforts and t hose of all the physicians who are working with me in this so necessary medical reform for the good of mankind. Blind as they may still remain, we will yet do good for them; they will thank us later for it, because our principle is like light, one of the great truths of nature.

I commend myself to your remembrance and friendship,

Washing you luck and well-being, SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.

Cothen, February 6th, 1835.

SUPPLEMENT 166

HAHNEMANN’S LETTER TO THE FRENCH MINISTER OF EDUCATION CONCERNING HOMOEOPATHY “British Journal of Homoeopathy,” 1880,

(of February 13th, 1835).

I have the welfare of humanity so much at heart that I cannot keep silent before such an important question. All the methods of treatment hitherto discovered endeavour to remove diseases by means of violent remedies, as blood-letting and purgatives of all kinds, but these only weaken the vital force. Homoeopathy, on the contrary, acts dynamically upon the vital force, and cures diseases in a gentle, imperceptible and lasting way. It is, therefore, not only a sensible discovery, or a clever work of chance, by the application of which more or less favorable results are obtained, but one of those fundamental laws of the eternal divine nature, and represents the most natural and the only correct way by which the recuperation of lost health becomes possible.

SUPPLEMENT 167

HAHNEMANN’S SETTLES IN PARIS.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

As I shall probably not be able to return immediately to Kothen, I highly recommend, in my stead, to all patients who are seeking treatment, the good homoeopathic physician Hofrath Dr. G. Lehmann, who was not for three years my assistant and friend.

SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.

Paris, August 22nd, 1835.

Dr. Lehmann writes to Professor Gross, Pressburg:

Cothen, August 20th, 1835.

Hofrath Dr. Hahnemann will not return from Paris this year- in his last letter to me, of August 3rd, he again hands over to me the care of his patients. This is the fourth year that I have been his assistant, and his most intimate friend. I have been a practitioner for nineteen years, a doctor of medicine, a surgeon, an obstetrician and Hofrath of Anhalt-Cothen. I possess all Hahnemann’s records of patients, and am certainly one of his true pupils, for no one was so fortunate to be the whole day with him as I was, and you can therefore continue to entrust your son to me until his return.

HAHNEMANN’S WISH TO RELINQUISH HIS PRACTICE IS FRUSTRATED.

Hahnemann’s grandson, Dr. L. Suss-Hahnemann, of London, wrote to the “Allg. hom. Ztg.” (1864, Vol. 69, No. 13):

In order to show how earnestly and sincerely he (Hahnemann) wished to withdraw from his medical practice and to spend his remaining day in peace, he left in his “Lit. G.” to his youngest daughter Louise, “all records of his patients written by himself, all the folios containing pasted-in letter, s all the large written registers of symptoms.” But Hahnemann had scarcely arrived in Paris, when trough the influence of his young wife with the late King Louis Philippe, he received from the Minister Guizot the permission to practise, a concession which the Medical Faculty of Paris had refused. We suddenly find the old gentleman, who only shortly before that had expressed the earnest wish-and even written it down in his will-to retire from all medical practice, surrounded by a widely-spread clientele; he was even driving about Paris visiting patients, a habit which we had never previously approved of in Germany

In order to be able to practise usefully, Hahnemann used the patents’ records which he had already handed over to his daughter; he therefore asked for them with the most sincere promise that these volumes should be returned to has daughter immediately after his death. Withe the sad foreboding that this treasure would never be seen again by her, his daughter Louse sent his manuscripts to Paris, where they remain to the present day.

Richard Haehl
Richard M Haehl 1873 - 1932 MD, a German orthodox physician from Stuttgart and Kirchheim who converted to homeopathy, travelled to America to study homeopathy at the Hahnemann College of Philadelphia, to become the biographer of Samuel Hahnemann, and the Secretary of the German Homeopathic Society, the Hahnemannia.

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