AT an international meeting, like our Congress in Chicago, I cannot, nor dare I, discharge the duty allotted to me, to give the “Historical Development of Homoeopathy in Germany,”in the ordinary manner as is customary with such retrospective work. You may read in all newspapers, of the numerical increase or decreases of the adherents and the representatives of Homoeopathy. The interest regarding hospitals having been erected or having ceased to exist, does not extend beyond the respective country or city.
But considering the total aspects of the development of Homoeopathy in Germany, we must be surprised at the fact, that Homoeopathy has made so little progress in the land of its birth, and why now, after existing almost a hundred years, its representation in medical circles in Germany is still so limited, whilst the general public is continually increasing its demand for it. If we compare other countries in this direction, especially the United States we find that, since Homoeopathy has been introduced in America, a much stronger development has been published there, in a much shorter period.
Although we know from pathology, that fresh germs develop more rapidly than older ones, we cannot attribute this wide difference in the evolution in both countries to the ‘need of expansion” of the newly established medical fraternity only. At the time when even here, the first disciples of the master came forward with apostolic inspiration, their number was small, their activity rarely exceeding their near surroundings.
The progress of civilization is warranted by the continuation of intellectual work, not merely by single individuals, but also by entire nations, as soon as the love or the power to work, has weakened in the predecessor. Thus the entire medical science during the Middle Ages was under the influence of Humoral pathology delivered drown from the Arabs, until German labor broke this spell, and the first standard- bearers of anew medical era appeared in the persons of Vesalius and Paracelsus. While Vesalius introduced the anatomical investigation, and in consequence, the foundation of the objective proofs for medical conception, Paracelsus opened the way to a view of life and the living body, which we find a remarkable admixture of physical interpretation and purely philosophical speculation.
It is natural to the average man that he is more attracted towards the fantastic center of theoretical views, than toward the cultivation of dry, barren soil of through investigation. Thus the contemplative part of the teachings of Paracelsus were strongly brought forward, and the Archaeus Maximus still reigned supreme in Germany, whilst the Romans and Anglo-Sexons, already showed more interest for a physiological and anatomical basis of their theories. From the Archaeus, Stahl constructed the conception of a “soul,” which was worthless to natural science, thus originating the school of the Animists, and the main object of the natural philosophers at that time was the interpretation and formulation of life-force.
At this period Hahnemann makes his appearance. He emphatically demands the experiment; only upon such a foundation will be erect the new structure of his Similia Similibus therapy. In this he is a follower of Vesalius and a most prominent pioneer of modern physiology and pathology. But on the other hand, he studies the life-force and its derangements and seeks to remedy the latter by the administration of medicinal potencies, which are to work only dynamically, not physically. At that tie of philosophical speculation, his demands for experimental proofs were not under stood, and later on when the experimental objective tendency offer. French anatomical school became prevalent also in the medical reference of Germany, his superabundance of views on life-force, dynamism, etc., prevented the appreciation which he fully deserved.
If but only one of his many opponents had really read him and if this reader had taken pains to strip his arguments of the garments which they had to wear an accordance with the fashion of his day, it would have been long established, that Homoeopathy is the medicine of the future, because it always admits the proof of its assertions, thus resting upon facts in the most modern sense. Naturally, Homoeopathy refrains from using rounded expression, so to speak, scientific idioms like other therapeutic schools; as for these it is too clear and despises the cloak of pharaseology or the finely formed technical terms for the designation of conditions of which the recognition is wanting.
But the attempt, to adapt Homoeopathy to the dominant school of medicine, has been made repeatedly; partly by competent students, partly by men who did not grasp their object. The Homoeopathische Therapie auf Grundlagen der Physiologischen Schule, by Dr. Joseph Kafka is undoubtedly the most able attempt in this direction in German literature.
Kafka possessed the knowledge, the intelligence and the energy to accomplish such a task. If he did not succeed, the failure was not due to his want of ability but because of the inadequacy of the object. Let us hope that Physiology will explain to us in the future, why certain remedies will affect various organs of our body; for even if we recognize “organic remedies” for convenience, as for instance, heart, stomach remedies, etc., we only wish to thus indicate that we know their action on those organs more thoroughly than that on any other regions; but we have to insist on the totality of symptoms for prescription.
Pathological names of diseases are least suited as guides in the difficult selection of a remedy, as they mainly refer to an artificially constructed conception. The best proof for this is the latest investigation of causes of disease. None of the vital functions of diseased germs can influence our selection of drugs, nor even the aetiological points which predispose the body, for the development of the former will help us in this direction; but still our therapeutic success vastly exceeds that of the Old School in the treatment of infectious diseases, even when we do not know the character of the infection.
While Kafka’s work is an excellent one of its kind, there is anterior book by an anonymous editor, published by Wilmer Schwabe, Homoeopathic pharmacist, at Leipsic, which has done much to injure Homoeopathy. It makes the attempt to adapt Homoeopathy to the physiological school in a purely mechanical way. It simply substitutes names of Homoeopathic remedies in the place of Allopathic ones, after each chapter on special diseases, after a fashion of the small domestic treatises written for the laity. This book has done a great deal of mischief, especially in the hands of younger physicians intending to study Homoeopathy.
In Germany, as well as everywhere, the general progress of Homoeopathy vastly depends upon its practical success with the public. The patients and their friends induce its spread; notwithstanding their gratitude they really do little to actually further it. Only in one state of the German Empire, in Wurttemberg, the local society, Hahnemannian, successfully agitated the state government and the legislature. Hundreds of other minor societies who bear the name “Homoeopathic” have done nothing, their only aim being to get their remedies and periodicals at wholesale prices.
For decades the business centre of these societies has been the pharmacy of the above mentioned Dr. Schwabe in Leipsic, who, as a thorough business man, has furthered and assisted them in every possible manner until he founded a private polyclinic as a branch of his establishment for the benefit of his customers, and became at last the greatest publisher of German Homoeopathic literature. Thus Schwabe’s pharmacy, with its branches, appears to be the centre of all Homoeopathic interests in Germany in the eyes of those who stand outside the real Homoeopathic fraternity, but who incline towards them. Certainly five-sixths of those young physicians who became Homoeopathic training, or have at least spent some time there.
Therefore, these young men have taken Schwabe’s book, with the anonymous editor for a guide in their studies. For those who have been so familiar with the Allopathic fashion of having the remedy fitting the disease, this book naturally seems very convenient and promising. Only later on, after they have become acquainted with a thoroughly educated Homoeopathic physician, they begin to perceive that the study of Homoeopathic Materia Medica is something entirely different, and that real success can be gained only buy the careful, dry study of symptoms.
This is the reason why a large number of Homoeopath physicians,now practicing in German, are not in the position make a scientific propaganda for their method. They do not make exceed the enthusiastic laity in the defense of their views. But for this reason again our colleagues of the dominant school find no interest for a science in the public representatives of which they recognize mainly lay men or half-educated physicians.
