The beginnings of homoeopathy
Samuel Hahnemann
The German physician Christian, Friedrich, Samuel Hahnemann is generally credited with being the founder of homoeopathy. Born April 1755, died July 1843). The wiki article is very good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann
Conventional medicine of the time was a pretty brutal affair, often doing more harm than good. Being one supposes of a sensitive disposition Hahnemann retired from practice and earned his living as a chemist and translator of learned university, academic research articles and the like. While translating one such article on chinchona bark and malaria by William Cullen, Hahnemann decided to counter Cullen's claim that chinchona was effective against malaria because it was an astringent substance. Hahnemann argued that there were dozens of other astringent substances which did not help malaria, so there must be another reason. Out of curiosity he dosed himself with chinchina (quinine) and noted that he experienced the very same symptoms you would in malaria; alternating chills and fever, diarrhoea, delirium and so on. In a great intellectual leap he hypothesized the healing principle : "that which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms."
This principle, like cures like, became the basis for an approach to medicine to which he gave the name homeopathy
Hanhemann and his friends verified his hypothesis by systematically testing the effects of natural substances in his native German flora and fauna on healthy people and created the first Materia Medica database of 'provings' which were used to select homoeopathic remedies and successfully treat illnesses, thus converting the hypothesis into a theory of medicine.
The German physician Christian, Friedrich, Samuel Hahnemann is generally credited with being the founder of homoeopathy. Born April 1755, died July 1843). The wiki article is very good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann
Conventional medicine of the time was a pretty brutal affair, often doing more harm than good. Being one supposes of a sensitive disposition Hahnemann retired from practice and earned his living as a chemist and translator of learned university, academic research articles and the like. While translating one such article on chinchona bark and malaria by William Cullen, Hahnemann decided to counter Cullen's claim that chinchona was effective against malaria because it was an astringent substance. Hahnemann argued that there were dozens of other astringent substances which did not help malaria, so there must be another reason. Out of curiosity he dosed himself with chinchina (quinine) and noted that he experienced the very same symptoms you would in malaria; alternating chills and fever, diarrhoea, delirium and so on. In a great intellectual leap he hypothesized the healing principle : "that which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms."
This principle, like cures like, became the basis for an approach to medicine to which he gave the name homeopathy
Hanhemann and his friends verified his hypothesis by systematically testing the effects of natural substances in his native German flora and fauna on healthy people and created the first Materia Medica database of 'provings' which were used to select homoeopathic remedies and successfully treat illnesses, thus converting the hypothesis into a theory of medicine.
