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 56.

Letters to

Muller
History of Leipsic
Homoeopathic Hospital

As
has previously been stated, the Fiftieth Fest-Jubilee was the origin of
the German Homoeopathic Central Union, which since that date had met
yearly on the 10th of August.

(Allg.
hom. Zeit., Vol. XXVI. Brit. Jour. of Hom., Vol. XXX., p. 464. N. W. Jour.
of Hom., Vol. iv, p. 275. Schweikert’s Jour., Sept. 1, 1830.)

The first meeting was held in

Leipsic
in 1830. Dr. Moritz
Muller was President.
Everything was harmonious, and the rules of the Society were for the first
time drafted. The meeting of 1831, under the Presidency of Dr. Stapf,
occurred at Naumburg.

Hartmann

says that
this meeting was largely attended on account of the interest in the
cholera then prevailing and the hope that Hahnemann
would send some communication regarding its treatment. In 1832 it met at Leipsic.

Dr.

Schweikert
was President. It was held in the evening, and after the address and the
scientific papers Dr. Schweikert,
Sr., made a proposition
to establish, with the funds then on hand, a Homoeopathic hospital at Leipsic.
He had already interested Hahnemann
in the project.

The capital from the

Coethen
celebration had now by contributions reached the sum of 4000 thalers. It
was unanimously decided to use this money to establish a Homoeopathie
hospital and medical school at Leipsic.

History of

Leipsic
Homoeopathic Hospital

Dr.

Schweikert
was especially enthusiastic regarding the project, and even volunteered to
take charge of the new hospital without remuneration, and to remove from Grimma
to Leipsic
for the purpose. Dr. Moritz
Muller was elected
director of the hospital for the ensuing year, and with energy and with
great influence he commenced to labor for its successful opening.

Dr.

Muller
was a notable man.

Born August 1, 1784, at

Olebitz,
near Wittenberg,
he attended the Gymnasium
at Torgau
from the age of eleven to seventeen, when he entered the University of Wittenberg.
It was there that he first met Schweikert,
who became a Homoeopathist through his influence.

Dr.

Muller
went to Leipsic in his twenty-first year, and soon, was appointed first Clinical
Lecturer and Under
Surgeon in Jacob’s
Hospital. Three years later he took entire charge of the hospital.

He received his degree as doctor in 1810. In 1813, when

Napoleon’s
army was fleeing from Russia,
and when the camptyphus prevailed in Europe,
so that dwellings, school houses and churches were utilized as hospitals, Muller
had charge of one.

Hartmann

says of him
: (Brit.
Jour. of Hom., Vol. VIII., p. 268.)

“I remember one day in the year 1819

Muller
sent his secretary to me with the request that I would lend him my ‘Organon’
to look through ; I gave it to him, shaking my head, with the remark that
a star of such magnitude in the Allopathic firmament would scarcely come
to have a right representation of Homoeopathy.

Nevertheless, as often happens in this life, I deceived myself ; the
power of truth soon became manifest in

Muller’s
clear and unprejudiced mind, and he became a complete convert.”

Dr.

Muller
always held an important place among the early followers of Hahnemann. He
had a very extensive practice, and was greatly respected.

He had a presentiment that he would die of cholera ; upon its approach
he used extra care in his food.

Hartmann
says :

“On the 22nd of September he visited me early, in good spirits ;
the next day I heard that he had been seized with diarrhoea, but that he
was cheerful, and merely keeping his bed by way of precaution ; on the
24th instant, at half past 5 A.M., vomiting set in, accompanied by icy
coldness and a pulseless state, yet he complained but little of pain ;
already in the afternoon all hope of his recovery was over, and at six
o’clock P.M. he sunk to rest.”

This was on September 24th, 1848, at

Leipsic.

Letters to

Muller

Hahnemann

seemed at this time to
be greatly pleased with Muller’s
zeal, and in September, 1832, he wrote him the following kindly letters :
(” Zur Geschichte
der Homoopathie,” Von Dr. Moritz Muller, Leipzig, 1837, p. 30.)

“Dear Colleague :

” A press of patients has made it impossible until now to consider
dully my obligations and return you my best thanks for your plain summary
of the Festival on the 11th of August.

I cannot sufficiently assure you how much I am interested in the whole
affair, and particularly in the organization of the Union.

In the allotment of medical diplomas to Homoeopathic students who
distinguish themselves I consider it a good plan to make special mention
of those who do the best and are the best pupils, and thus encourage them
to become true disciples of the art of healing.

This seems to me so much the more necessary since there are still many
who palm themselves off as Homoeopathists ; but, influenced by the old
doctrine which they were obliged to learn, still use this, and that
Allopathic remedy in their practice, a custom which is wholly inconsistent
with true Homoeopathy, just as those who worship the true

God,
occasionally offer sacrifices to Baal,
while every one who understands precisely what our healing art can
accomplish never has any need to let a drop of blood, nor to resort to
emetics or laxatives, or even a single stimulating remedy other than
Homoeopathic.

” I have needed nothing of the kind for the past thirty years, and
yet have healed with the best results. Therefore, wherever you can
eradicate from the minds of our pupils false notions, occasioned either by
misunderstanding of our merciful art or by the old Allopathic practice, do
so by all means ; and I request you, dear associate, to say to them that
there is no conceivable case of disease where the old practice is still
necessary and, indeed, where it is not harmful, that cannot be treated
better Homoeopathically.

Let them tread in my footsteps, which, ever since I have demonstrated
the better way, have never been soiled by the filth of the old-time
practice.

”
I wish most heartily, as I have already stated in my answer to the letter
of our friend Haubold,
who as Secretary of the Central Union desired my signature, that we may
soon be so fortunate as to establish, under Royal sanction, a hospital
containing two or three instructors and Homoeopathic practitioners,

where the pure system of Homoeopathy can be shown in the treatment of
all kinds of patients, and where it can be demonstrated how successfully
they can be brought to convalescence in every case of disease without
having to resort in the least to those old quack mal-treatments of the
sick.

Only by opening a hospital thus conducted will we be able to triumph
over the old practice and to say :

‘Come here and look, and be confounded :’

“With usual esteem, Yours,

“Samuel Hahnemann.”
“Coethen, 24 September, 18,32.”

Letter 2

Dear Colleague :

” It is strange that the

Munich
speculation, the establishment of a Homoeopathic hospital, with the aid of
our capital of 3000 thalers, has kindled in you the heroic resolution to
found with so small a beginning as 3000, thalers an Institution similar to
the present large Orphan
Asylum founded by Francke
at Halle,
with scarcely any money in his pocket.

” And it is still more wonderful that you had the heart to ask
authorization and assistance from the Saxon Government, whose servitude
under the petticoat administration of the hostile

Dresden
Board of Health, you
know so well.

It was a great present from the opposite party, and I am astonished
that you did not prohibit it. I would not have imagined that you would
permit it.

Yet

audaces
fortuna juvat !

On the contrary, your

City
Council has shown
itself more praiseworthy, especially if you procure for the establishment
the rights of religious institutions.

“I am very much astonished also at the small price for which you
have purchased a house with so much room. In a word, I see in the whole
proceeding the remarkable

Providence
of God in enabling us
to procure for our healing art an indispensable need, and to show publicly
and in a matter-of-fact way that art to friends and foes and prove its
superiority to the old practice.

The first planning will require the greatest pains. We must try to
avoid obvious mistakes.

As soon as you shall have, but three beds containing invalids you will
have an effective beginning of the Institute, and friends and well-wishers
will be sympathetically summoned through Homoeopathic papers ; through the

Allg. Anzeig. der
Deutschlands, the Augsburg Allgem. Zeitung,
through the Genfer
homoopathische journal,
and thus through
all literary channels to rear by your benevolence a Medical Institute as
it will be called in its very infancy. I wish a sketch of this from your
energetic pen.

“And, if I do not mistake, rich blessings of praise will soon
follow in streams ; and having printed a few of them they can be
disseminated in behalf of our glorious cause. I would like to send you a
couple, of about a hundred pages each, myself.

I conclude with best wishes,

Yours most devotedly,

” S. Hahnemann.
Coethen, 28th Sept. 1832.”

Hartmann

says that
everything up to this time was satisfactory, and that a favorable issue
seemed certain. But from some cause, on the 13th day of October, 1832, Schweikert
declined the post of director that he had previously wished to take
without pay and that he had previously told Dr. Muller
that Hahnemann
wished him (Schweikert)
to assume.

Hahnemann

now seemed
to turn against Dr. Muller.
Dr. Gustave Puhlman,
in his History of
Homoeopathy in Germany, says
: (”
Trans. World’s Hom. Convention.” 1876, Vol. II, p. 23.)

” The

Central
Society from which
Samuel Hahnemann
had withdrawn some years before was reorganized on a broad and democratic
basis, and it was decided to admit into membership any physician who
showed some interest in the cause even if he did not practice Homoeopathy
exclusively.

”

Hahnemann
expressed his disapproval of this movement to some friends, and when the
society elected Moritz
Muller as director
instead of Schweikert,
the progressive tendencies of the former having excited his displeasure,
he feared that his method would not be strictly carried out according to
his intentions.”

Dr

Fischer,
of Weingarten,
says : (Brit. Jour. of
Hom., Vol. XXX., p. 465.)

The tendency of the

Central
Society to think for
themselves, which was prominently displayed at the meeting in 1832,
excited the displeasure of Hahnemann,
who, moreover, fancied he saw a dangerous rival in Moritz
Muller, the director
chosen for the next year.

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