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 67.

Practice in

Paris
Red-letter fête days
Treatment of the Duke
of Anglesey
Presentation of medal by French
physicians

Hahnemann

now not
only saw patients at his home but made regular professional visits, a
thing he had not done for some years in Coethen.

His life was one of very great activity.

Practice in

Paris

From
the cloisterlike stillness of the quiet house in

Coethen,
where he only went out to visit his royal patient, to the din and
excitement of a fashionable practice in the gayest city in the world.

What a change ! And not alone his practice ; every year of his life in

Paris
had its red-letter day, in which the old scholar was honored by his
disciples.

His birthday, the anniversary of his graduation so many years ago in
the fatherland – in fact, any day that could serve as an excuse for
testifying to the universal reverence in which he was held. His ante rooms
were constantly crowded with people. He was visited by his disciples from
distant parts of the world. He did not write any more books after he came
to

Paris,
he revised and published the second edition of the “Chronic
Diseases,” and, it
is said, revised and prepared the manuscript for a sixth edition of the
“Organon,”
which has as yet never been published.

But he had already fully explained his discovery and, plainly laid down
rules for its successful practice. It seems fitting that in the last
brilliant years of the

Paris
life the Master should enjoy somewhat of that luxury that had before been
denied him.

If, as

Hahnemann
says in his will, he came to Paris
to rest and not to practice, then was fate too powerful for him ; for
never before had his practice been so large.

This fact has been urged against the disinterestedness of

Madame
Hahnemann ; that she
knew could she but get the old man to Paris
she could make of him a gold producer, and that this promise of rest she
never desired nor intended to fulfil.

Might it not, however, be nearer the truth, that after

Hahnemann
had been for a short time in Paris,
had appreciated the eagerness with which people desired his services, and
had rather tired of a life of comparative idleness, that it was by his own
wish that he again entered active practice ?

Is it not, when we look at the whole previous life of the man, more
probable that he really was happier in leading the gay and active life he
did in

Paris
than if he had indeed sat down to the slippered ease of old age.

Soon after his establishment Dr

Peschier
published the following article in volume six of the Bibliothèque
Homoeopathique for
1835 :

Red-letter fête days

“The Master has finally reached

Paris,
but he has not come like many distinguished men of the past and present to
make a display or advance the celebrity of his name.

Hahnemann

, conducted
by his French
spouse, of the noblest French
and Parisian,
has come to the capital to obtain rest from his immense practical labors
and to live as inconspicuously as possible, and to quietly conclude a
scientific production written by himself in French
and destined to present his doctrine in a light best adapted to the genius
and spirit of the French
people.

Homoeopathy, as a medical doctrine, has been for a number of years the
object of numerous attacks ; the Homoeopathists themselves have discussed
the theory of its author, have rejected certain peculiarities, and have
substituted different ideas.

Hahnemann

has not
yet taken the trouble to answer these different critics, and has allowed
their objections to accumulate ; it is now presumed that he will discuss
these cavillings and will dedicate his energies to the creation of a work
in which he will arrange his reflections anew, and will present an
argumentative array of testimony perfectly ample to silence unjust or
incompetent criticism.

I have stated that

Hahnemann
desired to remain inconspicuous ; in confirmation it is true that he took
such precautions that his most faithful Parisian
disciples, those who would have esteemed it the highest pleasure to have
welcomed him, were ignorant of his arrival for a fortnight or more.

“He selected a residence out of the way ; he made no visits ; he
even denied himself his wonted and necessary exercise, but a renown like
his own traverses distance and penetrates walls. In brief time his
dwelling has become known, and at this moment his portal, as in

Germany,
is besieged by the multitudes who esteem health as the first of human
blessings.

” But a faithful guardian watches over him night and day, his
wife, who will not allow the precious moments and days to be scattered and
wasted for the interest of individuals ; consultations are not
indistinctly allowed, and in the audiences that are demanded

Hahnemann
well knows what is due the scientific world, and the time required for
labor of his head and his pen must not be given to private consultations.

“We are glad to be able to say that the illustrious old man enjoys
the happiness very rarely granted to men and especially to savants, in
that he relishes the many delights and gifts of life at an age that is
usually only marked by infirmities and privations.

Hahnemann is in full possession of his senses, and his intellectual
faculties were never clearer at any time in his life ; his health, perfect
in all points, is a most convincing proof of the benefits of the
Homoeopathic regimen followed by him ; at eighty years of age he possesses
all the bodily vigor desirable and does not feel the slightest discomfort.

He is the object of the greatest solicitude and attention from his new
wife, and we do not hesitate to say regarding this lady that it is a
veritable adoration filling her whole life.

Hahnemann
is for her more than man, she worships him, we cannot express this
sentiment by any other expression ; she consecrates to him every moment of
her life ; she never leaves him ; she is his shadow ; she has become his alter
ego.

Gifted in a very great degree, speaking fluently many languages, among
them

German,
she formerly occupied herself with poetry, she paints in oil with rare
talent (she has executed a portrait of the great man bearing the most
exact resemblance, (An
engraving from this was published in Dudgeon’s translation of the
“Organon,” London, 1847),
she now applies all the force of her mind to the study of Homoeopathy, and
possessed of a most excellent memory she is able to narrate promptly to
the learned physician the symptoms recorded in the Materia Medica
corresponding to the diseases.

She has become capable of tabulating morbid symptoms with great
exactitude ; in the same manner that she has become the hand of Hahnemann
has she also become his head.

” Knowing all this, one can readily understand this admirable
woman. She receives the respect of all the Homoeopaths. On one formal
occasion when they were received by the master she extended her regards to
all the enthusiastic disciples, the adorers, so to speak, she regards them
all as friends.

It is difficult to describe the grace with which she did the honors at
a fete given to

Hahnemann
by the Homoeopaths residing in Paris.
Hahnemann
received his friends with great courtesy, and she had a kindly word of
welcome for every one. Hahnemann
will not return to Coethen.”
(Bibliothèque
Homéopathique, 1836, Vol. VI, p. 118. Hygea., Vol. III., p 392.)

Treatment of the Marquis of

Anglesey

During
the year 1835, among other distinguished patients,

Hahnemann
treated and cured the Lord Paget,
Marquis of Anglesey,
of facial neuralgia.

The account appeared in the

New
York Albion in
1848 . Dr. John T.
Temple published it in
his Homoeopathic journal and says : (Southwestern
Hom. journal and Review, St. Louis, 1848, Vol. I, p. 81.)

” To ascertain the accuracy of this account we applied to Dr.
Hull, editor of the

Homoeopathic
Examiner, who,
while in England,
acquired a personal knowledge of the fact, and he has obligingly, favored
me with the following memorandum :

“‘ It cannot fail to give unfeigned pleasure to learn that the

Marquis
of Anglesey has fully
recovered from the dreadful tic
douloureux with which
he has for so many years been afflicted.

The malady appeared soon after this gallant nobleman submitted to
amputation of the leg, which was shattered in the battle of

Waterloo,
and assumed after a few years the most aggravated form of prosopalgia
Fothergilii, affecting
the right side of the face.

The cure was effected by the celebrated author of Homoeopathy,

Hahnemann.
The Marquis applied to this venerable physician in 1835, at the
instigation of his medical attendant, Dr. Dunsford,
of London,
after having tried the ordinary methods under the ablest masters in Europe
for sixteen years.

The
paroxysms for a long time previous to the application of the Homoeopathic
method had recurred at intervals of from six to ten minutes only, night
and day, and had reduced the brave old nobleman to a mere wreck of his
former self.

The Marquis has had no relapse whatever since the cure, which occupied
a few months, and has enjoyed uninterrupted health for nearly five years,
having wholly recovered his flesh, strength and constitutional
vigor.”

Dr.

Wm. Tod Helmuth
also alludes to this wonderful cure. (N.
Am. Jour. of Hom., Vol. XIX., p. 534.)

Stoequeler

, in his
“Life of the Duke
of Wellington,”
says :

“The gallant

Anglesey
precedes the Life
Guards a cannon shot
takes off his leg.”

He afterwards became

Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland.

The year 1836 was memorable by reason of the presentation by the

French
Homoeopathic physicians of a medal to Hahnemann.

In the

Allgemeine
Zeitung, ‘Vol. IX.,
appears the following : (Allg.
hom. Zeit., Vol, IX., p. 112 . August 1, 1836)

Presentation of Medal by

French
Physicians

”
The French
Homoeopathic physicians have honored Hahnemann
and expressed their pleasure at his settling among them by presenting him
with a medal on which is his bust.

This they did in deputation, waiting upon him for the purpose.”

This item or account appears in a letter written to the

German
journal, dated Paris,
July 15, 1836.

Albrecht

says : (Albrecht’s
” Leben und Wirken,” p. 78.)

” Among the almost innumerable proofs that

Hahnemann
and his wife, who most zealously aided him in his medicinal and medical
endeavors, quite to as great an extent as lie had been accustomed to have
it done by his daughter, succeeded perfectly in subduing and captivating
the hearts of the French
people, it is to be mentioned that the Homoeopathic physicians living in France
had a medal struck containing Hahnemann’s
bust, in order to honor him and to thank him for settling in their Fatherland.
This medal was presented to him by a deputation about the middle of 1836.

” In

France,
also, the 10th of August was also celebrated as a holiday by the
adherents, friends and reverers of Homoeopathy. The springs of enthusiasm
welled up more and more copiously on these occasions.

“Two

French
poems, which were veritable masterpieces of their kind, demonstrated
clearly that the enthusiasm reached a singularly high pitch.

“Only upon

Napoleon
have we read odes, which breathe equal heartiness and truthfulness of
feeling and warmth of ardor.”

Hahnemann

still
remembered Germany,
and in a letter to Stapf,
from Paris,
in 1836, again, alludes to the hospital controversy of 1833 : (Hom.
World, Vol. XXVI., p. 116.)

Many thanks for sending me the first volume of your

‘Contributions
to the Pure Materia Medica.’

I value them highly ; and also for the third part of the fifteenth
volume of your

Archiv,
which gives promise of a reaction against the sansculottism of the
superlatively clever perverters of our experience-proved Homoeopathy. I
never cared to engage in polemics.

If I once broke my resolution (when I attempted in vain to set Dr.

Kretzschmar
right), I am determined, never to do so again.

“My disciples will perform this duty instead of me, if they have
any regard for the propagation of our divine art and for their own honor.

No defensive article is needed for me. I only beg the shameless,
ignorant assailants of the present day to bear in mind the

experimentium
corucis, that
they should prove their own qualifications to speak on the subject of
Homoeopathy by their deeds-real quick, frequent cases of serious diseases.

Mere
arguing, contemptuous utterances and fault finding with the better method
and arrogant presumption are no qualifications. I trust that the best of
my followers will put them to shame and by degrees overcome them.

” Your additions to

Anacardium,
etc., which you kindly communicated to me, have been utilized by me for,
and incorporated into, the second edition of the ‘Chronic
Diseases,’ as you no
doubt have seen in the second part of that edition.

” In respect to that also the inimical spirit of

Trinks
has been very evident.

It must have been by his devilish interference that

Arnold
let my manuscript lie so long unprinted. It was only after an innumerable
quantity of worrying letters and threats of legal prosecution that, after
two whole years, I got him to go to press ; but he only printed the first
two parts (altogether thirty six sheets).

“Then

Arnold
became bankrupt ; he could not continue the publication, and Trink’s
devilish object, to hinder the appearance of the work, was attained.
However, will soon see the light through another publisher. I believe it
will be a profitable undertaking.

” I live here with my dear wife, healthy, happy and honored, and
shall be always delighted to hear good news of the well*being of yourself
and amiable family.

Your friend,

Sam. Hahnemann. Paris, November 14, 1836.

” I return you the

Allentown
Correspondenzblatt
with thanks. There I have zealous, pure followers. Soon they will
surpass Germany.

” If our

Gross
has not put his name along with the rest to the Magdeburg
declaration of the 10th of August, then you may remember me kindly to
him.”

The second edition of the ”

Chronic
Diseases,” Vols.
I. and Il was published in 1835, by Schaub,
at Dusseldorf
; the third volume in 1837 ; the fourth in 1838 ; the fifth in 1839. But
two editions were ever published in the German.

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