The Life and Letters of Dr Samuel Hahnemann By Thomas Lindsley Bradford, M.D. Presented by Dr Robert Séror

The Life and Letters
of Dr Samuel Hahnemann
By Thomas Lindsley Bradford,
M.D.
Presented by Dr Robert Séror

Chapter 24.

Von Brunnow’

s story
Hahnemann’s
appearance
Mode of life at his house
Prince Schwartzenberg

At
this period of his busy life

Hahnemann
did not leave his house to visit patients. His time was entirely devoted
to his lectures, his studies, and his consultations at home.

He, however, in fine weather took a daily promenade with his wife and
children.

Hartmann’s
narrative in the preceding chapter enables one to form a very distinct
idea of his home life.

He attracted to him others than medical men, many of whom were greatly
impressed with the old philosopher, and too, became his followers.

Von Brunnow’

s story

The following interesting story was written by one of these, a young
law student, the Baron von

Brunnow
: (Einblick auf
Hahnemann und die Homoopathik, Leipzig : Teubner, 1844.” (A glance at
Hahnemann and Homoeopathy.) Trans. into English ‘by Norton, in 1845, in
London. See also London Hom. Times, Vol. I., p. 688 ; Kirby’s Am.
Jour. of Hom., Vol. V., p. 157 ; Shipman’s N. W. jour. of Hom.,
Vol. I., p. 91 ; Brit. jour. of Hom., Vol. III., p. 119.)

Ernst George von

Brunnow
was born at Dresden,
April 6, 1796, and died there, May 5, 1845. He was of a noble Courland
family. His health prevented him from devoting himself to philosophy and
law, and he cultivated lighter literature.

He became a convert to Hahnemann by whom he was greatly benefited in
health. He translated the “

Organon”
into French ; assisted in the Latin translation of the “Materia
Medica Pura,” and
was also the author of several novels.

He says :

” It was on a clear spring day of the year 1816 that I, a young,
newly enrolled student of law, sauntered with some of my companions along
the cheerful promenade of

Leipsic.
Among the teachers of the University were to be found at that time many
notables, and not a few originals.

Many a professor and master stalked gravely along in the old-fashioned
dress of the former century, with peruque and bag, silk stockings, and
buckles on his shoes, while the pampered sons of the landed gentry
swaggered about in hussar jackets and pantaloons ornamented with points,
or in leather breeches, with high dragoon boots and clinking spurs.

“‘Tell me,” said I to an older student than myself, who was
walking with me, ‘ who is that old gentleman with so extraordinarily
intelligent’ a countenance, who walks respectfully arm in arm with his
somewhat corpulent spouse, and is followed by two pairs of rosy girls ?’

“‘ That is the celebrated Doctor

Hahnemann
with his wife and daughters. He takes a walk regularly every afternoon
round the town with his wife and daughters,’ was the reply.

What,’ rejoined I, ‘is there about this

Hahnemann
that makes him celebrated ?’

Why he is the discoverer of the Homoeopathic system of medicine, which
is turning old medicine topsy turvy,’ replied my acquaintance, who, like
myself, was from Dresden and had also enlisted himself under the colors of

Themis.

“My curiosity was excited and I wished to know something more
about him. My companion belonged to the enthusiastic admirers of

Hahnemann
who attended his lectures and gladly assisted in the proving of medicines.

Everything he told me about this remarkable man excited my interest in
the highest degree. From my childhood I had been delicate and a victim to
physic, so that my confidence in medicine was very frail.

” Besides other grievances, I suffered especially from my eyes,
which I required at that time most especially. Impelled by hope I read the

‘Organon,’
and was more and more taken with Homoeopathy at every line.

” It was the first medical book I had had in my hand, so that it
did not strike me at that time that doctrines which appeared so clear,
supported by reasoning so consistent, might be yet too exclusive in their
character and have their dark side. I was a zealous proselyte, and, like
all neophytes, admitted no salvation beyond the pale of my own church. I
made the resolution of putting myself under

Hahnemann’s
treatment.

Hahnemann’s

appearance

“

Hahnemann
at that time was in his sixty-second year. Locks of silver white clustered
round his high and thoughtful brow, from under which his animated eyes
shone with piercing brilliancy.

His whole countenance had a quiet, searching, grand expression ; only
rarely did a gleam of fine humor play over the deep earnestness, which
told of the many sorrows and conflicts endured.

His carriage was upright, his step firm, his motions as lively as those
of a man of thirty. When he went out his dress was of the simplest ; a
dark coat, with short small clothes and stockings.

But in his room at home he preferred the old household, gaily-figured,
dressing gown, the yellow stockings and the black velvet cap.

Mode of life at his house

” The long pipe was seldom out of his hand, and the smoking was
the only infraction he allowed himself to commit upon his severe rules of
regimen. His drink was water, milk, or white beer ; his food of the most
frugal sort.

The whole of his domestic economy was as simple as, his food and dress.
Instead of a writing desk he used nothing but a large plain deal table,
upon which there constantly lay three or four enormous folios, in which he
had written the history of the cases of his patients, and which he used
deligently to turn up and write in while conversing with them.

For the examination of his patients was made with all the minuteness of
which he has given an example in the

‘Organon.’

“A very peculiar mode of life prevailed in

Hahnemann’s
house. The members of his family, the patients and students of the
University, lived and moved only in one idea, and that was Homoeopathy ;
and for this each strove in his own way.

The four grown-up daughters assisted their father in the preparation of
his medicines, and gladly took part in the provings ; and, still more,
this was done by obliging students, whose names will be found carefully
recorded in connection with their individual observations in the

‘Materia
Medica Pura.’ That
these experiments were not at all injurious to those engaged in them I can
testify from personal observation.

“The patients enthusiastically celebrated the effects of
Homoeopathy, and devoted themselves as apostles to spread the fame of the
new doctrine among unbelievers. All who adhered to

Hahnemann
were at that time the butt of ridicule or the objects of hatred.

But so much the more did the Homoeopathists hold together, like members
of a persecuted sect, and hung with more exalted reverence and love upon
their honored head.

“After
the day had been spent in labor, Hahnemann
was in the habit of recruiting himself from eight to ten o’clock by
conversation with his circle of trusty friends. All his friends and
scholars had then access to him, and were made welcome to partake of his Leipsic
white beer and join him in a pipe of tobacco.

In the middle of the whispering circle the old Aesculapius
reclined in a comfortable arm chair, wrapped in the household dress we
have described, with a long Turkish pipe in his hand, and narrated by
turns amusing and serious stories of his storm-tossed life, while the
smoke from his pipe diffused its clouds around him.

” Next to the natural sciences the condition of foreign nations
formed a most favorite subject for conversation. Hahnemann
had a special fondness for the Chinese,
and for this reason, that among them the children were educated in the
strictest obedience and respect for their parents, duties which in the
civilized countries of Europe were becoming more and more neglected.

Indeed the family of Hahnemann
presented a pattern of the old German system of training children. The
children displayed not only obedience, but the most hearty love towards
their parents.

“Although living in luxurious and elegant Leipsic, yet the
daughters of Hahnemann
took no part in any public amusement ; they were clad in the simplest
fashion, and undertook most cheerfully the humblest household services.

Hahnemann

had but
little satisfaction from his son, who led so foolish a life in the place
where he was settled as to be obliged to leave it. His father never
mentioned him.

“From his pupils

Hahnemann
exacted not only intelligence and deligence, but the strictest propriety
of life. I know of one case in which he peremptorily closed the door
against a young and talented medical student whom he discovered to be
living with a person of loose character.

“With
regard to religion, Hahnemann,
who belonged to the Lutheran
confession, held aloof from all dogmatic creeds. He was a pure Deist,
but he was this with full conviction.

… I cannot cease to praise and thank God when I contemplate his
works,’ he was accustomed to say.

” Strict as was the obedience

Hahnemann
demanded from his children, as a husband he was far from having the rule
in his own hands. His tall and stout wife, who, as Agnes
Frei did to the noble
painter, Albrecht Durer,
gave him many a bitter hour, exercised the most baneful influence upon
him. It was she who cut him off from society and set him against his
medical colleagues.

It was she who often caused dissension between himself and his most
faithful pupils if they did not treat the doctor’s wife with the deepest
respect.

Notwithstanding this,

Hahnemann
was accustomed to call this scolding Xantippe,
who took pleasure in raising a storm in the house, ‘the noble companion of
his professional life.’

“During my latter years at Leipsic

Hahnemann’s
prospects were somewhat overclouded. His flourishing practice and numerous
adherents had become too alarming to his adversaries not to prompt them to
take such active measures for his suppression as lay within their power.

The implement to effect this was, naturally enough, the laws against
his dispensing his own medicines. The matter was brought before the courts
of medical jurisprudence, and from them

Hahnemann
appealed, and the decision was delayed.

Prince

Schwartzenberg

”
At this time one of the heroes of the German war of liberation, the
Austrian Field Marshal, Prince Schwartzenberg,
had become affected, besides other complaints, with an apoplectic palsy of
the right side, and for this he had tried the skill of all the most
eminent physicians in vain.

Homoeopathy alone had not yet been tried, and to enable him to get all
the advantages of the new system he came to Leipsic, to place himself
under Hahnemann’s own eye.

The first consequence of this honorable tribute to Hahnemann
was the suspension of the process the apothecaries had commenced against
him.

Had Prince Schwartzenberg
recovered, then had Homoeopathy enjoyed an immediate triumph in Saxony,
and even in all Germany ; but every art has its limits.

Hahnemann

undertook
the case as a desperate one on which he could try the effects of
Homoeopathy. To the astonishment of all, the patient felt himself better
from day to day ; and he was seen driving about after a little time ; but
the powers of life had been too much weakened to permit of his recovery.

“The former malady returned, and the Field Marshal died in the
same town into which, in the same month of the year 1813, he had entered
as a conqueror.

” Although the post-mortem proved that no medical skill could by
any possibility have been successful in the case, yet the issue of it was
very injurious to

Hahnemann.

The suspended process was immediately resumed, and it was decided that
Hahnemann must give tip dispensing his own medicines.”

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