Happy Birthday Dr. Hahnemann

Dear Friends,

Today is the 255th Birthday of Dr. Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann, popularly known as Dr.Hahnemann – the German physician who created Homeopathy. He was born on April 10th, 1755 in Meissen, Saxony, in a family of porcelain painters and designers. Hahnemann studied medicine at Leizpig and Vienna, and graduated as an MD at the University of Erlangen on August 10th, 1779.

Soon he was disillusioned with the then mainstream medicine and started working as a translator and language teacher. It was during the translation of Cullen’s Materia medica that he first came upon the concept of Homeopathy. Not that he created it, but the truth had just lain hidden and was not buried deep;

" The truth we mortals need
Us blest to make and keep,
The All-wise slightly covered o'er,
But did not bury deep."

Homeopathy is therapeutic science based on Similia Similibus Curentur or like cures like, meaning that Diseases can only be cured by medicine that has the property of producing similar symptoms as the illness it is supposed to cure.

Hahnemann began practicing his new method with success, but that was not the end – for an indefatigable person as he was he was he could not sit back and rest. He wrote, revised and edited the principles for Homeopathic practice till the very end; as a result we have the present form of Homoeopathy.

Later, he died in Paris, on July 2nd, 1843.

Apart from other changes that Hahnemann brought along in Homeopathic principles regarding preparation (dynamization), potency and administration of medicine he gave the most significant and vital theory without which Homeopathy would not have cured the varied range of diseases which it does today: The Theory Of Chronic Disease & Miasm. He declared that this theory was the result of 12 years of the most painstaking work on difficult cases of a chronic character and first explained its concept in his book The Chronic Diseases published in 1828.

The theory suggests that Miasms are the fundamental or underlying cause of all disease. Hahnemann named the three chronic miasms as Psora, Sycosis and Syphilis; he attributed the cause of two-thirds of all chronic disease to the non-venereal miasm Psora while the remaining one-third was related to the venereal miasms Sycosis and Syphilis, being derived from suppressed Syphilis or suppressed Gonorrhoea. Unless and until a suitable anti-miasmatic medicine is not given to the patient it is impossible to totally uproot or cure Chronic Diseases.

Since Hahnemann's time, other miasms have been proposed, some replacing one or more of Psora's proposed functions, including Tubercular miasm, Vaccinosis, Cancer miasm, Leprosy miasm etc. But still Hahnemann's miasm theory and its practice remains one of the most controversial subjects not only among Homeopaths but also among Conventional system practitioners.

The Theory of Miasms has been rightly thought to be the best contribution (next to discovery of Homeopathy itself) of Dr. Hahnemann to mankind. So dear friends in order to pay a perfect tribute to our master on his Birthday, we present to you an exclusive issue on THEORY OF MIASM. As Dr. Kent wrote, "Some will celebrate Dr. Hahnemann's Birth day by a banquet, some by speeches, some by silent heart-throbs. Some will celebrate openly and outwardly, while in secret they administer tinctures in physiological doses and compound tablets, and alternate two medicines, neither of which is related to the sickness in hand. The silent, heartfelt thankfulness that Hahnemann was born and lived his life and left us the results of his discoveries in the ORGANON, CHRONIC DISEASES and MATERIA MEDICA PURA, is the best way to celebrate this wonderful man's birthday."

Sharing with you all the April Issue of Homeopathic Horizon on "MIASM: THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL DISEASES" we join together to say Happy Birthday Dr. Hahnemann and heartiest thanks for giving to the world the gift of homoeopathy.