THE SECRETIVE HAHNEMANN
AND THE ESOTERIC ROOTS OF HOMEOPATHY
by Peter Morrell
Plato is absorbed into the realm of pure Ideas, 7 Dec
2001 – Peter Morrell
The Secretive Hahnemann
and the Esoteric Roots of Homeopathy“Not a single
founder or follower of any of the medical systems could or…would
dare to carry out his system faithfully and vigorously into
practice, without doing the greatest injury to patients.” [Lesser
Writings, 1808, 497]
Boerhaave
herman“In an eight
years’ practice, pursued with conscientious attention, I had learned
the delusive nature of the ordinary methods of treatment, and from
sad experience I knew right well how far the methods of Sydenham,
and Frederick Hoffmann, of Boerhaave and Gaubius, of Stoll, Quarin,
Cullen, and De Haan were capable of curing.” [Lesser
Writings, 513]“[In 1777] he
carefully catalogued Baron von Brukenthal’s immense library of books
and rare manuscripts. It was during the quiet, scholarly days, in
the secluded library at Hermannstadt [Sibiu], that he acquired that
extensive and diverse knowledge of ancient literature, and of occult
sciences, of which he afterwards proved himself the master, and with
which he astonished the scientific world.” [Bradford, 28]____________________________________________
This essay explores
why Hahnemann left only scant hints about where he obtained his medical
ideas and what major historical influences impinged upon his formulation
of homeopathy.To summarise
Hahnemann’s life in the early 1780s would be a compelling and very
worthwhile task, primarily because it was undoubtedly the major turning
point in his life, and from which sprang his burning desire to reform
medicine and so become, like Paracelsus before him, a “medical
Luther,” [Temkin, 16]. Despondent is not really a word strong
enough to describe how he felt at that point in time, about to abandon
in disgust, as he was, the practice of medicine [Dresden, 1784 –
Bradford, 36-7], which had been his life’s love and ambition and into
which he had poured all his energy, his life and his soul.Yet, even this summary
does not really convey the true extent of his problems. Having been
trained in the medicine of the day, he had applied himself most
diligently to its practice at the bedside, only to be rewarded by severe
disappointment at every turn by a system that seemed to be utterly
useless, unpredictable and downright harmful to patients.How could any honest
man of conscience and good moral character such as he, hold his head
high and look his fellow in the eye armed only with such a desultory,
damaging and inefficacious tool to treat the sick? He just could not
stomach what to him amounted to a form of deceit against his fellow
human beings. He was temperamentally quite unsuited to deceive his
patients and ‘calm their fears’ when he knew full-well that most
treatments on offer were useless: “…he was not more clumsy or
stupid than other doctors; he simply lacked that power to shuffle off
responsibility which enabled them to face every failure,”
[Gumpert, 43]. His conscience for those who entrusted themselves to his
care “was more and more troubled,” [Haehl, I, 267].
Having married in Dec 1782 [Bradford, 36] and his first child
[Henriette] having been born in 1783 in Gommern [Haehl, I, 30], he could
not bring himself to ‘bleed and purge’ his own dear children:“But children
were born to me, several children, and in course of time serious
diseases occurred, which, because they afflicted and endangered the
lives of my children – my flesh and blood – caused my conscience to
reproach me still more loudly, that I had no means on which I could
rely for affording them relief.” [Lesser Writings, 512]It is probably true to
say that quite apart from concern for his growing family, Hahnemann had
four great forces gestating inside him at that time, struggling for
power and dominance in his thinking and comprising the main elements of
his dilemma. The first force was his training in Old Physic, with which
he was by now so bitterly disenchanted because of its woeful inadequacy
as a medical system [Haehl, I, 22, 40; Bradford, 42].
Samuel
von BrukenthalThe second force was
the esoteric tradition of arcane medicine and mysticism, parts of which
he had undoubtedly glimpsed in his studies in Sibiu [Hermannstadt] in
1777-9 with Baron Samuel von Brukenthal [1721-1803; http://homeopathyforce.com/photo/b/brukenth.htm],
the rich Patron who had saved him from ruin by paying for his last year
of study to gain his MD at Erlangen, and who had initiated him into the
Freemasons in October 1777 [Bradford, 27] only three days after his
arrival in Transylvania [Haehl, I, 22]. Apart from acting as his
physician, he also repaid his debt to Brukenthal by cataloguing his
library [websites: http://www.verena.ro/brukenthal/library.htm and http://www.cimec.ro/Carte/brukenthal/biblioteca.htm
– latter in Romanian] over the best part of two years.We read in Haehl, that
while in Sibiu, Hahnemann “spent most of his time arranging his
patron’s extensive private library,” [Haehl, I, 23], which
“counts about 280,000 books; the most precious collection is
represented by the 386 incunabula (Thoma de Aquino, Opus praeclarum
quarti Scripti, Mainz, 1469; Breviarum croaticum, 1493; Petrarca,
Triomphi, 1488; Schedel’s Chronicals (2,000 woodcut illustrations),
Nürnberg, 1493; De mirabilibus mundi by Solinus C. Iulius, printed in
Venice in 1488; Strabo’s Geography, Rome, 1473; Pliniu the Older’s
Natural History, Venice, 1498; Boccacio’s and Petrarca’s works and so
on).” [from the above website]
Jean
Pharamond RhumeliusDr Michael Neagu, in
his history of homoeopathy in Rumania [Geschichte der Homöopathie in
Rumänien, 1995], discusses the significance of the position Hahnemann
took as cataloguist to the library of Brukenthal at Sibiu [north-west of
Bucharest], because the library contains a large collection of original
works by mediaeval alchemists and physicians, including, for example,
the ‘Medicina Spagyrica Tripartita’ (1648) of Jean Pharamond Rhumelius
[c1600-c1660], which Neagu describes as “a fundamental esoteric
work, relying on the principle of ‘similia similibus curentur’,”
[Neagu, 25; Dinges, 259]. This otherwise forgotten yet important aspect
of influences upon the early Hahnemann, is also discussed in Haehl,
1922, [I, 11 & 21-24, & II, 9-10].
John
Martin HonigburgerNeagu’s main point is
that Hahnemann could hardly have failed to be inspired by the contents
of that Library and probably picked up some therapeutic ideas while
there, if only unconsciously. Neagu goes on to add that one of
Hahnemann’s direct disciples, Honigberger [1794-1869], “was a
speaker of the Rumanian language and had practised homoeopathy in all
three Romanian principiates,” [Neagu, 25]. Although this does
not conclusively prove that Hahnemann read these works, had any interest
in them or obtained ideas from them, yet it does match other aspects
about him, as explored here, touching as it does upon an unresolved
problem about the origins of homoeopathy, which Hahnemann himself was
consistently unwilling to discuss.The third force that
pushed him on was undoubtedly science and experimentation, with which,
as a means of proof and to dispel superstition, he was deeply enchanted.
Having a strong experimental bent himself and a yearning to dabble in
chemistry, he greatly admired figures like Priestley [1733-1804],
Lavoisier [1743-94] [Haehl, I, 32; Bradford, 38] and Berzelius
[1779-1848; Dudgeon, xxi].“But the sole
consolation of Hahnemann’s existence in Dessau [1779-83] was his
daily visit to the apothecary, Häesler, in whose laboratory he
could continue his study of chemistry.” [Gumpert, 26]“The time he
spent in Dessau afforded him a welcome opportunity of pursuing his
chemical research in the laboratory of the Moor Apothecary Shop —
work which was so significant for his pioneer activities in
medicine.” [Haehl, I, 265]“Hahnemann
devoted himself entirely to chemistry and writing, according to his
own admission. He puts chemistry first. In this science he was
self-taught. He had never received any definite course of
instruction in the subject or possessed a laboratory except during
his stay in Dessau (1781), where he had found a suitable place in
the Moor Apothecary Shop for his experiments and probably also an
occasional tutor in the person of the Apothecary Häesler.”
[Haehl, I, 268]However, this chemical
interest could also be interpreted as a means for him to test some of
the alchemical insights he had derived from secret study of arcane
medical texts. Consider, for example, Hepar sulph and Causticum
that require overtly alchemical procedures like calcination and
distillation for their preparation [Chronic Diseases, I, 559,
762; Bradford, 152]. It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that he
acquired some practical experience and instruction in alchemy from
Häesler.Finally, the fourth
great force at work in him, and which dominated his thinking at this
time of crisis, was his study of the medical past through his great
skill as a linguist and as the translator of diverse scientific and
medical treatises from Latin, French, and English into the German
language:“[In
1784]…he translated Demarchy’s ‘The Art of Manufacturing Chemical
Products’ from the French. It was an elaborate work in two volumes,
to which he made numerous additions of his own.” [Gumpert, 34].Yet, Hahnemann, “driven
by his own inward dissatisfaction, eked out only a scanty living by
means of translations,” [Haehl, I, 262]. As a measure of his
great energy, he “published during this period [1790-1805] over
5,500 printed pages – original work, essays in medical journals, and
translations, among these were works of fundamental importance, which
deserve special attention,” [Haehl, I, 48]. During the period
from 1777 to 1806, he translated 24 texts from other languages into
German. All but six of these translations were made during the 1780’s
and 1790’s, when he was conducting various chemical experiments.Recognising
“the insufficiency of medical science,” [Haehl, I, 33],
and “disgusted with the errors and uncertainties of the
prevalent methods of medical practice,” [Bradford, 36], it was
probably his “growing disgust for the medical fallacies of the
day,” [Bradford, 43], and while “searching for some
reliable basis upon which to resume practice,” [Coulter, II,
311], that forced Hahnemann back within himself to study the medical
past and to reconsider some of those strange medical ideas which he had
first encountered in von Brukenthal’s great library in Sibiu – allegedly
the greatest collection of arcane medical texts in Europe. [Neagu, and
website], and study of which had made him “master of occult
sciences,” [Bradford, 28]. How else can we explain his
behaviour? When the tried and tested has failed us, then we cast around
within the sphere of the known, and even into the sphere of the unknown,
to find a replacement set of ideas and methods. This is by no means an
unreasonable viewpoint, and explains much.“After I had
discovered the weakness and errors of my teachers and books, I sank
into a state of sorrowful indignation, which had nearly altogether
disgusted me with the study of medicine.” [Opening lines of Aesculapius
in the Balance, 1805, in Lesser Writings, 410, Jain
Edition]In essence,
circumstance forces anyone who has lost everything to reconsider in
greater depth those things they had previously and perhaps impulsively
cast aside as useless. Discovering the abject failure of orthodoxy, and
being rendered bereft of any medical philosophy at all, must have
inspired Hahnemann to reinvestigate the old systems with a fresh and
more attentive spirit. He was thus impelled to indulge the other three
passions to a much greater extent: reading and translating, conducting
chemical experiments and reviewing those ideas and methods from the
arcane world.
Thomas
SydenhamIn somewhat wearily
embarking upon this new path, prepared for him by Destiny and “his
conscience,” [Bradford, 36; Haehl, I, 47], Hahnemann must soon
have found himself the inheritor of a range of complex problems issuing
from the medical past, which prevented him from taking up medical
practice. These also barred his way to further progress because they
were simply unsolved riddles, age-old problems that each of his
illustrious predecessors had failed fully to solve: such fundamental
matters as similars vs. contraries; mixed vs. single drugs; large or
small doses; vitalism vs. mechanism. In his reading, Hahnemann soon laid
bare a complex web of contrasting opinions amounting to a veritable
war-zone of debate. Sydenham [1624-89], Hoffmann [1660-1742] and
Boerhaave [1668-1738], had their views, which, though rising to
prominence in the 17th and 18th centuries, did not enjoy universal
acceptance by all the medical profession. They represented the ascending
mechanical and materialist school, which portrayed the body as little
more than a machine.
HarveyThis age of medicine
can be seen as an age dominated by the machine. Just as the first
sciences were concerned with mechanics, the laws governing the movement
of physical objects, so too in the 1500s and 1600s the main focus is
upon the physical body itself, its dissection, drawings of the organs
and the machine-like conception of blood flow, the mechanics of muscle
action and the pneumatic principles of breathing. The anatomical work of
Harvey [1578-1657] and Vesalius [1514-64], Boyle’s work on gases, and
the drawings by Leonardo [1452-1519] are therefore very typical advances
of this period. We might realistically conceive these advances to be the
‘medical analogues’ of the machine cosmology of Newton [1642-1727],
Copernicus [1473-1543], Galileo [1564-1642] and Kepler [1571-1630], and
probably reflect an excessive “admiration for the triumphs of
the sciences since Galileo and Newton,” [Berlin, 1996, 28].This age also sought
to displace all those previously dominant magical and religious elements
in medical conceptuality, and what had become a “period of
conformity…mechanical, and in the end meaningless, through mere
repetition… the blankest patches in the history of human thought…a
great and arid waste,” [Berlin, 1996, 74].
HoffmannThe supernatural
fabric of medieval medicine gradually became abandoned and dismantled
and so fell into neglect, to be replaced by the new passion for
‘mechanism’ extolled by figures like Hoffmann and Boerhaave. What
happened in medicine certainly reflected things happening, and
conceptual shifts taking place in the natural sciences and philosophy.
Mechanics dominated everything at that time.Sydenham, for example,
who had very much set this impulse going, ruthlessly stripped disease of
any deeper philosophical relevance to the life of the patient as a
being, made individuality inconsequential, and regarded any disease as
merely another example of an infection by some noxious external agent
that has invaded the patient for no particular ethical or spiritual
reason. No special meaning was to be attached to any disease. He “applied
his objective investigations to both the treatment and to the
description of diseases. Divesting himself of much medieval tradition,
he approached therapeutic problems in a relatively empirical manner,”
[Shryock, 12].
ParacelsusHe “turned to
methodological empiricism,” [Warner, 44; King, 1970] and gave
credence to the view that a disease was a real entity separate from the
patient [Porter, 230]. Sydenham also “converted Bacon’s
neo-Platonic ‘form’ into a wholly new concept – the specific disease’...”
[Coulter, II, 2, 180]. He viewed diseases as “clear and distinct
entities ripe for taxonomy,” [Porter, 307]. “…the
description of a disease as an entity. This latter meaning prevailed
with Thomas Sydenham,” [Temkin, 28]. Sydenham also
misinterpreted Paracelsus about the physical nature of morbific
particles of contagion, echoing the view of Fracastoro [1478-1553;
Veith, 505], and so spawned the basis for the modern Germ Theory of
disease.“Where the
ancients had seen an inseparable connection between the patient and
his malady, Sydenham saw in the patient certain pathological
symptoms which he had observed in others and expected to see
again…he distinguished between the sick man and the
illness, and objectified the latter as a thing in itself.
This was a new outlook, an ontological conception of the nature of
disease which was eventually to prove of the utmost
significance.” [Shryock, 13, my emphases].Like Sydenham,
Hahnemann also revered Bacon as the founder of the inductive scientific
method [see Close, 1924, 15, 27-8, 248-9].
StahlThen, by contrast,
there were those full-blooded vitalists like Paracelsus [1493-1541], van
Helmont [1577-1644] and Stahl [1660-1734], who held a more esoteric
stance, believing that each disease carries a special spiritual aspect
as well as its obvious physical attributes. Like homeopaths such as Kent
[1849-1916], they rejected the outer physical aspects of disease as
being the true realm of disease causation, believing the organism to
possess an inner ‘spiritual body’ or ‘vital force’ – “…Van
Helmont’s Archeus, Stahl’s Animal Soul…” [Lesser Writings,
1808, 490; Haehl, I, 284] – that heals and coordinates during health,
but which also harbours the root causes of sickness, and what van
Helmont called “…exogenous agents…that irritate the
Archeus…” [Pagel, 428]. In the Organon, when writing
about the vital force, Hahnemann even “uses phrases that might
have been Stahl’s own,” [Haehl, I, 284].Unlike Sydenham, van
Helmont correctly interpreted Paracelsus that contagion occurred by a
“spiritual Gas,” [Pagel, 1946, 436] that invades the Archeus
and so creates sickness. Contagion had always been viewed as a spiritual
process and never physical. These ideas also resurfaced with homeopaths
like Kent, who denounced “the bacteria doctrine,” and
“the molecular theory,” in favour of a position of
unbridled vitalism, declaring that “We do not take disease
through our bodies but through the Vital Force,” [Kent, Lesser
Writings, 1926].“…the old
school of medicine believed it might cure diseases in a direct
manner by the removal of the [imaginary] material cause…” [Organon,
4]“These
[allopathically conceived disease entities]…were all idle dreams,
unfounded assumptions and hypotheses, cunningly devised for the
convenience of therapeutics…the easiest way of performing a cure
would be to remove the material, morbific matters…” [Organon,
7]The eighteenth century
then surrendered itself completely to a period of unrestrained
speculation and quite absurd medical theorising, about which Hahnemann
was profoundly contemptuous:“…metaphysical,
mystical, and supernatural speculations, which idle and
self-sufficient visionaries have devised…” [Lesser
Writings, 1808, 491]“…vapoury
theorising…word-mongers…system-framers and
system-followers…framed for show, for a make-believe, and not for
use… [Lesser Writings, 1808, 497-8]“…the state of the
body has only been viewed through the spectacles of manufactured
systems…” [Lesser Writings, 1808, 499]“…we were fooled by
the natural philosophers….their whole conception – so
unintelligible, so hollow and unmeaning, that no clear sense could
be drawn from it.” [Lesser Writings, 1808, 494]“…inflated bombast,
passing for demonstration, abounding in words, but void of sense –
all the antics and curvets of the sophists…perfectly
insufferable.” [Lesser Writings, 1808, 492]“This…made the
medical art a stage for the display of the most fantastic, often
most self-contradictory, hypotheses, explanations, demonstrations,
conjectures, dogmas, and systems, whose evil consequences are not to
be overlooked…” [Hahnemann, 1808, 489-90]It was customary, even
up to the end of the 19th century, for medical students to be taught all
previous systems of healing, and have their heads “crammed with
theories and systems,” [Haehl, I, 24]: “Even the
student was taught to think he was master of the art of discovering and
removing disease, when he had stuffed his head with these baseless
hypotheses…leading him as far as possible away from a true conception
of disease and its cure,” [Lesser Writings, 1808, 490].
In “the eighteenth century, the opinions of these men were still
matters of vital concern,” [Temkin, 1946, 15], and knowing “the
various systems of the time was a matter of necessary orientation for
the doctor,” [Temkin, 1946, 16]. Indeed, Greek and Latin
authors “were still read and interpreted in the medical
faculties of the universities in the early nineteenth cnetury,”
[Temkin, 22]Being something of
“a student of ancient history,” [Bradford, 150],
Hahnemann, in his insistent probing, dislodged problems flowing from
both medical traditions, and thus became the inheritor of a mass of
conflicting views and techniques, which circumstance more or less forced
him to pick his way through in order to make sense of the medicine of
his day. Making very slow progress along what was a crooked,
thistle-strewn and rocky path towards his construction of a new system,
which worked in practice as well as having a sound underpinning
rationale of coherent ideas, such was the mountain Hahnemann had chosen
to climb, as he trudged along a bitterly lonely and perilous track,
illuminated at times, and but dimly, only by the bright lamp of his
inner hope.Earning only a “meagre
living through work as a translator, writer and chemical researcher…”
[Nicholls, 1988, 11], Hahnemann was a lonely figure in the 1780s, and
seems to have been more or less paralysed by the uncertainty of his
position. It was doubtless this paralysing fog of uncertainty that had
eventually forced him to abandon medical practice completely [Bradford,
37]. “Hahnemann at this time, 1790, was poor,”
[Bradford, 47]. His “struggle with poverty,” [Haehl, I,
34] reduced him to the merely passive role of a scholar of the medical
past and a translator of medical texts; “his translation work
gave him meagre support…in the year 1791, poverty compelled him to
move from Leipzic to Stotteritz,” [Bradford, 51]. “He
reduced himself and his family to want for conscience sake,”
[Bradford, 36]. But to what extent how being reduced to penury by lowly
translation work [Haehl, I, 262], affected his sense of self-worth or
pride in being a doctor, and for which he had worked so hard, is an
interesting point. It is highly likely that his pride was hurt, because
“Hahnemann entertained a high conception of the physician’s
dignity…[and a] justifiable pride in his calling,” [Haehl, I,
278].Two features
particularly stand out in all this that are most remarkable. Firstly, in
all his writings he rarely mentions by name the great figures of the
medical past, who were creators of vitalist medical systems and his
greatest forebears, and who had laid out the very foundations upon which
homeopathy would be built. Mention of these figures is so scant as to be
conspicuous by its virtual absence in all his writings.
Van
HelmontIt is especially
suspicious that Hahnemann only fleetingly mentions Stahl, Paracelsus or
van Helmont by name, who truly were his greatest forebears and it is
mostly their ideas and connected problems, which he inherited and was
able to solve, update and push forwards. It is therefore very hard to
explain why a man so saturated in every medical theorist and
practitioner of the past, and possessed of such an encyclopaedic
knowledge of systems [“He used 861 quotations from 389 books in his
essay on Arsenic.” Bradford, 40, 93; see also Haehl, I, 97], should
then remain so silent about those to whom his own system owes so much.Stahl’s system
involved a vital principle that he called the ‘anima’, which was the “Hippocratic
‘physis’ to which Stahl added the attributes of Paracelus’ ‘Alchemist’
and van Helmont’s ‘Archeus’…” [Coulter, II, 229]. Stahl made
it clear that he regarded the Anima as a vital principle, because it
“directs and controls the organism and its struggle against
harmful environmental influences,” [Coulter, II, 231] and which
“protects it in health and cures it when diseased,”
[Coulter, II, 232].“Paracelsus’s
system…was a rude form of homeopathy…but it was not equal in
value to Hahnemann’s system…” [Dudgeon, 1853, 14]In what is a clear
reference to his deeper knowledge of Paracelsus, Hahnemann talks of: “…the
old mystic number three…triplicity, presented a miniature of the
universe [microcosm, macrocosm]…explained to a hair’s-breadth…”
[Lesser Writings, 490]. Hahnemanns medical outlook, “like
that of Paracelsus, was shaped by his early life the parallels between
their careers, as between their medical doctrines, are striking,”
[Coulter, II, 306].Yet, when Dr Trinks,
in 1825, asked him directly about Paracelsus, he replied “that
it was unknown to him,” [Haehl, I, 274], claiming he knew
nothing about “the great heresiarch,” [Temkin, 1946,
18], claiming never to have read a single word he had ever written or to
know anything about his medical system. “In 1825
Trinks…pointed out to Hahnemann that the principles of homeopathy are
to be found in Paracelsus. Hahnemann replied that until that moment, he
had known nothing of it,” [Haehl, I, 425]. In a letter to Dr
Stapf, “Hahnemann refused very definitely, and with some
indignation to be associated with Paracelsus’s fantastic and
will-o-the-wisp…[theories],” [Haehl, I, 274], having had
“no suspicion that Paracelsus had similar ideas,”
[Haehl, I, 273]. These denials amount to outright lies and clearly
reveal how determined Hahnemann had become to conceal his true sources.
It is utterly inconceivable that Hahnemann knew nothing about
Paracelsus. Goethe even refers to Hahnemann as “this new
Theophrastus Paracelsus,” [Haehl, I, 113].“Like Paracelsus and
van Helmont, he was disillusioned with the prevailing ideas and
retired from practice to think out a new approach,” [Coulter,
II, 310].Yet, he only once
mentions Stahl, “the founder of vitalism,” [Veith,
505-6], and van Helmont [Lesser Writings, 1808, 490], who were
undoubtedly two of the greatest builders of vitalist medical systems,
and both holding views remarkably concordant with his own. How can such
a broad confluence of medical ideas reasonably have been coincidental?
Their views on such central matters as the life force and miasms come so
astonishingly close to those of Hahnemann that it is quite simply
impossible for such a well-read and articulate physician like Hahnemann
to claim any ignorance of their names or their medical views. Van
Helmont’s ‘Archeus’ and Stahl’s ‘anima’ [Temkin, 1946, 22; Haehl, I,
284] are virtually identical to Hahnemann’s life-force and perform
exactly the same function within the conceptual fabric of these three
medical systems.The second remarkable
feature is that Hahnemann also remained very tight-lipped about his
esoteric studies with von Brukenthal in Sibiu in the late 1770s and
because of which he was a lifelong Freemason and an active member of a
Masonic lodge in every town wherever he lived [Haehl, I, 23], and which
was a subject to which he was “inwardly greatly attracted,”
[Haehl, I, 255]. Haehl claims he was always “a good Mason,”
[Haehl, I, 119, 253]. This again seems to reveal some hidden,
undisclosed aspect of the man, about which he also remained silent.
Given that he had such a brilliant mind, such exceptional reasoning and
debating skills, such linguistic gifts [Haehl, I, 10-15, 34-35;
Bradford, 28, 94] and such rare, subtle and profound skills as a thinker
and observer [Haehl, I, 250-2], it is hard to imagine why he chose not
to write about the great medical problems of the past with which he must
undoubtedly have struggled and in which he was daily immersed between
say 1780 and 1800. Thus again we are forced to conclude that Hahnemann
deliberately chose to stay silent on all these pertinent matters.What were truly “wilderness
years” [Coulter, II, 348], the 1780s and 1790s were entirely
devoted to one grand struggle: the gradual demolition of his old views,
a steady formulation of the new and a long and complex process of mental
metamorphosis, sifting, analysis, reflection and experimentation, a
movement from darkness towards light, “a state of complete
internal revolution,” [Haehl, I, 48] that finally led him to
the triumphant realisation of his dreams and that gave slow and painful
birth to homeopathic medicine, rising like some Phoenix out of the ashes
of his bitterly disappointing early years of medical practice and his
long years of study. Having been to Hell and back, he returned like a
prodigal: strengthened, renewed and undeterred:“He could
only wait for the moment, as inevitable as the Day of Judgement,
which would see him revealed as the apostle of a pure and true
doctrine of medicine.” [Gumpert, 59]Having solved the two
greatest riddles in medical history – the relationship between the drug
and the disease/patient, and the dose-dependent relationship between the
toxic and therapeutic actions of drugs – he was determined to tell the
world what his answers were the proving and potentisation of single
drugs.“Men of
authentic genius are necessarily to a large degree destructive of
past traditions. Great philosophers always transform, upset and
destroy. It is only the small philosophers who defend vested
interests, apply rules, squeeze into procrustean beds.”
[Berlin, 1996, 70]“He sought to
discover the specific relations of certain medicines to certain
diseases, to certain organs and tissues, he strove to do away with
the blind chimney-sweeper’s methods of dulling symptoms.”
[Gumpert, 99]“He struck
deadly blows…first…that the doctor should prepare his own
medicines; second…the administration of small doses; and, third,
he was a most passionate opponent of mixed doses that contained a
large number of ingredients.” [Gumpert, 96]“…employment
of the many-mixed, this pell-mell administration of several
substances at once…these hotch-potch doses…” [Lesser
Writings, 1808, 498]Yet, in this other
sense about which we speak, this unusually garrulous and articulate
Hahnemann, so often given to “raging like a hurricane,”
[Haehl, I, 98], or ranting “like the old prophets,”
[Haehl, I, 33], has consistently and mysteriously failed to tell the
world where his ideas came from or in which particular brood-chamber
they had long fermented, or finally been hatched. He declined to reveal
whom he had drawn on the most and what the true antecedents or roots of
homeopathy were. As we have seen, on all these points, he remained
conspicuously silent and cloaked himself only in denial, obfuscation,
and a profound and uncharacteristic reticence.There seems little
point, therefore, in denying the facts. Hahnemann did have intimate
knowledge of these great figures and their grand medical conceptions,
but he deliberately chose never to mention them. This somewhat baffling
and monumental silence therefore raises the inevitable question of why a
man with such detailed knowledge of all these matters, refused to
discuss or to lay out before his contemporaries an honest account of the
true origins of his new medical system; a point we shall presently
examine.Two passages in his
writings, especially revealing his deeper knowledge of medical history
and systems, occur in the essays ‘On the Helleborism of the Ancients’
[1811], and ‘Aesculapius in the Balance’ [1805], which can be
read in his Lesser Writings, pp.569-616, and pp.419-26
respectively. Other useful comments he makes about medical systems can
be seen in his ‘On the Value of the Speculative Systems of Medicine’
[1808] and ‘On the Great Necessity of a Regeneration of Medicine’
[1808], in Lesser Writings, pp.488-505, and pp.511-21
respectively.Another important
secret of Hahnemann is revealed in his choice of drugs to admit into his
new materia medica. One feature that distinguishes homeopathy quite
markedly from other medical systems is the large number of mineral drugs
it employs. In The Chronic Diseases, for example, of the 48 drugs
listed, 35 are minerals, 12 from plants and only one from an animal
source [Sepia]. Thus, over 70% are of mineral origin. Hahnemann
showed almost as strong a love of minerals, metals and acids, dozens of
which appear in his materia medica, as his great forebears Paracelsus
and van Helmont, who believed that minerals are blessed with greater
potency as healing agents, because they are so ancient and take so long
to form in the fabric of the earth, in comparison to most plants
[Coulter, II, 48-9]. Again, Hahnemann never mentions them.Similar notions were
applied to metals, gems and other crystalline minerals, which were
conceived to be the purified products of a slow maturation process, an
alchemical form of gestation or distillation in the earth’s crust, again
imparting extreme healing potency upon them. While Hahnemann may not
have shared these precise views, nevertheless the parallels are
striking. It is of more than passing interest that his drug preferences
disclose a heavy reliance on alchemical preconceptions, pointing to
deeper knowledge of his own on such matters, but about which he never
overtly speaks.
Rudolph
SteinerParacelsus so loved
minerals that he even preferred to augment plant tinctures with the ash
from the burned plant, forming what he called a ‘spagyric’ remedy. This
reflected his belief that the mineral component of a plant has
especially strong healing powers, without which the tincture is an
incomplete healing agent [Coulter, I, 350, 413, 421, 443; II, 51].
Again, this reflects a strong preference for mineral drugs, and also the
notion that the unique life-force of each plant specially concocts a
subtle blend of minerals from the soil, which becomes sealed with the
‘spiritual imprint’ of the plant’s life-force. These ideas and
techniques also found transmission through Goethe [1749-1832] to Rudolph
Steiner [1861-1925] and sprouted in his anthroposophical medicine [Hill,
29], where similar techniques are still employed.All such arcane
knowledge, Hahnemann could easily have accessed – and very probably did
– in the many esoteric medical and alchemical texts in Brukenthal’s
great library in Sibiu, and which he had spent “a year and nine
months,” [Bradford, 28] cataloguing. Indeed, it would be
remarkable if he had not absorbed such ideas. Even the potentisation
process could originally have been devised as a method to liberate and
concentrate the ‘healing spirit’ [Archeus] of a substance, and
thus seems strangely parallel to Paracelsan and alchemical techniques,
though admittedly dressed up in a more scientific garb. In which case,
fire, time, trituration and succussion therefore seem to be those sole
and Promethean alchemical agents capable of transforming and purifying
any substance and concentrating its ‘spiritual imprint’. Such is and was
‘medical alchemy’.All things considered,
therefore, it is very hard to believe that Hahnemann, such a well-read
[Bradford, 35, 93] and inquisitive man himself, was not aware of these
facts. Especially when we consider his immensely detailed knowledge of
the various previous systems of healing [Lesser Writings, 420-3;
488-505; Bradford, 93-4], “his extraordinary knowledge of
medical history,” [Haehl, I, 97], or when considering his
linguistic skills [Bradford, 28, 94], his translation work, and his
librarianship and alchemical studies in Sibiu with von Brukenthal. All
of these are bound to have brought him into intimate contact with such
arcane details of these previous healing systems, some points of which
must have been rubbed off and been retained in “his
extraordinary memory,” [Haehl, I, 277] from 5-6 years earlier.
Quite simply, he must have known all these things, yet he never once
mentions them.Furthermore, anyone
knowing homeopathy intimately, and especially the metaphysical ideas of
giants like Kent, if they then turn to any serious study of the works of
van Helmont, Stahl and Paracelsus, they will not fail to be impressed,
if not amazed, by the numerous strong parallels begirdering all these
vitalistic medical systems. As systems of ideas on the nature and causes
of disease, of how the organism is thought to function, on the
life-force, the most likely remedies and their modes of selection and
preparation, then it becomes apparent that the parallels between them
are so numerous and striking to ever be regarded as coincidental.However, even if he
knew them as intimately as seems likely, that still does not mean that
Hahnemann simply sat down and copied them all wholesale. Rather, it
seems more likely that he will have received abundant inspiration just
from contemplating them. Copying those basic principles that chimed best
with his own thoughts and medical experience – similars and single
drugs, for example – he could then pick up and extend them further
through experiment. Proceeding exactly in such a manner; he could then
build up a corpus of likely ideas, to inspire his experiments and guide
his choice of drugs. Much like rich veins, he could go back to these
systems repeatedly to draw fresh inspiration.As we have seen, it is
well nigh impossible that he was ignorant of these systems and probably
read them in detail in their original Latin and German, [Haehl, I, 250;
Bradford, 28, 94].Though he felt obliged
to strip these systems bare of their astrology and theology, their
supernatural garb, with which he had little patience: “…metaphysical,
mystical, and supernatural speculations, which idle and self-sufficient
visionaries have devised…” [Lesser Writings, 1808,
491]; “…now the influence of the stars, now that of evil
spirits and witchcraft…” [Lesser Writings, 1805, 421].
In an especially contemptuous blast, Hahnemann even questions how “old
astrology was to explain what puzzled modern natural philosophy…”
[Lesser Writings, 490]. “The majority of elite men and
the medical establishment no longer valued astrology by the early 18th
century and it ceased to occupy a central place…” [Gouk, 317]Yet, what is left is
still strikingly similar to homeopathy in respect of small doses; single
drugs; many metals, acids and minerals; miasms as taints [disease
images] contained in the life-force [Archeus or anima]; that the
internal disease-causing factors predominate as true causes and must be
neutralised by internally-employed medicines, often singly, in small,
widely-spaced doses; and that a resonance or sympathy pertains between
the malady and the remedy; that like cures like; and that the true image
of a sickness/person matches in detail the image of the correct drug.
There is broad agreement on all such central matters. And Hahnemann must
have known this.True to their times,
Van Helmont and Paracelsus did, however, lean far more heavily upon
alleged spiritual, astral and theological causes of disease: the “blas
of the stars,” [Coulter, II, 200] while Hahnemann typically
gives only ‘defects in the life force’, which allows ‘susceptibility’ to
act as the generalised ‘template’ upon which acute and chronic maladies
can then establish themselves. Homeopathy, like all other vitalist
systems, respects the obvious physiological holism and vitalism of the
body, and always seeks to strengthen its innate healing power or vital
force [Haehl, I, 64, 284, 289]. This approach does not deny, but
embraces, the subtle differences between individual cases of a disease,
and reaffirms that disease and patient comprise inseparably dual aspects
of one united biophysical continuum. Disease is viewed as a ‘dynamic
derangement of the life force’ [Close, 1924, 37-8, 74].“The organism
is indeed the material instrument of life, but it is not conceivable
without the animation imparted to it by the instinctively perceiving
and regulating vital force…” [Organon, para 15]“Let it be
granted now…that no disease…is caused by any material substance,
but that every one is only and always a peculiar, virtual, dynamic
derangement of the health…” [Organon, Introduction,
10]Hahnemann was less
keen to explore the psychological or psychic causes of sickness and he
seems to play down the significance of such factors. Moreover, in
homeopathy, that still remains a more or less blank sheet even to this
day.Having resolved in his
own mind the importance of his own work, gave him greater confidence,
even in adversity: “the…very opposition of his colleagues made
him more resolute in his determination to carry out his plans alone, or
with what casual assistance he could procure from non-professional
friends,” [Dudgeon, 1853, 181]. This might also suggest that he
knew his own system was the best, because he knew intimately everything
else that was on offer, and none of which worked in practice: “In
an eight years’ practice, pursued with conscientious attention, I had
learned the delusive nature of the ordinary methods of treatment, and
from sad experience I knew right well how far the methods of Sydenham,
and Frederick Hoffmann, of Boerhaave and Gaubius, of Stoll, Quarin,
Cullen, and De Haan were capable of curing,” [Lesser
Writings, 513].
John
HunterWe must accept that
Hahnemann had his own reasons for ploughing a lonely furrow [see Haehl,
I, 255], for not even mentioning the figures and systems of the past – a
rich seam, which he must have gone back to repeatedly to quarry ideas
and inspiration, and forming a vague template on which to build his
homeopathic system. As he does occasionally refer to those past “system-makers,”
[Lesser Writings, 1808, 497-8] he disagrees with, such as Cullen
[1710-90], Brown [1735-88], Hunter [1728-93], Galen [c.130-201],
Boerhaave and Hoffmann, who he mostly repudiates [especially Galen –
e.g. Lesser Writings, I, 421, 592], are we therefore entitled to
presume that he deliberately neglected to mention those with whom he
shared a broad measure of agreement?Leaving all this
information undisclosed could have been devised for two reasons – to
leave the trail ‘cold’ for the inquisitive, and to give homeopathy the
cleanest possible start in life as a brand new medical system, seeming
to be complete unto itself and rooted solely in experiments that he had
personally conducted, and possessed of medical principles, he had
personally uncovered. Although this account is probably more true than
false, it is still a shame that Hahnemann seemed too darned secretive
and too proud [his egotism, Haehl, I, 256] to acknowledge his
considerable debt to a small clutch of important medical predecessors,
whose ideas and methods contain so much that is common to homeopathy.
Such massive similarities between these systems must have been known to
Hahnemann – probably in detail – and must have richly informed his
formulation of homeopathy.Clearly, Hahnemann
seemed eager to sever homeopathy completely from its arcane roots and to
deny that it had any spiritual or theological connections at all. In
stripping these ancient systems bare of all their supernatural and
magical elements, what is left is largely homeopathy. It is only when we
look at figures like Kent that all such hastily ejected theological
material comes back to the fore:“You cannot
divorce medicine and theology. Man exists all the way down from his
innermost spiritual to his outermost natural” [Kent, Lesser
Writings, 641]Implicit to Kent’s
view is the notion that no matter how much Hahnemann – or anyone – tries
to hide, deny, suppress or stamp out the spiritual, supernatural and
theological in medicine, it has a strange habit of finding some means of
expression, bubbling back to the surface. And so homeopathy will always
re-establish its true connections and re-grow its true roots. The very
things that Sydenham ejected from medieval medicine – in ‘divorcing
medicine and theology’ [Veith, 502] – and which Hahnemann seems also to
have discouraged, are as truly real links to homeopathy as ever. These
links cannot be separated for too long and will yearn for, find and grow
back to each other naturally like severed roots of the same plant.Probably in order not
to validate the rampant spirituality and Romantic philosophy of his day,
Hahnemann did not wish homeopathy to be associated with the vitalist
systems of the past, choosing instead to ‘cover his tracks’. In an age
like his so dominated by science, would he have wished to see homeopathy
associated in any way with magical, religious or supernatural
tendencies? He probably feared that any such links, if ever they were
made explicit, would be a retrograde step, that could seriously impede
its acceptance within wider medicine, that might smear his reputation as
a scientist, or to offer even vague support for such nebulous ideas
would somehow cast him in a bad light. That I think gives a fair account
of this fascinating but highly convoluted matter.Hahnemann’s vociferous
attitude towards allopathy meant that he did indeed regard “the
old overthrown philosophy…as a mass of superstition and error.”
[Berlin, 1996, 62], as “…a chaotic amalgam of ignorance,
laziness, guesswork, superstition, prejudice, dogma, fantasy…”
[Berlin, 1979, 163] or “…casual impression, half-remembered,
unverified recollections, guesswork, mere rules of thumb, unscientific
hypotheses,” [Berlin, 1996, 41]. And its antiquated corpus of
ideas as little more than “…metaphysical and theological
explanations unsupported by…evidence, conducted by methods the
opposite of rational, the happy hunting ground of bigots and charlatans
and their dupes and slaves,” [Berlin, 1979, 133].Wherever the true
origins of homeopathy might lie hidden within previous healing systems,
we can definitely say that with his most genuinely original
contributions – the proving and potentisation – Hahnemann had
effectively modernised and rekindled the previous vitalist systems,
which, like long-silent and broken machines, he had fixed and which now
hummed sweetly into new life. Had not this been his sole aim all along?
Was this not indeed a revolution in medicine?Haehl’s assessment
therefore looks more accurate afterall: “Medicine has nothing in
the whole course of her history which in any way approaches the
accomplishment of this man…[Hahnemann was]…primarily a champion –
and indeed the most brilliant champion – of internal remedies, the
imperfections and manifold unfruitfulness of which he undertook to
metamorphose…” [Haehl, I, 274-5]. And the reasons now seem
clearer too: “The task of the great philosophers who break
through the orthodoxy is to sweep away the painstaking edifices of their
honourable but limited predecessors who…tend to imprison thought
within their own tidy but fatally misconceived constructions,”
[Berlin, 1996, 72].
Sources
Berlin, Isaiah, 1979,
Against the Current – Essays in the History of Ideas, Pimlico, LondonBerlin, Isaiah, 1996,
The Sense of Reality – Studies in Ideas and Their History, Pimlico,
LondonBradford, Thomas L,
1895, Life and Letters of Hahnemann, PhiladelphiaClose, Stuart, 1924,
The Genius of Homeopathy Lectures and Essays on Homeopathic Philosophy,
New YorkCoulter, Harris L,
1975, Divided Legacy the Schism in Medical Thought, 3 vols., Wehawken
Books, WashingtonDinges, Martin, 1996,
Welt Geschichte der Homöopathie, Beck, MunchenDudgeon, Robert E,
1853, Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Homeopathy, LondonGouk, Penelope, 1998,
Book Review: Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in 17th century
England, by O. P. Grell and Andrew Cunningham, Scolar Press, Aldershot,
UK, 1997, reviewed in Social History of Medicine, 11.2, August 1998,
317-318Gumpert, Martin, 1945,
Hahnemann The Adventurous Career of a Medical Rebel, Fischer, New YorkHaehl, Richard, 1922,
Samuel Hahnemann – His Life and Works, 2 vols., Jain editionHahnemann, Samuel,
c.1895, The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahenemann, edited by Robert E
Dudgeon, LondonHahnemann, Samuel,
c.1923, Organon of Medicine, combined 5th/6th edition, translated and
edited by Dudgeon and BoerickeHill, Ann [Ed.], 1979,
A Visual Encyclopedia of Unconventinal Medicine, New English Library,
New YorkKent, James, Tyler,
1926, Lesser Writings, New Remedies, Aphorisms and Precepts, ChicagoKing, Lester Snow,
1970, Empiricism and Rationalism in the Works of Thomas Sydenham, Bull.
Hist. Med., 1970 Jan-Feb.; 44 (1): 1-11Morrell, Peter, 2001,
Coming Out of the Darkness like a Meteor: Dr Hahnemann Builds His
Materia Medica, NEJH Summer 2001, The Homeopath, October 2001
[forthcoming]Neagu, Michael, 1995,
Geschichte der Homöopathie in Rumänien, [History of Homeopathy in
Rumania], Stuttgart Conference on the History of Homeopathy, April 1995,
reprinted in Dinges, 1996Nicholls, Phillip A,
1988, Homeopathy and the Medical Profession, Croom Helm, LondonPagel, Walter, 1972,
Van Helmont’s Concept of Disease – to Be or Not to Be? The Influence of
Paracelsus, Bull. Hist. Med. XLVI: 5, Sept-Oct 1972, 419-54Porter, Roy, 1998, For
the Benefit of All Mankind – a Medical History of Humanity, Norton, New
YorkShryock, Richard H,
1936, The Development of Modern Medicine, Univ. Pennsylvania PressTemkin, Owsei, 1946,
An Essay on the Usefulness of Medical History for Medicine, Bull. Hist.
Med. 19.1, 9-47Veith, Ilza, 1969,
Historical Reflections on the Changing Concepts of Disease, California
Medicine, 110, June 1969, 501-6Warner, John H, 1986,
The Therapeutic Perspective, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass, USA
Article
