The Cruel and Inhuman Ancient Western Medicine (Allopathy)
On 10th April 1755, Hahnemann was born in Meissen, a small town in Germany. His father was a ceramics painter and was also a devout Christian. Hahnemann had shown his intelligence and extraordinariness in his childhood. Since he was young , he had been fond of reading books about philosophy, chemistry, botany, herbalism, pharmacology and medicine. Through the self-study, he could master English, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and German. In 1777, Hahnemann was 22 years old. He studied Western Medicine in University of Leipzig, and was fed up with the inhuman and unscientific treatment used by Western Medicine (Allopathy). Thus he showed his fierce opposition. He determined to devote his life to thoroughly memorize and master all the ancient and modern medicine books, and grasp the most superior curing methods, combined them into a mild, quick, toxic-free treatment for healing, and finally replacing the cruel and inhuman Allopathy.
According to history of the medicine, the Allopathic at that time were carried out in three ways: (a) using knife or leech to bleed, i.e. leeching, (b) burning the patient’s body with fire, i.e. cauterizing, (c) using highly toxic drugs, such as mercury, arsenic, etc. to treat a patient in order to cause his/her diarrhea, i.e. purging. At that time the medical belief was that diarrhea could get rid of diseases. In fact, the diarrhea caused by toxic drugs was due to the body’s innate detoxification function after a poisoning phenomenon. Leeching was popular at that time. In 1833, around 40 million leeches were imported to France for leeching used by doctors. At the same time Dr. Benjamin Rush , the father of Western Medicine in the United States, advocated the leeching theory that the food treatment approach was to draw 4 / 5 blood out of the body. Mr. George Washington, the first President of the United States, was died of serious anemia as a result of leeching three times a day.
Hahnemann’s first scientific experiment for Homeopathy
In 1790, when Hahnemann translated special issues of foreign medical publication, he found a dissertation written by the Scotland Professor Cullen about using cinchona in treating malaria, with the ground of the two herbal characteristics of cinchona, viz. astringent and the bitter taste. Hahnemann disagreed Cullen’s idea with the reason that all the herbs which he knew, despite having the mentioned two herbal chrematistics, could not cure malaria. In order to find out the true cause of curing malaria by cinchona, he took cinchona himself.
After Hahnemann took cinchona twice and found his body had all the symptoms of malaria, viz generalized bone pain, intermittent fever and chill, tachycardia, extreme anxiety and fatigue, etc. After he had stopped taking cinchona, the symptoms of malaria disappeared.
Hahnemann learned the cause of curing malaria by cinchona from this experiment. It was not due to the contraction astringent and the bitter taste mentioned by Cullen, but its ability to result in “Artificial Disease” in a healthy and a keen human body. This first experiment determined the basic theory of Homeopathy, namely “Like cures like”, and established the solid foundation for the coming research work.
Hahnemann’s New Discovery During the Research of Attenuating Remedy
After Hahnemann discovered the cause of curing malaria by cinchona, in order to take a further step to realize the theory of “Like cures like”, he studied the responses of the other drugs on the healthy bodies in full gear. In addition, since he was very familiar with pharmacology, he had a thorough understanding of the harmful effects of the drug toxicity to the human body. In order to reduce the toxicity of drugs, Hahnemann attempted to dilute the drug. During the trial, Hahnemann discovered a strange phenomenon. If he diluted the drug in the ratio to 1:99 inside a phial, and made forced succussion of 100 times of this phial, then the toxicity of this liquid drug was found to be removed and its healing effectiveness was also enhanced. And this is even more strange that ─ ─ the more dilution and succussion times were done to the drug, its performance did not worsen, but its healing power becomes stronger and stronger. Hahnemann called this both diluted and succussed drug liquid to be Remedy. After six years of hard work and testing of nearly a hundred kinds of remedies, he compiled all the test results into “Materia Medica Pura”. In 1796 this renewed medical concept and the medical research results of so many years were officially announced to the world. As for the term Homeopathy, until 1811 Hahnemann put it in his firstly published Organon First Edition.
Hahnemann’s was very serious and never self-contented about the studies of Homeopathy. In order to achieve the most ideal treatment, after he had firstly announced the medial results of Homeopathy, he was still working hard to continue his study and improved the treatment techniques and the potentization methods of Homeopathy. Therefore, in his life career of research, he had repeatedly changed and improved the treatment techniques and the potentization methods of Homeopathy. As he was extremely busy at work during the daytime, like teaching, research and treating patients, he had only the chance at night to consolidate the recorded insight and experience of the research at the daytime and compile them into books. He might think over problems or write reports in a few sleepless nights. According to the historical records, he went to bed three hours every two days. Since Hahnemann was highly enthusiastic over his research, he could have an extraordinary achievement on his research work of Homeopathy, and became the unique and productive authors of medical research. Within the 60 years from the age of 22 to his later years, Hahnemann wrote a total of 116 major research writings and about 120 booklets. On the Sunday morning of 2nd July 1843, Hahnemann finally passed away with a tired body at age 88.
References：
- Trevor M Cook, Samuel Hahnemann, The founder of Homeopathic Medicine, Thorsons Publishers Limited, Willingbrough, Northamptonshire, 1988.
- M. B. Panos, Jane Heimlich, Homeopathic Medicine at Home, Chapter 1: What is Homeopathy, p.9-12, J. P. Tarcher Inc., Los Angeles, 1980.
- Ramamlal P. Patel, Homeopathy: Its Principles and Doctrines, Hahnemann Homeopathic Pharmacy, India, 1981, Chapter 4 (6), Chapter 2. What is Homeopathy?, chapter 3, Discovery of Homeopathy, pp. 2-5. C. M. S. Press, Kottayam.