History of Homœopathy : Its Origin ; Its Conflicts. by Wilhelm Ameke, M. D. Presented by Dr Robert Séror.

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History
of Homœopathy : Its Origin ; Its Conflicts.
by Wilhelm
Ameke, M. D.
Presented by Dr
Robert Séror.

Author’s
Preface.

Dr Wilhelm Ameke (19
Avril 1847- 22 Janvier 1886)

“The subject (homoeopathy) becomes all the more important”,
so Hufeland declared in 1826,
[Jour. f. prakt. Arzneik., St. I, p. 7.]
” if the originator is a man who commands our respect. And no one
will be able to deny that this is the case with Hahnemann,
and least of all one who is in the position of the author of this essay,
whose acquaintance with Hahnemann
is of long standing, and who, connected with him for more than thirty
years by ties both of friendship and of letters, valued him always as
one of our most distinguished, intelligent and original medical
men.”

The same author writes, four years later :

[L.c.,
1830,
St. 2,
p. 20.]

” The first thing that influenced me was the fact that I held it
wrong and unworthy of science to treat the new doctrine with ridicule
and contempt Despotism and oppression are obnoxious to me, especially in
scientific matters ; in science, impartiality, careful investigation,
sifting of evidence, together with mutual respect and strict adherence
to the matter in hand, should prevail, and personalities be strictly
excluded. Added to this was the respect I had long felt for the author,
which was inspired by his earlier writings and the important services he
had rendered to medicine ; besides this, the names of many worthy and
unprejudiced men who testified to the positive truth there was in the
matter could not but carry weight. I will only recall the names of
President v. Wolf of Warsaw, Medical Counsellor Rau of Giessen, and
Medical Counsellor Widnmann of Munich.

” I had subsequently the opportunity of observing many instances
of good results from the use of homoeopathic remedies, which necessarily
drew my attention to this subject and convinced me that it ought not to
be contemptuously pushed on one side, but deserves careful
investigation.”

This judgment of the impartial Hufeland is in sharp contrast with the
utterances of the majority of allopathic authors, who, on innumerable
occasions, did not hesitate to speak of homoeopathy as ” a delusion
” and “a system of deception ; ” of

Hahnemann,
its founder, as the ” greatest charlatan,” and of homoeopathic
practitioners as “impostors” or “deceived
deceivers,” and who do not shrink from expressing themselves in a
similar strain even in our own time.

There have been numerous replies from the homoeopathic side, and it
has been shown that much earnestness, study and truth are involved in
the matter. Strange to say, no single adherent of

Hahnemann
has undertaken to describe his pre-homoeopathic labours, his studies and
achievements at that time, or his intense striving after truth. What
position did he previously take among his medical colleagues ? What
course of development did he go through before he brought forward his
medical principles ?

These questions are of importance in forming a judgment respecting
the founder of homeopathy. Many of its adversaries have accordingly
hastened to answer these questions, and that in a hostile sense.

Thus a certain Dr.

Simon,
whose works serve even to the present day as an arsenal from which most
of our opponents draw their weapons, writes thus : ” Hahnemann
is the same unreliable ignoramus, whether viewed as a man of science or
as a physician.”
[Antihomöopathisches Archiv, Vol. I., Pt. 2,
p. 25.]

Further : “what we especially miss in him is acumen. The want of
the capacity to seize clearly and to pursue a train of thought,

appears
unpleasantly u everything he ever wrote.”

Another opponent, Professor

Sachs
— who is termed by the Hanoverian physician, Stieglitz,
“an author of great talent,” and that in reference to his
anti-homœopathic books — holds the following views : ” Hahnemann
has always shown
himself weak in the region of solid thinking, He is incapable of
radically grasping and following out thoroughly even a simple
thought.” [Versuch zu einem
Schlusswort über S. Hahnemann’s
hom. Syst., Leipzig, 1826,
p. 57.]

All his opponents seem to be unanimous in the opinion’ that vanity
and avarice were the moving springs of his public career, just as in
recent times all agree in the assertion that his capacity and knowledge
as a physician were of the slenderest description. In the following
treatise it is proposed to consider the career of

Hahnemann
from a non-hostile point of view. After a glimpse at his chemical
labours and a short review of his contributions towards the perfecting
of the art of pharmacy, we will proceed to a’ consideration of his
medical development, and conclude with a description of Hahnemann
as a man.

The second part is intended to give the reader an idea of the methods
used in combating the new doctrine, by means of which a gap in the
literature of the subject will be filled, and, in conclusion, a short
sketch of the present condition of medicine at the universities will be
given.

AMEKE

. Berlin,
end of 1883.

Copyright
© Robert Séror 2006.

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