Discovery of Homeopathy

Homeopathy is the therapeutic method of curing a diseased individual by giving medicine similar to the case. The theory of Similia Similibus Curentur which forms the basis of Homeopathy was propounded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. The discovery of Homeopathy was not a one day phenomenon, but it required an inquisitive heart, an observant eye and a scientific approach to give it its present cast.

It was the end of seventeenth century, and the medicine being practiced at the time was no more than barbaric exsanguinations. The methods of blood letting, venesection, use of leeches, cupping, moxas and clysters were the talk of the day. It was the time (1779-1784) when Samuel Hahnemann had completed his medical studies and just started his practice at Dresden. He was discontented with the vague and unsatisfactory medial knowledge of the day.

 “For eighteen years I have been deviating from the ordinary practice of the medical art. Attending to patients in a way our books suggest,

It was to me a piaculum- (an action which demands propitiation or revenge) – that I should thus be continually groping in the dark and, according to this or that (imagined) opinion, be prescribing treatments, which were only contained in the Materia Medica according to the degree of fitness.

My sense of duty would not easily allow me to treat the unknown pathological state of my suffering brethren with these unknown medicines.......The thought of becoming in this way a murderer or a malefactor towards the life of my fellow human beings was most terrible to me, so terrible and disturbing that I wholly gave up my practice in the first years of my married life. I scarcely treated anybody for fear of injuring him, and occupied myself solely with chemistry and writing”. (Extract from a Letter to a Physician of high standing, on the great necessity for Regeneration in Medicine 1808).

 Dr.Hahnemann’s heart was filled with despair and eventually he relinquished his medical practice. For his living he took to translations of medical literature. Having good knowledge of different languages, he soon got involved in his new work. But it was not that he could remain indifferent to the sufferings of people. Apart from his translations he wrote some original essays which showed his pursuit for knowledge. He gave:

• Directions for Curing Old Sores and Ulcers (1784).
• Concerning Bile and Gall stones (1788).
• Instructions for Surgeons on Venereal Diseases (1789).
• Friend of health, Part I and II (1792) which was a great work on preventive medicine.

Thus Hahnemann continued his translations but he also used the opportunity to gain as much knowledge as he could on medical literatures. In the year 1789 he investigated in the “Instructions for Surgeons on Venereal Diseases” and found that contrary to the general assumption of that time, the effect of mercury in the treatment of syphilis consists not in salivation, perspiration, diarrhoea or increased urination, but in a peculiar counter-irritation in the body, which he called “mercurial fever,” and which he carefully described in its most marked condition. The “mercurial fever,” artificially produced by mercury, he opines to be presupposition for the healing of syphilis. The first glimpses of the idea of similar medicines had begun to dawn.

The clouds were clearing away for the right moment. It came like the falling apple of Newton, while he was translating Cullen’s Materia Medica from English to German language in 1790. He came across a paragraph on intermittent fever and the therapeutic effect of Cinchona on it. Cullen had attributed the ague curing property of Cinchona bark to its bitterness. But the scientific mind of Hahnemann could not be appeased by such an explanation. He felt that there were a number of bitter drugs then why it was Cinchona alone which had ague curing properties.

Hahnemann was an essential experimenter, he planned to take the drug himself and henceforth investigate the depth of the statement.

          Bright and early in the morning, Hahnemann went to the ‘Apotheke zum Goldenen Loewen’ on the marketplace of Leipzig, and there and then selected some fresh Cinchona bark, and obtained some vials and alcohol. In his own words, “For the sake of experiment, I took for several days four QUENTSCHEN of good Cinchona twice a day. My feet, the tips of my fingers, etc. first became cold, and I felt tired and sleepy; then my heart began to beat, my pulse became hard and quick. I got an insufferable feeling of uneasiness, a trembling(but without Rigor), a weakness in all my limbs, then a beating in my head, redness in the cheeks, thirst; in short, all the old symptoms with which I was familiar in Ague appeared one after the other. Also those particularly characteristic symptoms which I was wont to observe in Agues—obtuseness of the senses, a kind of stiffness in all the limbs, but especially that dull disagreeable feeling which seems to have its seat in the periosteum of all the bones of the body—these all put in an appearance. This paroxysm lasted each time for two or three hours, and came again afresh whenever I repeated the dose, not otherwise. I left off, and became well.”

In Dr. Adolf Lippe’s words : - “Hahnemann was sitting at Leipzig, with his midnight lamp before him, translating Cullen’s Materia Medica, which was then a standard work. He came to Cinchona officianilis, and found Cullen say that this bark possessed specific febrifugal actions, because it was both the most aromatic and bitter substance known. Hahnemann laid down his quill and exclaimed, ‘Preposterous!’ There are more substances, more barks, possessing more both bitter and aromatic properties, and Cinchona is not a specific for Ague. He argued it cures some cases; it does not cure other cases. There must be a way to find out under what conditions the bark cured and did not cure. He expressed it in a footnote (Dudgeon’s collections of his Lesser writings): “It will not be such an easy matter to discover the still lacking principle according to which its action may be explained.”

Following the clue he started to prove, several so called specific drugs on himself and on some others. He noticed in every case a similarity of symptoms produced by the drugs to those of the natural diseases to which they were supposed to be specific. He made the induction of the diseases so cured by the medicines were cured by the virtue of the same power in the medicines which produced symptoms like those they cured. He then converted the induction to deduction and said “Let likes be treated by likes” Similia Similibus Curentur.

The wave of Homeopathy had just begun but the tide was not far off. Hahnemann worked forth on this principle and brought the concept in front of the whole world in the form of his article in Hufeland’s journal on “Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs, with a few glances at those hitherto employed” in 1796. In this article he wrote about various medicines like Aethusa, Conium, Cicuta, Stramonium, Ignatia, Viscum etc. and their primary action. It was the same historical article where he spoke of affect of potencies and proving on healthy human beings.

The doctrines of Homoeopathy was attempted to be formulated, for the first time, by Hahnemann in his article “The Medicine of Experience” published in 1805—till the complete systematization of the principles and practice of the Homoeopathic Art of Healing was effected with the publication of Hahnemann’s Organon of Medicine in 1810. The art of medicine was placed on a scientific footing when Hahnemann discovered the method of testing the positive action of each individual drug and a law guiding the selection of drugs to cure diseases. Then the medicine of speculations which existed since time immemorial was changed into Medicine of Experience.

            The discovery of Homeopathy was the result of years of experiment and thought. People have talked about the discovery being an example of Serendipity, a chance discovery. Serendipity is “Good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries”. But alas! Lady Luck only smiles at the well prepared persons. Chance favours the prepared mind. The discovery of “Universal Law of Gravitation” by Newton and the discovery of “Penicillin” have also been attributed to the same phenomenon. But everyone saw the apple falling; it was why Newton alone who gave it a thought. It’s just because it was he alone who observed it with a scientific eye.

Likewise many must have read Cullen’s Materia Medica, but only Hahnemann’s mind was prepared to perceive the new idea. He had been through the literature on “Mercurial Fever”, his unconscious mind was searching for the right reason which he got by Cinchona experiment. It required the scientists mind and an artist’s heart to design the experiment and draw out the right conclusions. This emphasises how slowly yet completely homeopathy came out from the backgrounds to occupy the central stage as the Science of Cure. A true contrast between science and myth is more nearly touched when we say that science is capable of verification.

Thus Discovery of Homeopathy was not accidental but methodical. Homoeopathy, like the candlestick of the Hebrew tabernacle, has been shaped by hammering and not by casting: or rather, it is a vital thing, growing as the year go on, and legitimately influenced by its environments.

Bibliography

1. Richard Haehl, Samuel Hahnemann His Life and Works.

2. Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine Translation from 5^th edition by Dudgeon.

3. Hahnemann, The Chronic Diseases.

4. T.L.Bradford, Life and Letters of Hahnemann.

5. Diwan Harish Chand, A Compendium of Lectures on Homeopathy.

6. Richard Hughes,Principles and Practice of Homeopathy.

7. B.K.Sarkar, Commentary on Organon of Medicine.