Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was born into a family of artisans in Meissen, in Saxony, Germany, in 1755. Educated by his father in the art of observation and meditation and endowed with exceptional intellectual capabilities, when still very young he was noticed by his school teachers who, when absent, let him teach his peers. His talent and the interest of Dr. Muller, one of his teachers, convinced his parents to allow him to continue his studies, thanks also to a scholarship that Dr. Muller himself obtained for him. Hahnemann concluded his basic studies with a poetic dissertation in Latin entitled "The curious shape of the hand". He finally began studying medicine in Leipzig in 1775.
Samuel Hahnemann was a restless spirit, never satisfied and continuously interested in learning and knowledge; deeply religious and with a sincere passion towards his neighbour, determined to turn to science to look for the solution to the questions of suffering and disease. After several moves (Vienna, Transylvania, Leipzig again, Vienna, Hettsted, Dessau and Leipzig yet again) and experiences (psychiatry, which left a deep mark on him, and hospital practice), he became extremely uneasy with the pharmacological practice of the time, which mostly resorted to strong poisons (mercury, sulphur, chlorine, arsenic, corrosive sublimate, etc.), whose effects were often more damaging than the disease itself. He also became very uncomfortable with the expectations linked to the profession, when the same colleagues who he matched himself against suggested to him that, ultimately, the only thing to do was to “give the impression of curing”. In 1789 he decided to leave the profession and dedicate himself, as he had done as a student, to translating scientific texts. At the same time he reread the basic books on medicine: Hippocrates, the writings of the Arab doctors, Paracelsus; he also read the works of Van Helmont, Sthal and Haller (Helvetian Pharmacopoeia, 1777).
These studies and translations led to his intellectual enlightenment and were the occasion for his formulating a work hypothesis: similia similibus curentur? Is it possible that a substance that induces a particular pathological state is capable of curing a similar, naturally arising disease?
The confirmation of an hypothesis requires a test of its enunciations; it was thus necessary to prove that it was first possible to induce pathological states and subsequently that it was possible to cure symptoms similar to the pathological states induced. An anecdote recounts that it was the reading of a chapter on the Cinchona bark (also known as China bark) that struck him; the inconsistencies between his knowledge and what he found written in Cullen’s pharmacological treatise led Hahnemann to test the effects of taking China bark on himself. In fact, Hahnemann was the first person to experiment with China bark taken in weighted doses.
After China bark came the turn of other substances, which the doctor tested on himself, on his family members and friends, as well as on the students who were beginning to flock around him. The hypothesis appeared to be confirmed: each substance he tested induced a typical pathological state, which was always repeated identically in the different experimenters and in the different circumstances. Indeed, it was a question of starting to prescribe according to the Principle of Similars (or “like cures like”) and to verify the effects.
It would however be reductive to think of Hahnemann in isolation from his studies, from his culture and from the vicissitudes of his time. Indeed, he lived during the years which followed the industrial revolution, in a full positivistic frenzy, which proclaimed an image of science as a construction of reason, while he had nourished himself from the sources of knowledge of philosophy, from which medical science also arose, originally read and interpreted in a macro-microcosmic angle: man and nature, closely linked, both sharing the same vital principle.
Furthermore, during those same years in which Positivism developed, the so-called philosophers of nature blossomed in Germany: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. In particular, Schelling reconstructed a Renaissance-neoplatonic philosophy of nature: the idea of man completely made of the organic and living as a whole, of the intelligence which, within matter, animates the different living forms. German idealism built a romantic image of Nature, restoring citizenship (even within the official culture of the universities) to the ancient German tradition of alchemy, which the dominant science attempted, unsuccessfully, to divest of authority. Hahnemann, being a great and tireless scholar, was fully aware of all of this; stubborn, self-willed and sensitive, used to exercising thought since childhood, he was able to render objective and testable what had never been organized and explained before him.
The acknowledgement of a unique force – the Dynamis or vital Force –, present in all of nature and capable of giving it the properties of life, was not in fact a new concept: Hahnemann should be credited with having found the means to act on this force for therapeutic purposes (Organon sections 9-10-11-12-13-14-22). “The therapeutic properties of medicaments consist solely in the ability to cause pathological symptoms in healthy human beings and to make them disappear in sick human beings” (section 22, Organon – Law of Similars).
The substances were initially tested in weighted doses, but sometimes the harmful effects were too strong, when not actually dangerous for the life of the individual testing them. They were thus progressively diluted and, following this procedure, alterations began to be noticed in the experimenter, including changes in temperament, behaviour and emotions (“changes in feeling and acting”). Similarly to the more specifically organic alterations, these changes were always perfectly reproducible in the different experiments, so that a substance could be perfectly identifiable among all the others. In the next step, Hahnemann focused on treatment, prescribing substances according to the Principle of Similars. At this point the therapeutic act consisted in seeing the similarity between the syndrome exhibited by the patient and the signs caused by the substance.
An additional important item to be considered was the concept of dynamisation: a substance, when diluted and then shaken violently, is more active therapeutically than when simply diluted. Also in this case, an anecdote shows Hahnemann wondering about expectations that had failed, with respect to an expected therapeutic result, and accidentally discovering the potential which existed in succussion. However also this idea, of the substance becoming stronger following violent shaking, does not belong to Hahnemann: traces of it were already present in The thousand and one nights, whose origins were lost in the distant past, in which a Greek doctor named Duban cured the leprosy of a certain king by putting the remedy within the handle of a mallet and advising the king to play a game similar to polo until he became exhausted. The remedy was supposed to be absorbed by the king’s skin and heal him.
Hahnemann published the first edition of the Organon of the Art of Healing in 1810 and continued to update and make changes to his text following the experiments that he carried out over his long life; the last edition, the sixth, was published posthumously. He died in 1843, at the age of 88; his grave is in Paris.
One hundred and sixty five years have passed since his death and the method that he codified, taught and tested is still the one considered as the true homeopathy. Here is how the French Minister Guizot answered to those who had asked him to condemn the German doctor, who was strongly opposed by part of the representatives of official medicine: “Doctor Hahnemann is a scientist. If the homeopathy that he founded is a science, it will survive in spite of the obstacles, if it is not it will fail on its own!”
The Principle of Similars is a cornerstone which cannot be disregarded, as is the administration of a single remedy at a time and the reasoned selection of the dilution/dynamisation suitable for each patient. Several studies have shed light or are about to do so on the biophysical properties linked to the dilutions/dynamisations (see studies performed by Prof. Cardella, Prof. Elia, Prof. Preparata and Prof. Del Giudice).
With regards to the operational methodology, Hahnemann’s successors have made progress, attempted new approaches, and proposed new methods to approach both the subject and the patient, without however moving away from the Maestro’s basic teachings and from the basic principles of homeopathy, which remain the cornerstones of this therapeutic treatment. This led to the creation of some currents, which merged into actual Schools, characterized by a particular methodological approach. Each one has some truths to offer and a path to show to those doctors who, with passion and dedication, apply themselves to the study of this unique subject, always in compliance with the three main rules on which the homeopathic system of treatment proposed by Hahnemann is based:
- prescription of the remedy based on the Principle of Similars
- administration of the remedy at the minimum dose
- administration of a single remedy at a time
Suggested readings
- Bellavite P. Biodinamica. Basi fisiopatologiche e tracce di metodo per una medicina integrata. Tecniche Nuove Ed.
- Bellavite P., Conforti A., Lechi A., Menestrina F., Pomari S. Le medicine complementari. Definizioni, applicazioni, evidenze scientifiche disponibili. Utet periodici, Milano 2000
- Giarelli G., Roberti di Sarsina P., Silvestrini B. Le Medicine Non Convenzionali in Italia. Storia, problemi e prospettive di integrazione. Franco Angeli Ed.
- Gasparini L. Multidisciplinarietà in Medicina. Metodologia-Scienze biomediche-Posizione dell’Omeopatia in ambito scientifico. Salus infirmorum Ed.
- Sherr J. Le dinamiche e la metodologia della sperimentazione in Omeopatia. Salus Infirmorum Ed.
- Sukul N./Sukul A. Farmacologia delle Alte Diluizioni. Salus Infirmorum Ed.
- Hahnemann C.F.S. Organonn dell’Arte del guarire VI° Ed. Red Ed.
- Hahnemann C.F.S. Esculapio sulla bilancia. Salus Infirmorum Ed.
- Gava R. Approccio metodologico all’Omeopatia. Salus Infirmorum Ed.
- Dujany R. Introduzione all’Omeopatia. Red Ed.
- Larnaudie R. La vita interiore di Samuel Hahnemann Salus Infirmorum Ed.
- Tetau M. Hahnemann. Intuizione e genialità. Tecniche Nuove Ed.
- Bronfman Z. Dialoghi con un omeopata. Salus Infirmorum Ed.
- Canello S. Teoria e metodologia omeopatica in Medicina Veterinaria. Nuova Ipsa Ed.