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Samuel Hahnemann(10th April 1755 - 2nd July 1842) -- R. E. Dudgeon, M. D. |
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During the last year of his residence in Konigslutter he witnessed a severe epidemic of scarlet fever, and made his glorious discovery of the prophylactic power of belladonna in this disease, which alone would have sufficed to make his name remembered with gratitude by posterity. The mode of his discovery of his prophylactic is a true specimen of inductive philosophy, much than janner’s somewhat similar discovery of the prophylactic power of vaccination. Knowing the power of belladonna to produce a state similar to the first stage of scarlet fever, he used it with great success at that period of the disease, and whilst his mind was occupied with the great remedial virtue he observed it to possess, a circumstance occurred which led him to believe that it was not only a curative, but a preventive medicine for that malady. In a family of children, three sickened with the disease, but the fourth, who was taking belladonna at the time for an affection of the finger-joints, escaped, though she had heretofore been always the first to take any epidemic that was going about. An opportunity soon presented itself of putting its prophylactic power to the test. In a family of eight children, three were seized with the epidemic, and he immediately gave to the remaining five children belladonna in small doses, and, as he had anticipated, all these five escaped the disease, notwithstanding their constant exposure to the virulent emanations from their sick sisters. The epidemic presented him with numerous opportunities of verifying this protective power of belladonna. The mode he adopted of drawing the attention of physicians to his newly discovered prophylactic was singular. He announced publication work on the subject, and advertised for subscribers promising to publish the work, which should reveal the name of the prophylactic, as soon as he got 300 subscribers, and in the mean time supplying to each subscriber a portion of the prophylactic, and demanding his opinion as to its efficacy. This unusual proceeding, which might be justified on the plea that Hahnemann wished to have the prophylactic tested more impartially than it would have been had he at once revealed the name of it, gave rise to a shower of bitter calumnies from his colleagues, who made little or no response to his offer, but loaded him with accusations of avarice and selfishness.’’ Hahnemann revenged himself in his calumniator’s, publishing his pamphlet on scarlatina,’’ wherein he revealed the name of the prophylactic, and the facts that led to its discovery. I need not remind you that the united testimony of almost all-homeopathic practitioners, and of the most distinguished of the allopaths, was favorable to the truth of Hahnemann’s discovery. Indeed nearly twenty years afterwards, whilst Hahnemann was residing in Leipzic, some physicinans of that town complacently recommended the employment of belladonna as a prophylactic for scarlet fever, as if they had just made the discovery, without alluding in the slightest way to the claims of the venerable sage in their midst, although they could scarcely fail to be known to them. But I am anticipating. The locality of the apothecaries and physicians of Konislutter drove him form that town in 1799. He purchased a large carriage or waggon, in which he packed all his property and family, and with a heavy heart bade to Koniglutter, where fortune had at length begun to smile upon him, and where he had found leisure and opportunity to prosecute his interesting discoveries. Many of the inhabitants whose health he had been instrumental in restoring, or whose lives he had even saved by the discoveries of his genius during that fatal epidemic of scarlet fever, accompanied him some distance on the road to Humburg, whither he had resolved to proceed, and at length, with a blessing for his services, and sigh for his hard lot, they bade him God speed, And thus he journeyed on with all his earthy possession, and with all his family beside him, But a dreadful accident befell the melancholy cortege. Descending a precipitous part of the road, the wagon was overturned, the driver thrown off his seat, his infant son so injured that he died shortly afterwards and the leg of one of his daughters fractured. He himself was considerably bruised, and his property munch damaged by falling into a stream that ran at the bottom of the road. With the assistance of some peasants they were conveyed to the nearest village, where he was forced to remain upwards of six weeks on his daughter’s account, at an expense that greatly lightened his not very well-filled purse. At length he got in safety to Humburg, but finding little or nothing to do here, he removed to the adjoining town of Altona. He did not, however, better himself by the change, and not long after removed to Mollen in Lauenburg; but the longing for his fatherland, which he describes as being so strong in him, soon drew him once more to Saxony. He planted himself in Eulenbur, but the persecution of the superintendent physicians of that drove him thence after a short sojourn. He wanted first to Machern, and thence to Dessau, where we find him in 1803 publishing a monograph on the effects of coffee, which he considered as the source of many chronic diseases, and against the use of which, as a common beverage, he inveighed with much the same energy as our first James did against tobacco. Previous to this, however, and during his wanderings, he had translated several books for the English, and written various articles on his favorite idea of medical reform in Hufeland’s Journal, denouncing ever more and more energetically the absurdities and errors of ordinary medical practice. One of the most remarkable articles in his style is his preface to a translation of a collection of medical prescriptions, published in 1800, which preface is the best antidote to the work itself. We can imagine his great soul fretting and fuming when the publisher, on whom he than almost entirely depended for subsistence, put into his hands the English original of this notable work, which contained naught but a collection of the abominable and nonsensical compounds which he had been inveighing against for the last five years. We can fancy Hahnemann saying, "Well, Sir, if you have no more agreeable work to put me to than this, I will do it; but mark, I stipulate to be allowed to write what preface I choose.’’ And sure a preface it is the most marvelous preface surely that was ever written for any book! It is as though he had said, "Reader; you have purchased this book thinking to find therein a royal road to the practice of physic, but you are miserably mistaken to believe there can be any such short cut: skill in practice can only be gained by careful, unwearied, and honest study; by having a perfect knowledge of the curative instruments you have to yield, and by an accurate observation of the characteristic symptoms of disease. As for the contents of this book, they are the grossest imposition ever palmed upon man, a confused jumble of unknown drugs- mostly poisons mixed together in what are called prescriptions, each ingredient of which is dignified by some imposing name that is meant to express to qualities it should possess and the part it should play, but none of which possesses the qualities attributed to it nor will obey, even in the slightest degree, he order that are given it. Every prescription contains in it a multitude of anarchical elements that totally disqualify it for any orderly action whatever. The best councel it can given you, my simple-minded reader, is to put the main body of this book into the fire; but by all means preserve the preface; it may serve you as a standard for judging of the pretensions of similar pretentious books, of which there be, I am sorry to think, many, too many in the market just now, but which we shell do our best, with God’s help, to rid the world of.’’ I do not believe the publisher of this "Arzneischats,’’ or "Treasury of Medicines,’’ would wish to give Hahnemann many more jobs of this kind to do, or if he did, he would doubtless resolve to bargain that no perfact should be inserted. Indeed. We find that Hahnemann’s translations came to rather an abrupt termination at this period, for, with the exception of a translation of the Materia of the great Alvert von Haller. Which he executed in 1806 Hahnemann’s works were henceforward all originals. |
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