A Brief History of Homeopathy
Complied by Val Lawrence for the Southern College of Homeopathy
The principles of homeopathy have been part of medical practice for centuries. The origins of homeopathic thought date back to Hippocrates (470-400 B.C.) also known as the “Father of Medicine”. Hippocrates believed that there are two ways of treating disease; the way of "opposites" and the way of "similars". His observations on the cure by "similars" were not followed by the mainstream medical community and lay dormant for centuries.
Paracelsus (1493-1541) a Swiss physician, also believed in treating by "similars". In the 16th century Paracelsus wrote "sames must be cured by sames". He believed that the poison that caused disease can also cure it. He was regarded as a radical by his colleagues for administering "poisons" to his patients. Again, his observations on the cure by "similars" lay dormant for another 200 years.
However it was Hahnemann that first coined the word "homeopathy" ("homoios" in Greek means similar, "pathos" means suffering) to refer to the law of similars then went on to develop homeopathy into a medical science.
Hahnemann was a qualified physician but he became so disenchanted by the medical practice of his day after the death of his son that he stopped medical practice that he turned to translating (he was fluent in 8 languages) to earn his living rather than carry on using treatments which often caused more suffering than they cured. It was while he was translating a book on herbs by a Dr Cullen of Edinburgh that he came across the use of Cinchona calisaya (quinine) as a treatment for malaria. This set him to wondering why it worked because although it was an astringent it was not as powerful as other astringents which did not work as treatments for malaria. He decided to test this herb on himself, a healthy person, to see what would happen. He took several doses over a couple of days and found that he produced symptoms similar to an attack of malaria. He repeated this experiment on himself again with the same result so he went on to try this test on friends, again healthy individuals, and found that they too produced varying symptoms of a malarial attack.
He went on to test, on healthy individuals, other substances in widespread use such as belladonna, arsenic and mercury. He called these experiments provings and noted each provers response in detail. He found that some of the symptoms were produced in the majority of the participants whilst other symptoms were only produced in a few of them. Symptoms produced in the majority are keynote symptoms and are therefore important indicators for a remedy.
In 1796 Samuel Hahnemann published his first treatise on Homoeopathy, in Hufeland's Journal, a respected medical journal in Germany, it was here that he introduced the Homoeopathic principle of similia similibus curentur, that ‘like may be cured by like’. Coincidentally, in 1798 Edward Jenner discovered the value of giving small doses of cowpox to people in an effort to immunize them against smallpox. Whereas Jenner's work was generally accepted into orthodox medicine, Hahnemann's work was not. In fact, there was so much antagonism to Hahnemann and the new school of medical thought he called homeopathy that entire medical journals were called Anti-Homoeopathic Archives .
Hahnemann then began to treat sick people with his Homoeopathic medicine, again taking great care to note the outcomes, and he found that what made the healthy sick cured the same symptoms in the sick, ‘like cures like’. However he didn’t stop there as he found that patients had aggravations from the neat substances so he began diluting these substances in an effort to avoid the aggravations only to find that as well as lessening aggravations these diluted remedies acted more effectively. In 1798 he first started experimenting with dose reduction, which led to the development of potency scales.
Hahnemann was a trained chemist and as such he realised that little if anything was left of the original substance and yet the merest trace of them was enough to produce a strong effect. He believed that at some level in the body there must be something which responds to such tiny hints, an extremely subtle something capable of switching the body from sickness to health and vice versa. He called this something the ‘vital force’. If this ‘vital force’ became jangled, out of balance illness would be the result, the signs and symptoms of the illness were the body’s attempt to heal itself.
Hahnemann finished writing the first edition of The Organon in 1810 and it was published in 1811. Hahnemann continued to develop his work on homeopathy and so he refined and edited The Organon 5 more times. The sixth edition of The Organon was not published until 1921, long after Hahnemann’s death. To quote Peter Morrell “ Homeopathy stems entirely from Hahnemann's critique and abandonment of allopathic drugging, 1782-90, during which he resolved to formulate, entirely through experimentation, a more humane, effective and rational system of medicine, as opposed to strong drugging and depletive practices like bloodletting, which he abhorred.”
Due to the fact that Hahnemann prescribed only one medicine at a time and in limited doses he was disliked by the apothecaries because they could not charge much for them. Hahnemann decided to dispense his own medicines however at the time that was an illegal act as only apothecaries were allowed to prepare and dispense medicines. The reasons that Hahnemann choose to break the law and dispense medicines himself was because each medicine required careful preparation and he found that the apothecaries were not always making them correctly or were intentionally giving his patients different medicines. The apothecaries then accused Hahnemann of "entrenching upon their privileges by the dispensing of medicines" so in 1820 he was arrested in Leipzig, found guilty and forced to move.
He moved to Kothen, where he was given special permission to practice and dispense his own medicines by Grand Duke Ferdinand, one of the many European royalty who supported homeopathy.
Hahnemann met the Marquise Marie Melanie d'Hervilly in October 1834 they were secretly married in January 1853, she was his second wife and instrumental in reigniting his passion for homeopathy. They moved to Paris in June and Hahnemann commenced practice in August of 1835, assisted by Melanie, who had by now become an accomplished homeopath, and 'his keenest pupil'. Melanie and Carl von Bonninghausen were the first Lay Practitioners, Melanie was successfully tried in 1847 in Paris for practising medicine without a licenceHahnemann’s health declined shortly after his 88th birthday and he died in July 1843. He had finished the 6th edition of The Organon but did not want it published so he asked Melanie to keep it safe until the world was ready for it.Despite opposition homeopathy continued to grow in popularity not just because it worked but also due to orthodox medicine being ineffective and even dangerous, bloodletting and application of leeches were common practice even through to the mid-1800s. Thanks to it’s popularity with the aristocracy and royalty homeopathy spread rapidly throughout Europe in the early years, reaching a peak during 1850-90 after which it went into quick decline. It had virtually disappeared in most countries by 1920 but has undergone a sustained world-wide revival since 1979. It is now an important part of the holistic and complementary therapies movement.Today, homeopathy is the second most common form of medical science practiced in the world. It is very popular in Europe, Asia (especially India) and South America. In fact, the physician to the British Royal Family is a homeopathic doctor, the royal family have been under homeopathic care since the 1830’s. In 1978 after two decades of inactivity in the UK, a group of lay practitioners established their own Society of Homeopaths, a Register, College (The London College of Homeopathy), Journal (The Homeopath) and Code of Ethics. Homeopathy is becoming increasingly more popular in North America due to growing awareness of drug side-effects and risks of surgery.
Bibliography:
A Condensed History of Homeopathy, writings by Dana Ullman, MPH © 1991
Discovering Homeopathy;Medicine for the 21st Century, Dana Ullman
Divided Legacy II (The Origins of Modern Western Medicine),Harris Coulter
Hahnemann and Homeopathy, Peter Morrell
Peter Morrell ‘s many interesting articles on homeopathy to include one about homeopathy in the UK. To find these articles got to http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/articles/
Complied by Val Lawrence for the Southern College of Homeopathy
The principles of homeopathy have been part of medical practice for centuries. The origins of homeopathic thought date back to Hippocrates (470-400 B.C.) also known as the “Father of Medicine”. Hippocrates believed that there are two ways of treating disease; the way of "opposites" and the way of "similars". His observations on the cure by "similars" were not followed by the mainstream medical community and lay dormant for centuries.
Paracelsus (1493-1541) a Swiss physician, also believed in treating by "similars". In the 16th century Paracelsus wrote "sames must be cured by sames". He believed that the poison that caused disease can also cure it. He was regarded as a radical by his colleagues for administering "poisons" to his patients. Again, his observations on the cure by "similars" lay dormant for another 200 years.
However it was Hahnemann that first coined the word "homeopathy" ("homoios" in Greek means similar, "pathos" means suffering) to refer to the law of similars then went on to develop homeopathy into a medical science.
Hahnemann was a qualified physician but he became so disenchanted by the medical practice of his day after the death of his son that he stopped medical practice that he turned to translating (he was fluent in 8 languages) to earn his living rather than carry on using treatments which often caused more suffering than they cured. It was while he was translating a book on herbs by a Dr Cullen of Edinburgh that he came across the use of Cinchona calisaya (quinine) as a treatment for malaria. This set him to wondering why it worked because although it was an astringent it was not as powerful as other astringents which did not work as treatments for malaria. He decided to test this herb on himself, a healthy person, to see what would happen. He took several doses over a couple of days and found that he produced symptoms similar to an attack of malaria. He repeated this experiment on himself again with the same result so he went on to try this test on friends, again healthy individuals, and found that they too produced varying symptoms of a malarial attack.
He went on to test, on healthy individuals, other substances in widespread use such as belladonna, arsenic and mercury. He called these experiments provings and noted each provers response in detail. He found that some of the symptoms were produced in the majority of the participants whilst other symptoms were only produced in a few of them. Symptoms produced in the majority are keynote symptoms and are therefore important indicators for a remedy.
In 1796 Samuel Hahnemann published his first treatise on Homoeopathy, in Hufeland's Journal, a respected medical journal in Germany, it was here that he introduced the Homoeopathic principle of similia similibus curentur, that ‘like may be cured by like’. Coincidentally, in 1798 Edward Jenner discovered the value of giving small doses of cowpox to people in an effort to immunize them against smallpox. Whereas Jenner's work was generally accepted into orthodox medicine, Hahnemann's work was not. In fact, there was so much antagonism to Hahnemann and the new school of medical thought he called homeopathy that entire medical journals were called Anti-Homoeopathic Archives .
Hahnemann then began to treat sick people with his Homoeopathic medicine, again taking great care to note the outcomes, and he found that what made the healthy sick cured the same symptoms in the sick, ‘like cures like’. However he didn’t stop there as he found that patients had aggravations from the neat substances so he began diluting these substances in an effort to avoid the aggravations only to find that as well as lessening aggravations these diluted remedies acted more effectively. In 1798 he first started experimenting with dose reduction, which led to the development of potency scales.
Hahnemann was a trained chemist and as such he realised that little if anything was left of the original substance and yet the merest trace of them was enough to produce a strong effect. He believed that at some level in the body there must be something which responds to such tiny hints, an extremely subtle something capable of switching the body from sickness to health and vice versa. He called this something the ‘vital force’. If this ‘vital force’ became jangled, out of balance illness would be the result, the signs and symptoms of the illness were the body’s attempt to heal itself.
Hahnemann finished writing the first edition of The Organon in 1810 and it was published in 1811. Hahnemann continued to develop his work on homeopathy and so he refined and edited The Organon 5 more times. The sixth edition of The Organon was not published until 1921, long after Hahnemann’s death. To quote Peter Morrell “ Homeopathy stems entirely from Hahnemann's critique and abandonment of allopathic drugging, 1782-90, during which he resolved to formulate, entirely through experimentation, a more humane, effective and rational system of medicine, as opposed to strong drugging and depletive practices like bloodletting, which he abhorred.”
Due to the fact that Hahnemann prescribed only one medicine at a time and in limited doses he was disliked by the apothecaries because they could not charge much for them. Hahnemann decided to dispense his own medicines however at the time that was an illegal act as only apothecaries were allowed to prepare and dispense medicines. The reasons that Hahnemann choose to break the law and dispense medicines himself was because each medicine required careful preparation and he found that the apothecaries were not always making them correctly or were intentionally giving his patients different medicines. The apothecaries then accused Hahnemann of "entrenching upon their privileges by the dispensing of medicines" so in 1820 he was arrested in Leipzig, found guilty and forced to move.
He moved to Kothen, where he was given special permission to practice and dispense his own medicines by Grand Duke Ferdinand, one of the many European royalty who supported homeopathy.
Hahnemann met the Marquise Marie Melanie d'Hervilly in October 1834 they were secretly married in January 1853, she was his second wife and instrumental in reigniting his passion for homeopathy. They moved to Paris in June and Hahnemann commenced practice in August of 1835, assisted by Melanie, who had by now become an accomplished homeopath, and 'his keenest pupil'. Melanie and Carl von Bonninghausen were the first Lay Practitioners, Melanie was successfully tried in 1847 in Paris for practising medicine without a licenceHahnemann’s health declined shortly after his 88th birthday and he died in July 1843. He had finished the 6th edition of The Organon but did not want it published so he asked Melanie to keep it safe until the world was ready for it.Despite opposition homeopathy continued to grow in popularity not just because it worked but also due to orthodox medicine being ineffective and even dangerous, bloodletting and application of leeches were common practice even through to the mid-1800s. Thanks to it’s popularity with the aristocracy and royalty homeopathy spread rapidly throughout Europe in the early years, reaching a peak during 1850-90 after which it went into quick decline. It had virtually disappeared in most countries by 1920 but has undergone a sustained world-wide revival since 1979. It is now an important part of the holistic and complementary therapies movement.Today, homeopathy is the second most common form of medical science practiced in the world. It is very popular in Europe, Asia (especially India) and South America. In fact, the physician to the British Royal Family is a homeopathic doctor, the royal family have been under homeopathic care since the 1830’s. In 1978 after two decades of inactivity in the UK, a group of lay practitioners established their own Society of Homeopaths, a Register, College (The London College of Homeopathy), Journal (The Homeopath) and Code of Ethics. Homeopathy is becoming increasingly more popular in North America due to growing awareness of drug side-effects and risks of surgery.
Bibliography:
A Condensed History of Homeopathy, writings by Dana Ullman, MPH © 1991
Discovering Homeopathy;Medicine for the 21st Century, Dana Ullman
Divided Legacy II (The Origins of Modern Western Medicine),Harris Coulter
Hahnemann and Homeopathy, Peter Morrell
Peter Morrell ‘s many interesting articles on homeopathy to include one about homeopathy in the UK. To find these articles got to http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/articles/
