Whoever reads his life (by Haehl) and studies the Organon, cannot fail to realise that Hahnemann was one of the greatest and wisest physicians of any age. He combined the thorough scholarship and painstaking method of a German with a prophetic vision and imagination more common in Latins. Boldness in shaping hypotheses went with careful regard for truth in their testing.
He revolutionized medicine, and mankind owes him an enormous debt which some day will be more generously acknowledged than at present. Today the space allotted to him by medical historians is ridiculously small.
We homoeopathists have been laughed at for so defying our High Priest; people say we have a “father complex” in regard to him. Well, I am not ashamed of it, but I make one stipulation: it must be clear which Hahnemann I so admire, because his life falls into three fairly clear cut periods, two of which were homoeopathic.
In his older years the master became less clear in his writings, even mystical in his theories, more intolerant of those who differed from him and indifferent to the onward march of medical knowledge.
Even in his later Kothen days he had become isolated from medical progress, small wonder when one considers the persecution he endured from the exponents of rational medicine and their poor achievements in these days. Hence I have relatively little regard for Hahnemanns opinions after his second marriage. Let me give two quotations from Haehls admirable life.
The reformer and research worker, who had at first proceeded on purely scientific lines starting always from experiences and constructing from them his new theory of healing, had become in the 8th and 9th decades of his life a mystic devotee in the province of religion. Even intimate friends of Hahnemann and homoeopathy realized and regretted those faults in his nature, (his intolerance and sensitiveness to criticism) which became more grossly emphatic as time went on, but they were unable to alter them.
No, it is the earlier Hahnemann that I admire most; the man who divined the truth of Similia Similibus Curantur and who set to work systematically to prove his hypothesis, to follow its development wherever the facts led him; who studied the symptoms of disease and drugs, and noted them more carefully than any one since Hippocrates; who advanced boldly into the realm of infinitesimals and who used colloidal solutions before chemistry had discovered them; the man who regarded symptoms not only as things to be removed but as the cry of an organism for help; who for the first time pointed out how to follow the much neglected slogan, “Treat the patient, not his disease”. Haehl says of Hahnemann in his earlier days: “There was scarcely any branch of human knowledge to which he was indifferent,” again he speaks of Hahnemann as “He who never denied innovation and progress in any branch of life”.
Well, my theme is, if this Hahnemann were back with us today what would he think of it all? A question impossible to answer and perhaps rather foolish, but let us consider a few points it brings to mind. Is homoeopathy perfect? Can we go no further? I dont think the master would rest content with our position today.
What new drugs have been proven, he would say; why are there no more? A few remedies have been proved since his death and some of these, like Herings Lachesis, are invaluable additions. But the bulk of our materia medica is what Hahnemann gave us himself.
Then take our method of teaching materia medica. Clinical observation and use have caused a change in the old drug pathogenesis. Certain symptoms have been thrown into high relief by their frequent success as curative indications, others have been forgotten. Some drugs or groups of drugs have acquired a special reputation for certain conditions. There is a danger here.
A man of strong personality and reputation extols a few symptoms in a remedy proving; his opinion is copied and quoted in succeeding books. These symptoms become keynotes. There may be other neglected symptoms just as valuable in the original proving. I do not assert that there is not some in these early provings; there almost certainly is, but let us beware lest we throw out the baby with the bath water.
For these reasons I incline to think that Hahnemann, while appreciating the modern drug picture as an interesting way of presenting materia medica, would urge us to get back to the original provings and study the whole drug. (How ridiculous to consider Chamomilla only for teething babies, sore ears and bad tempers; I myself have seen it prevent an almost inevitable abortion.).
