Eight
Themes of Hahnemann Seen Through Haehl.
by Peter Morrell
Honorary Research Associate in the History of
Medicine, Staffordshire University, UK
Detail from a print called ‘Mad Dogs’, Jack Vettriano
1994, meaning ‘mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun’ from a
Noel Coward song of the 20s. May 1999. Peter Morrell
Eight Themes of Hahnemann Seen
Through Haehl
1. What he condemned
As a young
physician c.1783, “he strongly opposes the use of alcohol,
coffee, the internal use of corrosive sublimate and the customary
application of lead plasters and lead ointment.” [30] He saw no
possible hope or usefulness in these methods.
Frustrated by the medicine of his day, “he
repeatedly complains of the unreliability of the pharmaceutical
preparations.” [32] Gradually, “he recognised the
insufficiency of medical science…which he denounced with undaunted
energy and eloquence like the old prophets.” [33] Persistently “he
fought the pernicious habit of blood-letting and purging, particularly
prevalent in his time.” [35] He “repeatedly and
unhesitatingly attacks the evil of blood-letting.” [40]
Together, his complaints against the system of his training persuade him
to abandon medical practice entirely and forsake it for literary
activity. To that extent, “he withdrew more and more from
medical practice, which gave him no inward satisfaction,” [40]
and he thus immersed himself “deeper into the science of
chemistry.” [40] Yet, to medicine he remained “strongly
and closely attached,” [40] and so it is “only
outwardly that he appears to be estranged from the art of healing.”
[40] From 1784 to 1804 approx he had “almost entirely given up
his medical activities.” [41]
What was it that had so totally convinced Hahnemann
of these views? What was the real basis for his vehement opposition to
the old methods? What was this innate conviction that drive this
position forwards? What had convinced him so totally and unflinchingly
that the old methods were useless? Was it something in his life
experience? Or, was it something in his own disposition that made him
think so resolutely this way? It is not clear.
He never tired of condemning the barbaric methods of
his day: “blood-letting, fever remedies, tepid baths, lowering
drinks, weakening diet, blood cleansing and everlasting aperients and
clysters form the circle in which the ordinary German physician turns
round unceasingly.” [35, quote from SH in his Cullen Materia
Medica translation of 1790] He carried on his “fight against
blood-letting, purging and aperients with growing zeal,” [36]
and energy. Hahnemann never tired of denouncing “the delusions
of the ordinary methods of healing,” [64] in the strongest and
most unrelenting way possible.
As
far as he was concerned, ordinary medical theory comprised “arbitrary
opinions and false conclusions,” [65] and its methods were
disastrous. The method of “contraria contrariis, healing
opposites by opposites, is objectionable.” [65] Such “palliative
treatment of constipation by laxatives, of blood surgings by phlebotomy,
of acid eructations with alkalies, of chronic pains with Opium…does
the more injury the longer it is applied.” [66] By contrast, in
truth, “every effective remedy incites in the human body a kind
of illness peculiar to itself.” [66] Hahnemann proposed, “as
a result of too strong doses and too frequent administration an
artificial disease will arise of a more acute nature.” [68] The
patient soon becomes addicted to whatever medicines relieve their
symptoms. They easily become addicted to laxatives in this way.
Hahnemann was quick to realise that no drug-based treatment is other
than dependency. They do not cure. Either self-healing occurs or the
disease becomes chronic.
He repudiated the “mixing of medicines…and
prescription tomfoolery,” [74] which he never tired of
attacking. He took “up arms against the prescription writing so
popular at that time.” [68] He very much tended to see
allopathy and homeopathy as “the formal opposing of two
therapeutic systems, which could not be intermingled…the one excluding
the other.” [68] Those who tried to mix two systems he called
mixers or amphibians or half-homeopaths. He therefore saw them as
irreconcilable opposites that could not be blended. He wholeheartedly
derided the “long recipes…and medicinal hashes,” [69]
of the allopathic system. He derided “basis…adjuvens…corrigens…dirigens
and constituens,” [69] as forming an absurd basis for an
equally absurd pharmacy and in turn an absurd and injurious medicine.
Hahnemann despised the heroic allopathic measures: “cupping,
bloodletting, purgatives in the spring, and starvation cures, were
believed to be all that was required to restore the balance of a
disordered state of health.” [49] He opposed them all. His “candid
and unsparing criticism of the position of medical science at that
time,” [59] engendered much resentment among orthodox
physicians. He obviously said things they did not want to hear, things
that were most disagreeable and uncomfortable to their ears. Hahnemann
showed “his accurate knowledge of the history of the healing
art, and of its different systems. He rejects them all.” [77]
His “sharp criticism of the customary therapeutics of the
times,” [79] was unrelenting in its ferocity and most
disagreeable to regular physicians. “Allopathy, the wide and
ancient highway of school medicine…homeopathy, the narrow, new and
little used pathway leading to fresh country.” [89] He never
tired of condemning “the imperfections of the ordinary medical
art…[are] an elaborately adorned monster, a misleading phantom…[and]
a futile, injurious procedure.” [79; from On the Prevailing
Fever, 1808] He saw no hope and no possibility of cure from using
these methods.
The
aim of his contemporaries was “always directed towards cleaning
out of the organs, the diseased excess of accumulated, inflamed blood,
driving out the unhealthy juices and leading them into healthy parts,
etc.” [62-3] Hahnemann entirely repudiated this humours-based
approach to therapy as utterly useless and he mocked the ‘unhealthy
juices’ concept as nothing more than a laughable and hypothetical
fiction, bearing no relation to the reality of disease cause. It was
precisely such so-called purificatory measures that he detested and
regarded as useless because they were founded on an obsolete theory of
health and sickness, as well as being injurious – in his view.
“He inveighed against the manifold compounded
medicines and against the prescription of multi-mixtures.”
[77]
Hahnemann “rejected and fought against the theories of disease
origin and diagnosis, as known in his time.” [290]
He resisted “phlebotomy, emetics, purgatives,
etc.” [302] The chief idea behind these methods was
purificatory, to “clear away harmful substances from the body by
excessive perspiration or urination…or eruptions…to provide a mode
of exit for internal poisons.” [302] Allopathy therefore aimed
to “clean out the imagined disease substance…by emetics,
purgatives, agents provoking salivation, perspiration and urination,
drawing plasters, suppuratives.” [303] It is precisely such
imagined ‘humoral poisons’ that were regarded as the true causes of
sickness and which such methods aimed to vigorously expel. Hahnemann
felt these measures were way too vigorous and in any case directed
against the wrong enemy – a straw man. They were illusory.
As a physician, he soon became “convinced of
the imperfections of the old healing method of healing.” [255]
His “campaign against blood-letting…emetics and purgatives and
on the compound prescriptions which were so popular,” [273] and
which he regarded as “purely arbitrary…medicines, the effects
of which depend merely upon supposition,” [273] rather than any
valid therapeutic principles, was unrelenting and vehement. What had
convinced him of this position?
He felt obliged by sheer force of conscience to “renounce
the practice of a profession which was so dear to him,” [273]
but which he was forced to distance himself from because he regarded it
as corrupt and injurious.
The upshot of all these criticisms is that Hahnemann
clearly had some underlying, undisclosed reason or agenda that formed
the real basis of his views. As if he was already driven by certain
convictions, predisposed towards certain views, and was impatient merely
to denounce the established methods with unrestrained vigour. This is
the distinct impression he leaves on one.
2. Systems
Hahnemann
had a very clear notion of the various medical systems of his day as
well as those of the past; he rejected them all as useless. He did this
not on prejudice or dogma, but on long and detailed knowledge of each
and a through practical appraisal of his own that forced him to this
conclusion. He perceived more clearly than most “what a hopeless
confusion was prevailing in the therapy of his time.” [266] The
various systems had been thrown into an undignified competition with
each other, “where one tried to oust the other.” [266]
Certainly, Hahnemann saw this as a “period of hopeless confusion
in therapeutics…and it is in the midst of these contradictory systems
and therapeutic tendencies that he was educated and received his medical
training.” [266] Hahnemann’s time as a medical student falls
precisely in “this period of hopeless confusion in therapeutics…[and]
as a young doctor…[he finds himself] in the midst of these
contradictory systems and therapeutic tendencies.” [266] At
this time also, “Leipzig had not even a clinic or a hospital of
its own,” [266] and this is why Hahnemann felt “compelled
to go to Vienna,” [266] in order to obtain a better medical
training. Thus, the young graduate was “full of confidence…full
of fervid zeal to use the knowledge and ability he had acquired in the
interests of his fellow men.” [267] But he also possessed “a
keener power of observation, a more profound reflection, a more critical
appreciation of values…[and] he was soon able to realise how
unreliable…how valueless, how inadequate the artificially constructed
healing systems were for use at the bedside.” [267]
3. Unhappy Wandering – a Lost
Medical Career
With considerable bitterness of “his renunciation
of medical practice.” [63] Because of “the unhappy
external conditions he was experiencing at that time,” [63] “his
escape to scientific investigation with translations, writing and
chemical research,” [63] was clearly a refuge, an important
sanctuary from the terrible despondency he felt at a lost medical
career.
He engaged in “five years of restless
wandering from 1780 to 1785.” [p.31] His “restless
inclination for travelling.” [47] Many have wondered at “his
restless movements from one place to another,” [63] Far from
being a distraction, the wandering life seemed to feed and intensify the
intellectual energies required to solve these riddles. And let us never
forget that the ‘softness of heart’ that Haehl ascribes to Hahnemann
also enshrines that same high sentiment of conscience, which prevented
him from using a poisonous medical system that harmed its patients. He
clearly preferred to abandon medicine entirely, for years, rather than
be party to such a corrupt, dangerous and ineffective system. Yet, this
decision was also a very painful one to him, because of the energy he
had devoted to it as a career path or calling.
He became seized with “an inward revulsion
against the imperfections and inadequacies of the healing systems known
to him,” [266] and, becoming so intense, “compelled him
to renounce medical practice.” [266]
He therefore expressed his “growing horror…[at
the] dangers…remedies and palliatives…[and became] filled with shame
and assailed by torturing doubts…[at] how simple people knew more
about the most dangerous illnesses and…how to deal with them
successfully than the scientific physician.” [267] His doubts “grew
and grew [and] his conscience for those who entrusted themselves to his
care was more and more troubled.” [267] Therefore, he decided, “to
give up his medical practice,” [267] soon after his marriage in
November 1782 [28], and so occupy himself solely “with chemistry
and writing.” [267]
Haehl speculates that Hahnemann’s “continual
migrations sprang from this softness of his emotional side, lacking, as
it did, the inflexible will-power and inviolable capacity to
resist,” [122] the attacks by opponents. I do not find this
view very convincing, as I think he merely increasingly saw even
responding to such attacks as a tiresome and futile waste of his
energies compared to the much valuable work he still had left to do
refining his system still further. It is a stronger argument to propose
that he preferred to direct his remaining energies in that direction,
rather than wasting his time arguing with fools who were never going to
change their views anyway.
4. The Miasm Theory
“Few books have stirred up more excitement in
the medical world than Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases
.”
[137] His “Psora theory aroused the criticism of friend and foe
to a tremendous extent.” [137] Yet, the miasm theory
undoubtedly in an attempt to reach into “the deeper fundamentals
of disease.” [137] How can one overcome “the tyrannous
prejudice of the materialistic-bacteriological views?” [138]
Psora, “this thousand-headed monster.”
[145] “symptoms of the underlying miasmatic malady.”
[145] Hahnemann’s “idea of Psora coincides to a large
extent with that of inherited predisposition to disease.” [151]
As Haehl rightly observes, “the appearance of The Chronic
Diseases [1828] had given a perceptible impulse to further division
amongst the members of the movement.” [187] It was a further
catalyst of division and in-fighting.
The whole idea of miasms must have been brewing for
some years in Hahnemann’s mind. It was based upon observation of
numerous cases and a hunch about some deeper and internal causes of
recurrent sickness patterns: “the starting point for the main
ideas [of miasms]…was the observation that certain chronic diseases…could
be alleviated by homeopathic remedies, but not completely cured.”
[138] Nor could such disorders “be eradicated by the mere vigour
of a robust constitution…or overcome by the healthiest diet and order
of life, nor annulled by itself.” [138] To Hahnemann, “Psora
is a disease or disposition, hereditary from generation to generation
for thousands of years.” [144] It “can be observed in
the most variable forms imaginable.” [145]. However, the Psora
Theory “did not receive unanimous acceptance from his followers
even after Hahnemann’s death.” [150]
Homeopaths have assumed that “the itch
eruption could only develop on a favourable fostering ground, called
internal Psora.” [143] Psora as a miasm, therefore becomes “the
fostering soil for every possible diseased condition.” [144]
The miasm theory is in fact the logical extension of the vital force
concept, and brings the vital force to its ultimate point. Both are
subtle, nebulous and internal aspects of the organism—one the
fundamental cause of health; the other the fundamental cause of
sickness.
5. Religion and Philosophy
He “proceeded to vitalism…advanced beyond
this to spiritualism and for a time lost his way in occultism.”
[251]. It is not immediately clear what Haehl means by this puzzling
remark. He was certainly a religious man, in the simple sense of
believing in “the infinite spirit animating the universe.”
[65] He would hardly have promoted such ideas if he had been a
materialist! Yet, this simple statement reveals much about his ideas
because he was never content with describing the external or outer
aspects of disease or cure, but always searched the deeper, for an
internal or animating spirit in the organism and a source of sickness
operating on a similarly innate level. This describes very well his
abiding ideas of vital force and miasms.
“There was scarcely any branch of human
knowledge to which he was indifferent.”
[250] “In
temperament and development, both as man and as physician, he was a
strong opponent of materialism.” [251] “As the starting
point of his therapeutic reform he rejected materialism equally as an
outlook on life and as a fundament of his new theory.” [251].
As a result, we see in his development, that “the essentially
material had to yield more and more ground to the purely spiritual [the
dynamic] came more and more into the forefront.” [251]
Hahnemann was naturally attracted to philosophy, “but
the philosophers and their works offered him little satisfaction.”
[250-1] Yet, “his whole cultural development was permeated by
philosophy [and]…he was bound to return sooner or later to a more
detailed study,” [251] of it. He bore life’s inconveniences
and indignities with a “stoical dignity.” [251] He was “undismayed
by misfortune, satisfied in humble conditions…[and] always seeking and
finding contentment in his work.” [251] However,
philosophically, “it seems very questionable whether he
definitely accepted any special system,” [251] of ideas.
Temperamentally, he was “a strong opponent of materialism,”
[251] in all its forms. This non-materialistic attitude or “point
of view is clearly marked in…the development of homeopathy, in the
conception of dynamisation, in potentising, in giving medicines to smell
and in the very long intervals between…doses.” [251] This
might also explain Hahnemann’s “tendency towards Mesmerism.”
[251] Overwhelmingly, “the turn of his mental development was
undoubtedly towards the humanities.” [249]
Haehl proposes that Hahnemann’s “belief in
a God permeating every creature, all-beneficent, all-embracing,
omnipresent, was the impulse of his every action and the deepest source
of his philanthropy.” [252] Certainly, he “considered
the principles of Confucius…to be higher than those of Christ.”
[252] This clearly reflects the essence of Freemasonry. His faith had a “childlike
simplicity and fervour,” [252] to it, and was undoubtedly “one
of the poles of his life, determining his course of action in all
things.” [252] With regard to other philosophers, he saw Kant
as “too impracticably abstract for him and not clear enough in
his manner of presentation.” [252] He had a high regard for
everything Chinese.
In the course of time, it seems that Hahnemann became
convinced that he had become an instrument of fate, that a “living,
beneficent God had chosen him as his tool in order that mankind…should
be shown…a new method of healing.” [252] He therefore
regarded himself “as the working tool of the Divine Will and was
therefore full of confidence.” [252] This sentiment filled him
with “a firm conviction that his method of healing and his
remedies could help and rescue,” [252] ailing humanity. This
also explains “the harshness of his duel with the allopathic
physicians…[and] the inexorableness with which…he pursued
vacillating or dissident disciples…[and why he often seemed]
inexorable, impartially stern, untroubled about the consequences or the
animosities of the dispute.” [252-3] His attitude was “not
as the individual, autocratic creator of a new therapeutic process,”
[252] not, in other words, based on strong egotism, but rather that of “the
chosen representative of the All-supporting, living God.” [252]
This gave him a coolness, a sense of detachment from events and also
illuminates his devil-may-care attitude towards any opponents of his
mission. “He felt himself to be the apostle of the new doctrine,
appointed by fate and a gracious heaven.” [99] Certainly as a
person, “he remained faithful to himself and his life’s work,”
[264] and he regarded himself as “the divinely inspired prophet
of a new sacred science, destined to benefit…the whole of humanity.”
[264]
Hahnemann also saw that “this
conception of the Supreme Being…stood in the closest relationship to
his medical reform laws…God was not visible, not estimable, not
perceivable by the senses, but he was existing, All-powerful,
all-permeating, transfusing every creature. This conviction strengthened
him in his idea…of the efficacy of small and extremely small doses in
high and extremely high dilutions such as cannot be perceived by the
senses or determined by science.” [253] In this regard, he
probably delighted in the nebulosity and infinitesimal nature of
homeopathy as bringing it closer to the life-force, the soul and thus
also the Divine. Kent also made a similar construction of homeopathy as
a spiritual form of healing. Hahnemann therefore seemingly saw an innate
resonance, an unbreakable link between homeopathy and the Divinity.
The link to Freemasonry is also of interest. As Haehl
quite rightly observes, “the unusually early age at which he
entered Freemasonry obviously had its effect upon his philosophic and
religious views.” [253] Presumably this inspired an “unceasing
effort towards one’s own moral perfection, the belief in the rule of
an Omnipresent living God…[such ideas] were bound to attract a man
like Hahnemann and fill him with enthusiasm.” [253] Hahnemann
occasionally refers to “the ever-beneficent Godhead animating
the infinite universe,” [253] and various “philosophic
conceptions and a deep religious feeling permeated his whole line of
thought.” [253] He even makes a link between homeopathy and the
divine when he says: “a beneficent Godhead revealed this
sublime, this most wonderful of sciences!” [254] And also in
the way he manifested “an indomitable persistence and tenacity
in the pursuit of his life’s aim. Without regard for difficulties and
disappointments, he went towards his purpose.” [254]
The “sublime Godhead, whose priests we are.”
[254] Hahnemann held a “belief in a God permeating every
creature.” [252] He regarded himself as “a man ordained
by fate to a great mission.” [255]
6. The Subtle Realm of Sickness
Cause
When Hahnemann refers to “the internal nature
of every disease,” [74, from Medicine of Experience,
1805] he plainly means its ‘genotype’ as opposed to its visible,
phenotypic or external features. This is a very illuminating comment, as
it clearly reveals his recurrent preference for the deeper and
subtler perception of things, as opposed to their coarser more
superficial appearances. Hahnemann also felt that the use of crude drugs
was resonant with superficial non-curative treatment of the coarse
appearances of sickness, while diluted remedies resonated naturally with
the subtle realm of sickness cause. To some extent this view is
spiritual or derives from a tenet of Freemasonry, that is, by belief in
a supreme being, a moral code to be good and to help others, especially
the needy. It is clear that Hahnemann easily fulfilled these basic
requirements. He regarded the subtle realm of disease cause to be
contiguous with the vital force.
7. The Life Force: the Core of
his Medical Teachings
Hahnemann had essentially the same
views on the natural healing powers as an illustrious band of physicians
before him. According to Haehl, these include Hippocrates, Galen,
Sydenham, Stahl, and the Montpellier School [282-6]. Although he
believed in the vital force and built homeopathy very much around that
concept, he regarded allopathy as using it only in a “crude,
unseeing, unintelligent, unreasoned,” [287] way, whose methods
were not truly enhancing of the vital powers, but in fact depleted them.
“Hahnemann’s theory and ideas about vital force and natural
healing power…place him close to others, e.g. the striking agreement
of his views with Sydenham about natural healing power, with the basic
ideas of Stahl’s animism, and with the thought processes of Bordeu and
Barthez in their vitalism.” [289] They were clinicians
prominent in the Montpellier School of France.
Hippocrates conceived of the vital force as “an
inborn power regulating…the functions of the organs and the correct
relative mixture of the humours.” [283] By the same token, “illness
is a disturbance of the healthy equilibrium.” [283] Galen “agreed
with Hippocrates on a natural healing power inherent in the body,”
[283-4] but made many confusing remarks as well. Stahl’s view was that
the symptoms of “diseases were simply the efforts of the
organism…to restore the equilibrium of health.” [284] Even in
the Montpellier school, illness was seen as “an affection of the
life power and is expressed by disturbances…[it is] a reaction of the
life power.” [285]
Therefore, the primary aim of treatment is “maintenance
of those forces needed by the organism for healing, namely, those acting
mechanically, chemically and dynamically.” [285] Natural or
rational treatment must therefore be conceived to assist the innate
healing power, not to run counter to its own efforts. Even in Schelling’s
Natural Philosophy, we can see a link to Hahnemann’s vital force,
because he “taught that nature was to be regarded as a
self-contained whole, held together by a mental side…matter is not the
origin but the result.” [285] This view can be linked to
Hahnemann’s view of the vital force as the dynamic precursor of health
and order at the mental and physiological level, just as he also
conceived of the miasms as the dynamic precursor of disorder and
sickness at the physiological level.
Clearly, therefore, in such a scenario, “life
force actuates the normal action of the body only in its healthy state
and is thrown out of gear by the ‘disease factor’…” [286]
which can be roughly equated with Hahnemann’s miasms. There is no
doubt that Hahnemann “retained up to his death the conception of
the vital force,” [287] regarding it as a central concept of
homeopathy, and as having a twofold aspect, firstly being a natural
healing power “able to transform illness into health
[spontaneous cures],” [287] and secondly, of being “the
necessary essential of all attempts at medical therapy.” [287]
That is, being acted upon by natural therapies and stimulated thereby
into renewed activity. Remedies enhanced its enfeebled innate powers.
Indeed, he never denied the existence of its power, “he
acknowledged the natural healing power…and saw in it a main support of
his theory.” [287]
Though his remarks in the Organon
refer variously to natural healing and vital force in different ways, in
the different editions up to “the year 1842,” [287]
nevertheless, there remains no doubt that he always meant the same thing
and Hahnemann’s meaning “remained practically unaltered,”
[287] throughout his entire medical career. It is roughly in keeping
with the views of Hippocrates, Stahl and the Montpellier school, but not
with those of Brown or Galen, Boerhaave or Hoffmann, where the effects
of the vital force are not always highly regarded or assisted or
regarded as curative, or in which therapy tends to run against the
natural efforts of the vital force by contrary contraries.
Hahnemann was actually violently opposed to this
whole school of thought. He believed that allopathy virtually ignored
the vital powers and “acted in a blind and crude way.”
[287] His “battle against allopathy and its methods of
phlebotomy, scarification, purgatives and emetics was a battle against
these false fundamental views…[which opposed] his conviction of the
insufficient action of the life-force in disease.” [287]
He therefore believed that in the old school the
vital powers “was entirely misunderstood and wrongly construed.”
[288] Hahnemann came to realise that the natural healing powers of the
vital force were much less than had been imagined, and that this
depleted power needed the enhancement which potentised remedies seem
uniquely capable of supplying it.
Hahnemann deplored the antagonistic methods of
allopathy precisely because “evacuation and revulsion is not
curing and does not lead to health.” [288] Hahnemann says
“we must go deeper,” [288] in order to reach the
dynamic plane of disease cause and where cure becomes truly possible. To
utilise “the natural healing power is not alone sufficient.”
[289]
Additionally, therefore, to “external,
mechanical surgical help an inward dynamic help,” [288] is also
required in order to overpower sickness. Therefore, “a suitable
internal medical treatment,” [289] is required to “support
the tendency of the natural healing power,” [289] to shake off
sickness. On its own, it does not have this power. Hahnemann therefore
clearly believed that the vital force alone is not sufficient to
overpower sickness; “it needs help.” [289] His views on
this topic show “what a keen observer and independent thinker he
was.” [289]
He rejected the “purely materialistic views
upon life, health and disease,” [290] as untenable and
incomplete, and preferred instead “the theory of a spiritual
origin and motive to all organic behaviour, the theory of the life force
and the natural healing power as a dynamic principle.” [290] As
a consequence, he felt out of step with the medical thinking of his day,
whose theories “about the causes and phenomena of diseases lost
their value for him,” [290] as they did not accord with his own
observations and experiences.
He therefore “rejected and fought against the
theories of disease origin and diagnosis,” [290] of his own
time. In fact, he regarded such theories as incoherent, “a
confused babble of inferences and unproveable assertions…a crass
materialism…[bereft of] a biologically vitalistic conception.”
[290] Such views were “distasteful to a reasoning mind like
Hahnemann’s,” [291] and so he “soon dissociated
himself from the prevailing views,” [291] of health and
disease.
For example, he viewed the “material pecans,
which was then generally accepted as the cause of disease,”
[291] as nonsense. To him, the causes of disease “are not
mechanical or chemical alterations of the material substances of the
body…not dependent on a material morbific substance. They are merely
spirit-like [conceptual] dynamic derangements of the life.”
[291, quoting Organon 31] He declared that it is “the morbidly
affected vital energy alone [which] produces disease.” [291,
quoting Organon 12]
However, he does acknowledge and emphasise the
importance of lifestyle factors that act to trigger specific episodes of
sickness. These include “excesses or deprivation, violent
physical impressions, chills, excessive heat, fatigue, overstrain…psychic
excitations, affections, etc,” [292] to which he also adds “meteoric
or telluric influences and injuries,” [292] and today we might
include poor self-image, depressed spirits, stress, despair and low
self-esteem, failure, sense of loss or grief, all of which can
demonstrably depress immune function as precursors to sickness.
It is therefore very clear that Hahnemann makes an
honest, solid and serious attempt to construct a comprehensive and
detailed theory of disease cause primarily grounded in spiritual
matters, but one that also acknowledges the harmful influence of “wrong
mode of living, nourishment, dwelling, clothing, lack of exercise,
inordinate exertion,” [292] etc. He emphasised that the factors
“deleterious to health…are partly psychical partly physical…[and
which possess] the power to disturb unconditionally the healthy human
organism.” [292]
He acknowledged that each case of sickness is unique
to each person and that “disease is reflected in the totality of
the symptoms,” [292] rather than in a part of the body or some
named entity. Thus, he rejected the notion of specific diseases, the
disease label, applicable to many cases or to only a few parts of the
body as an incomplete view.
8. Credulity and Intolerance
“with extraordinary credulity Hahnemann,
particularly in the seclusion of the Kothen period, listened to
calumnies against the ‘half homeopaths’…it was exactly on such
occasions that his lack of worldly wisdom…and calm judgement was
revealed…[and] an ever-growing egotism
.” [256] This led to an
“incapacity for charitable criticism…[and] prevented…reconciliation
with friends and students,” [257] from whom he had become
estranged after having once enjoyed great friendship. There is little
doubt, therefore, that “he became narrower and more intolerant
in his views.” [257] This again reflects and re-emphasises the
clarity and certainty of his vision, his instinctive condemnation of
allopathy and his deep focus view of medicine.
His “excessive severity…even ridiculous…vehemence,
generating hatred and even passion – was counterbalanced on the softer
side by his goodness of heart and his magnanimity,” [261] for
example, “he was always treating patients gratis…[even] at a
time when he was by no means blessed with material benefits.”
[261] He also possessed a definite “kindness of heart and love
towards his children.” [261]
According to Haehl, during his whole life, “he
did not have one really intimate friend,” [255] although I
imagine that Melanie came the closest to that role later in his life.
However, in case we forget, “Melanie…[was] a very decided
woman in money matters.” [87] Yet in Paris, they both “regularly
treated free a number of people without means.” [260]
Haehl claims that Hahnemann maintained only a “slack
observance of freemasonry…[as exampled by] his remarkable
disinclination to form an intimate and devoted association with other
men.” [255] “Whoever was not unconditionally on his
side, was considered his opponent and was rejected by him,”
[256] and there are certainly abundant examples of that in his dealings
with fellow homeopaths. Haehl points to his very suspicious and
distrustful nature that led him to denounce “whoever should
deviate from his theory by a hair’s breadth was a traitor with whom he
would have nothing to do.” [256]
There is no doubt that at times he became “fired
by a passionate intolerance and implacable hatred…[that] repulsed
capable men of vigour [Moritz Muller] and scared…allopaths who would
have liked to become acquainted with homeopathy.” [256] It was
in this way that “Hahnemann injured most himself and his cause.”
[256] Even some of his closest friends “realised and regretted
these faults in his nature, which became the more grossly emphatic as
time went on,” [256] rearing their head more frequently and
intensely. “a mean slap in the face for the despised homeopathy
and the hated Hahnemann.” [112] “Goethe was impressed…by
Hahnemann’s theory of healing.” [113]
Discussion
What we have seen is that somehow or other, for
reasons thusfar unknown, Hahnemann became convinced at a very early
stage in his medical career, that sickness should ideally be treated and
cured at the gentlest, most dynamic and functional level, and not at the
crude chemical or brute mechanical level of organism functioning. This
is clearly a point of crucial significance to understanding the man and
his work. It is not clear why, but he shows repeatedly a strong and
inherent preference for metaphysical views in
medicine as opposed to those confined by the visible and
tangible realm of the senses. This view can be described as the absolute core essence of Hahnemann’s medical teachings,
and is the ‘big idea’ that he pursued all his life. Every other
aspect of homeopathy can be reduced to this single crucial point. It is
the single nail from which the whole system hangs. Two questions emerge
from this: why did he arrive at this view, and why so early on in his
career? He possessed very subtle and penetrating observational powers
that took him straight to the heart of any matter he decided to
contemplate.
He seems to have been blessed with an instinct, a
hunch, that this somehow must be the case, and for the rest of his
career he never deviates from it once. This explains the unrelenting
ferocity with which he condemned, even early on, every crude chemical
and mechanical approach to sickness in the medicine of his day. It also
explains his interest in the gentle, subtle, and infinitesimal in
medicine, his view of mental illness, his use of olfaction and interest
in Mesmerism. He castigated the crude mechanical and chemical approach
of his day as both fundamentally uncurative and damaging to the life of
the patient. Uncurative and damaging
– these are the two crucial points that he tirelessly repeated in
every critique he made of school medicine and of the ancient methods;
these are the very sticks he repeatedly beats them with.
The exact reasons why Hahnemann came to acquire this
unshakeable conviction are unclear, they remain a mystery, but they
might be found in his residence in Hermannstadt at the start of his
career, for example, perhaps in the teachings of freemasonry, possibly
in his own religious views, or in his prolonged study of past medical
systems. Quite possibly, it might have been an amalgam of all these
reasons that, from a very early point in his career, drove him on
tirelessly in his work. Whatever the reason, he
clearly felt that the root cause of sickness – and thus its elimination
– does not lie, has never lain, and will never lie in the sensible
realm of the visible and the tangible, but in some more nebulous and
subtle realm; he was a prophet of a non-molecular form of medicine.
Perhaps there is a link to Plato or Kant in his attitude? For the same
reason, he became convinced that the only
genuinely curative system of therapy would be one that is capable of
reaching into this deeper, subtle and most secret of sickness causes and
which is therefore based on methods equally nebulous and subtle, that do
indeed transcend the visible and tangible realm of sense data.
The potentised single drug seems to conform, therefore, to this idea of
transcending the visible and tangible. It is the answer to his original
quest. He arrived there partly through predisposition, partly through
study and partly through dint of experience.
Nor should we forget, that the even more crippling
fall-out from this view is also both as obvious and as applicable today
as it was two centuries ago. In essence, any medical practice that is
solely physical, chemical or mechanical in its approach is automatically
doomed, according to Hahnemann, being only capable at best of
superficially alleviating symptoms [palliation] and can never stave off
sickness let alone remove the subtle underlying causes which lie hidden
within an assumed ‘non-physical realm’ of the living organism, and
which keep throwing to the surface new disease phenomena in the life of
every person like an unstoppable fountain. It can neither cure sickness
nor remove the innate tendency to be sick.
Such a view is also deemed by Hahnemann to be
universally valid for all times and all places and is the fundamental
corollary of his damning analysis of the desultory – damaging and
uncurative – medicine of his day. Thus, Hahnemann automatically dooms
any physiological or chemical approach to therapy, from the outset, as
fundamentally uncurative as it never gets to the root cause and at best
it can only ever alleviate symptoms. That is manifestly just as true
today as two centuries ago. Therefore, even though in that stretch of
time, its drugs and methods having changed many times, yet, medicine
itself, in its core attitude, has not radically progressed one
millimetre from the same fixedly physiological and material approach to
disease. Though probably less damaging than its heroic predecessor, it
is still as intrinsically palliative and uncurative as in Hahnemann’s
day. It fails to go to deeper causes. At the deeper, most fundamental
level, from which Hahnemann instinctively prefers to speak, it is still
just as blind, as suppressive and as uncurative. Disease still continues
to arise and to multiply into an ever-growing diversity of manifold
forms, just as it did in his day. Such is what we observe today and
conforms totally to all Hahnemann’s original observations of and
predictions about this matter.
What is truly remarkable about Hahnemann is that so
very early on in his career he had come to adopt a certain view, had
reached a definite conclusion that the external, visible and tangible
‘phenotype’ of sickness is not the true disorder, but that it in
turn stems from a deeper, invisible form of disorder resident in the
dynamic or functional level of the organism. It is the latter and not
the former that really needs to be cured. This was quite a startling if
not unique medical perspective at that time that no-one else adopted;
they were all quite satisfied with the crude approach of the day.
Hahnemann’s view may in part have arisen from his
religious and philosophical views, or from his predisposition, but also
in large measure derives from his very keen observational powers at the
bedside, in seeing how sickness develops and behaves and how patients
respond to crude drugs in large doses, to bloodletting and mixed
prescriptions. By innate predisposition he was profoundly dissatisfied
with the view of sickness [and treatment] focused solely at the physical
level of symptoms. He demanded a deeper understanding of disease. Yet
that view seemed to satisfy all his contemporaries. This explains the
extraordinary ferocity with which he habitually condemned mixed drugs,
blood-letting and strong doses in particular, and even from such an
early stage in his career. In his opinion, these methods had condemned
themselves in the court of common sense by their therapeutic uselessness
and the injurious effects they had continued to inflict upon countless
patients.
It is also apparent that this dissatisfaction was
even apparent at a very early stage of his career, because even in
1781-2 he was condemning mixed drugs, strong doses and bloodletting as
uncurative and harmful therapeutic practices. This again therefore
emphasises the origins of his condemnations and its basis within his
life experience and his inner mental life such convinced him thoroughly
that cure of sickness at the functional and dynamic level was the only
true cure, the only desirable goal in medicine.
To some degree, the bitterly acrimonious dust-up with
allopathy flowed naturally from Hahnemann’s insistence, his
unshakeable conviction, that the two systems comprised irreconcilably
polar opposites.
Modern Slant
We must pause for a while and consider exactly what
this all means. It means that psychotherapy, surgery and crude drugs
might help your sickness, but they can never cure it. It means that a
better diet and regular physical exercise might well help you feel
fitter, but they can never cure you of sickness or the tendency towards
sickness. It means that multi-vitamins, fish oils, osteopathy, herbal
supplements and antioxidants might make you healthier and happier but
they will not cure you. It means that massage, aromatherapy, colonic
irrigation, reflexology and meditation may well improve your life, but
they will not cure your sickness at the deepest level or the innate
tendency to be sick.
It means that homeopathy – and possibly acupuncture
too – are the only truly curative medical systems that not only
improve, alleviate and cure sickness, elevate health and well-being, but
also remove the innate tendency to become sick at all. What Hahnemann
realised was that all these other therapies that address merely the
outer, physical or chemical aspects of sickness [residing only in the
visible and tangible realm] never get to the heart of the matter. They
are not truly curative. They cannot reach let alone remove sickness at
the truly curative level and they cannot stop disease from arising from
its mysterious subtle source. For these reasons, they all remain
inferior and palliative systems of therapy that can only relieve
symptoms at best. This was a fundamental medical discovery of Hahnemann
and is still valid to this day.
Secluded in Coethen, “he continued his
medical activities…to test, observe and extend his theories by the
treatment of patients. That was the higher conception of his healing
science, which he always kept in sight.” [122]
Sources
Richard Haehl, Samuel
Hahnemann: His Life and Works, 2 volumes, 1922, volume 1