As already in the first works, then as a homoeopathist, Hahnemann all the more attacked the polypharmacy then usual, soon going over to the practice of always administering only one remedy to the patient. This critique of materia medica in general and the poly-pharmacy in particular was not without effect and even if this influence on current medicine by Hahnemann has found little mention in the literature but proceeded in a more sub- terranean fashion and silently; still it is unmistakable that on this point with his denying critique as well as with his positive doctrine he exerted a marked influence on medicine of the nineteenth century.
Already in his prehomoeopathic time he had drawn attention to the crisis of ten being unsuitable. Later doubts were increased and became a chief point in his attack against the prevailing medicine which he reproached for the clumsy imitation of the crises, in later times accordingly he proceeded to not recognize these manifestations as “crises” at all and often speaks of the “so-called crises.” Also in this point he was a forerunner of views later becoming of views later becoming general.
Of other questions of prevailing medicine in which he can be designated as a forerunner, I mention also the attack of the then excessively employed nd later universal venesection as well as his view that cholera was caused by a microorganism. That he was the first in Germany to reject forcible measurers in mental cases should be mentioned briefly in passing (See Chap. VI).
In regard tot he chief constituents of his doctrine, so his simile principle was a great cast, such as has only rarely occurred in the long history of medicine. That it may actually be regarded as healing principle is certain and already hits alone is an unperishable accomplishment of Hahnemann which, however, could not be appreciated during the florescence of materialism and naturalism. Though when the regarded it later as the sole law of healing, he overstretched the domain of this principle.
His second great accomplishment is the first creation of a materia medical resin on experiments and, indeed, experiments on healthy humans, a merit which will remain to him, even when one is conscious that many weaknesses adhered to it, as it can scarcely be otherwise in a first attempt i n such a great difficult field.
As a great observer which he undoubtedly was, he found the hypersensitivity of the sick body to the drugs selected according to the simile law and consequently prescribed doses. Moreover he soon went over to such small doses that one must here also accuse him to excess in regard to a principle in itself correct, whereby he irreparably damaged his doctrine and its extension.
That he also proceeded in a new way in regard to preparation of drugs, the suitability of which was subsequently recognized by others, shall be mentioned only incidentally; I recall the tinctures from fresh plant juices, the medicinal preparation of otherwise inactive substances by means of trituration and the introduction of the decimal system in the dilutions.
Also the manner and way in which he prescribed his remedies reveal a rare acuity as has been stressed recently by Bier. the single principles of his doctrine are brought into close connection with each other, indeed combined in a remarkable way so that a structure, genial in a way, and of a completeness developed, which is shown only by few in the variegated history of medicine.
One often speaks of Hahnemanns “system” but in truth one does him wrong in doing so because Hahnemann would only be a physician and his doctrine should only give to the physician what is indispensable for healing. So considered it is only a practical supplement of other knowledge which a physician needs.
As the remark of Hahnemann on the “royal road” in his early publication “Attempt at a New Principle” (1796) shows by which he means the removal of the first cause of a disease, he considers his doctrine to some extent only as a way out in order to circumvent the then existing difficulties of making a “cure of the cause.” Thus he himself would take the “royal road” in case and in so far as it could be travelled.
Later, as it tends to happen, this viewpoint appeared in the background as his doctrine became independent; but it was not entirely lost and if Hahnemann were living today and possessed his own mind, then in cases where the cause lies clear before the eyes and is directly removable he would travel this “royal road.” But since this is frequently not possible even today, homoeopathy has still a task to fulfill and in a time that seriously considers not merely transferring simply the mechanically conceived procedures of investigate institutions to sick persons certainly will be able to fulfill great task and give real stimulation.
That Hahnemann can also be reproached with severe errors, onesidednesses and excesses has been repeatedly mentioned in our presentation. It is, moreover, the right, no, the duty of a historian, not to overemphasize these at the cost of all the correct, significant things indeed pointing to the future of which there are enough in Hahnemann.
How his contemporaneous and the future world concerned itself with his doctrine and how it happened that it could not gain the influence in the development of modern medicine which it could well have claimed on the basis of the content of truth innate in it, will be discussed extensively in the two following parts of the work.
From the side of the opposition it has been ever again attempted to show Hahnemanns theory-and indeed in its most form- is equivalent to homoeopathy and that the homoeopathists concur with all that Hahnemann has ever said. We have already touched upon this point repeatedly in the preceding and will hear still more about it later on. But it may be said for those who will draw their knowledge of homoeopathy only from this summarizing chapter that such an equivalence is not historically nor factually justified. The homoeopathists have left behind much of the debatable, of the obsolete in Hahnemanns doctrine.
So long as they employ drugs proven on the healthy according to the “similia similibus,” they still remain “homoeopathists.” In particular one must no longer try to pin down all modern homoeopathy, in order to have a convenient subject for whipping, to the “psora” and “high potency” both are in no way essential constituents of homoeopathy. The fact that in contrast to many earlier systems Hahnemanns doctrine still lived depends largely upon Hahnemanns idiographic orientation (See Chap. IX).
The other systems of the time perceived everything under the viewpoint of a certain theory, with whose destruction, which could not fail to come, all else that should be causally explained by this theory was drawn into the depths. Hahnemanns “pure experience” in regard to a doctrine of diseases by which he sought to conceive the entire range of all sensually perceptible manifestations without recourse to any theory and regarding the drug provings where he also attempted to stand firmly with the manifestations, brought with it the fact that great parts of his doctrine, so far as they were independent of theory, survived all changes of theory.
They are still todays facts with which one can work, the same as the facts demonstrated at that time in physics, chemistry, zoology and botany. Likewise the constancy of homoeopathy finds its explanation to a great extent in the idiographic basic trend of its nature.
We noted repeatedly and likewise it has been stressed in this summary that Hahnemann gained diversified influence on medicine; the essential of his doctrine was, however, eliminated as a foreign body. And, indeed, it actually was a foreign body for the medicine of his time. it came too early or too late. Too late when one conceives it as the after trend of natural history of the eighteenth century which, as far as the organic natural sciences are concerned, was for the organic natural sciences are concerned, was for the most part of the descriptive type.
Too early wen one remembers that the first decades of the nineteenth century were the transition years to a causal investigation of the normal and morbid manifestations on the body for which purpose the bloom of chemistry and physics in the eighteenth century had furnished the tools. With enthusiasm and the greatest expectations one began the investigations of organic nature from which one believed one could wrench its secrets with “levers and screws.”
Up to our day the mechanistically oriented investigation by most industrious detail investigation has collected an ocean of single facts in which one finally drowned since one could no longer keep abreast the flood of facts streaming in and without the compass of philosophic survey one lost the direction and crashed on the rocks of inner difficulties. It was the great time of the one- sided analyst who without need of the survey and without the endowment for synthesis was satisfied in the abundance of single facts and rejoiced in them.
