Hahnemann: The Father of Homeopathy, Part 10

As an octogenarian, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann “grew thinner and more dwarflike. His knees bent in slightly; his torso was thrust forward, both when he walked and when he stood still; his face assumed the snowy hue which the slowing down of the blood’s circulation causes in old age. But the head, which ever more and more dominated the body, remained erect and sovereign.”

Parisians were captivated by Mélanie and Samuel’s unusual love story, and by the charm of Hahnemann’s “cheery and blissful old age.” The pair's popularity—and several celebrated cures— caused people to flock to the Hahnemanns' house in the center of the city with a multitude of ailments. Samuel had bequeathed the bulk of his German assets to his children (see part 9), but now he and Mélanie amassed a new fortune since they treated many wealthy patients.

Towards the end of Hahnemann’s life, the couple rarely left their house except to visit someone who was too sick to travel. Hahnemann wrote a friend, “Our horses are swift and our carriage light. For the rest, we live happily and cheerfully together like two good children and love one another in a way that amazes all our acquaintances.” One biographer wrote, “A happy marriage made (Mélanie) unsociable.” But she also “became the living compendium of homeopathy.” She mastered her husband’s medical system thoroughly, and several evenings per week gave homeopathic advice and medicine to the poor for free, while her husband rested.

On certain occasions—Samuel’s birthday or the anniversary of his doctoral degree—the house was lit with hundreds of candles and “everyone who had a name of note, or belonged to the beau monde, came to the house.”

There were also the “Monday receptions,” attended by doctors from all over the world, who discussed not just medical topics but also current events—the ceremonial interment of Napoleon’s body; the imprisonment of his nephew, Louis Napoleon; the death of Ferdinand Philippe, popular heir to the throne, in a carriage accident; Queen Victoria's upcoming visit to France, and much more. Hahnemann would listen quietly to the energetic dialogues, smoking his pipe and sometimes agreeing with his wife. He was perhaps distracted by thoughts of a project dear to his heart: Completing the sixth edition of his Organon of the Medical Art. In their leisurely hours, he dictated the book’s changes and additions to Mélanie since his writing hand had developed a tremor.

Springtime was not kind to Hahnemann. For twenty years, its pollen, gusty winds, and temperature shifts had given him a “catarrh of the bronchial tubes.” In 1843, at age 88, he said, “my earthly shell is worn out.” He sensed that this time would be the “final visitation of his yearly illness.” He treated himself as usual, but grew so weak that Mélanie consulted Dr. Croserio, an established physician who had witnessed a cure effected by Hahnemann ten years earlier and had thereafter embraced homeopathy. She kept her ailing husband “carefully secluded,” even from his daughter and 17-year-old grandson, and in the early hours of July 2, 1843, he died.

Hahnemann’s grandson, Leopold Suss, who also became a homeopath, harshly criticized Mélanie's handling of Hahnemann’s last days and funeral. As an adult, he wrote about that time, “Unfortunately I only saw my grandfather again when he was drawing his last breaths. I did not even see him in the evening before his death, although my mother and I had arrived in Paris a whole week before.” Regarding the funeral, he wrote, "The immortal Founder of Homeopathy was buried like the poorest of the poor; his funeral taking place as early in the morning as six o'clock, under a pelting rain, a common hearse bearing the remains of the great man to his last rest." He goes on to say that besides himself and a handful of servants, the only mourners at the graveside were his mother, Mélanie, and Dr. Charles Lethière (see part 9).

Hahnemann’s death threw Mélanie into profound despair. She could not immediately give up his body, so she had it embalmed (at great expense) and kept it for nine days. She also commissioned a final portrait of her dead husband with German historical artist Friedrich Boutwerk. Dr. Jahr, whose name is known to modern-day homeopaths thanks to his published works, was called to Hahnemann’s bedside at the end, and wrote, “Instead of seeing Hahnemann, the dear, friendly old man, smile his greeting, I found his wife stretched, in tears, on the bed and him lying cold and stiff by her side, having passed five hours before….” Her actions regarding the funeral, which she neither advertised nor celebrated, caused a sharp split in biographers’ opinions. Was she so devastated that she could not bear to think about, much less organize a proper funeral, as Rima Handley conjectured? Or was it, as Richard Haehl determined, “as if Madame Hahnemann completely forgot her husband after depositing him at Montmartre (cemetery).” That she, “closed that chapter of her life, in which the central figure had been Hahnemann, and that she wished to be rid of him.”

I think Haehl’s interpretation of Mélanie’s behavior is misconceived. She did not "close that chapter" of her life but continued to practice homeopathy. And would she have draped a lock of her hair around Hahnemann’s neck if she was of the cold-hearted mindset to be “rid of him?” The flaxen hair was discovered when Samuel and Mélanie’s bodies were moved from Montmartre Cemetery to Père Lachaise Cemetery in 1898. They were moved to make room for the planned monument to Hahnemann (which was erected two years later). When Hahnemann’s coffin was opened, the hair and a sealed glass bottle were discovered. Inside the bottle were the embalming report, a gold memorial medal containing Hahnemann’s profile and the inscription “To their Master, the French homeopaths,” and this message in Mélanie’s handwriting:

Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann

Born at Meissen in Saxony on April 10, 1755

Died in Paris on July 2, 1843

His wife, Marie Mélanie d’Hervilly, will be united with him in the tomb, even as he has desired, and on it will be engraved the words written by him, "In this our tomb ashes shall mingle with ashes, bones with bones, even as the living were united in love."

Her intention was to be buried with Hahnemann, but 35 years later she was buried next to him, her wishes either forgotten or not followed. And although her remains are in Hahnemann's monument tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery, they are still separated from his in their own coffin, and her name is not listed on the front of the large structure. Perhaps those in charge were too incensed about her refusals to release the sixth edition of the Organon to honor her. [For various reasons, which perhaps can be explored in another blog, it was not published until 1921.]

In the same year that the monument was finished in Paris (1900), a monument to Hahnemann in Washington D.C. was unveiled. Its approval was not easily won since Hahnemann was not an American, but the persistence of the local homeopaths paid off, and President McKinley finally gave the necessary permission for it. The man they honored, and his discovery, did “not belong alone to Germany but to the whole world.”

Samuel Hahnemann's death did not trigger the demise of homeopathy. Its fundamental truths had spread too far and had helped too many people to allow for its disappearance. Even when it suffered a decline, which it did for several decades after World War I, it re-emerged stronger than ever in the 1970s. [The reasons for the decline can perhaps be explored in another blog.]

The medical industries that are threatened by homeopathy's existence continue to attack it ferociously, using the same ridiculous (and conflicting) arguments that were used in Hahnemann’s day. On the one hand, homeopathy is dangerous because of the poisonous or noxious substances it sometimes employs; on the other hand, it's ineffective because the remedies contain no substance at all. Despite having no knowledge of modern-day physics, Hahnemann's answer to the question of small dilutions is perfect. He wrote, “This true maxim is not one that needs to be comprehended or blindly believed. I do not demand any belief with regard to it; neither do I expect it to be comprehended. I do not comprehend it either. It is an unalterable fact and it is proven by experience, on which I rely more than on reason.”

I hope you have enjoyed my 10-part blog on Dr. Samuel Hahnemann! Credit for it goes to the historians and homeopaths who took the time to research and write about him:

Thomas Lindsley Bradley, M.D: The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann

Richard Haehl, M.D: Samuel Hahnemann, His Life and Work

Rima Handley, PhD: A Homeopathic Love Story, The Story of Samuel and Melanie Hahnemann

Martin Gumpert: Hahnemann, The Adventurous Career of a Medical Rebel

Robert Jütte: Samuel Hahnemann, The Founder of Homeopathy (Margot Saar translation)

Next time: I agree with Hahnemann, who said in 1835, “Homeopathy will always be to me an adoration,” so another topic will be forthcoming. Stay tuned! If you have any comments about this series, or ideas for future series, I’d love to hear from you! W

rite to me at info@lucillelocklin.com.

Hahnemann: The Father of Homeopathy, Part 9

Samuel and Mèlanie Hahnemann arrived in Paris on June 21, 1835, after a two-week journey from Köthen, Germany. By mid-July, they were living in a spacious house that backed onto the Luxembourg Gardens. Hahnemann wrote to a friend, “We are living here in the purest air as if we were in the country; we are like a couple of doves and our love for one another daily increases.”

The political climate in France under Louis Philippe I was more stable than it had been in some time, and the king would not be exiled until five years after Hahnemann’s death. Therefore, the couple did not have to worry about war, even if social and financial inequality continued to cause unrest.

Mèlanie took Samuel to the opera and theater—something he had never indulged in while living in Germany. It was a time when romantic dramas were pushing the old classical plays off the stage. Their second night in Paris, they saw Meyerbeer’s Robert de Diable with Mèlanie’s father (who had consented to the marriage prior to its occurrence).

The Hahnemanns dined at the famous Tour d’Argent restaurant that had gorgeous views of the Seine, attended the ceremonial opening of the Arc de Triomphe, and admired the newly arrived obelisk of Luxor in the Place de la Concorde. [The obelisk was an ancient (1250 B.C.) monument gifted to France from Egypt.]

The Gallic Homeopathic Society, started in 1832, made Hahnemann an honorary president, and he sat as chairman at their infrequent meetings and encouraged all those studying homeopathy to follow the doctrine as he had presented it. Before Hahnemann had arrived, the Society had been denied permission to open a homeopathic hospital. The decision was influenced by the French Royal Academy of Medicine whose members had argued, “reason and experience are united to repel with all the force of intelligence a system like this.”

France had been inundated with new medical systems ever since the French Revolution had swept away anything related to the old, established systems. Dr. Gall had brought phrenology (the study of head bumps), which was popular for a time. When that phase was waning, it was replaced by Mesmer and his mesmerism. To the Academy of Medicine, homeopathy was one more crazy phase; they had also tried to get Hahnemann’s request to practice medicine in France denied. Fortunately, the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Guizot, was more open-minded. He wrote, “If homeopathy is a chimera, or a system without internal cohesion, it will collapse of its own accord.” He chided members of the Academy, saying that their mission should be to “favor science and to encourage discoveries.”

[An aside: In Hahnemann’s opinion, the members of the Academy were “barbaric venesectors.” By the time the Hahnemanns arrived in Paris, Broussais’ once very popular blood-letting method was starting to decline, but not fast enough for Hahnemann. Regarding Broussais’ method, Hahnemann wrote, “The doctors of Europe and elsewhere willingly took to this one easy method of treating all diseases, because it spared them all reflection (the hardest work under the sun!).”]

After living in France for three years, Hahnemann wrote to a friend, “I found that France was, and is still, very weak in our art….” But he goes on to say that young medical graduates had become more and more interested because of “the number of cures affected by myself and my dear wife.” On a more personal note, he wrote, “I live here highly respected, partly no doubt because my wife is a Frenchwoman of good family and has a large circle of distinguished friends; and I enjoy better health and spirits than for the past twenty years. Many Germans who knew me formerly tell me I look many years younger, for which I have expressly to thank my loving warden, my dear Mèlanie.”

All of Hahnemann’s letters from that period of his life tell of his continued love for Mèlanie. She adored him as well—along with his medical system—and applied herself to learning it wholeheartedly. Less than two years after moving to Paris, Hahnemann wrote a friend, “...through her own study of our science she daily progresses more and more. Her cures of the worst diseases...amazed everybody, and at times, even myself.” They saw patients together every morning and Mèlanie held a clinic for the poor in the afternoon. There was no shortage of patients, from all social classes and many nationalities, and the Hahnemanns eventually had to move to a larger house to accommodate them all. The practice was “opulent and fashionable,” and rose far above the category of a “fringe” medicine.

Typically, in the nineteenth century, physicians were expected to go to the homes of their wealthy patients, and it was a sign of Hahnemann’s renown that these people traveled to him. There were exceptions: When people were too ill to make the trip, Hahnemann and/or Mèlanie would travel to them, and one patient, Baron Rothschild, was so rich and powerful that he offered enough money to always receive house calls. Some other famous patients were Lord Elgin, who brought the “Elgin marbles” to Britain, sculptor David d’Angers, portrait painter Henri Scheffer, dramatist and essayist, Ernest Legouve, Comédie-Francaise actress Rachel, Philippe Musard, the “Glenn Miller of his day,” violinist Paganini, and many others. The Hahnemanns charged fees on a sliding scale basis, and Mèlanie maintained her free clinic for the poor throughout her practice, even after she became a widow.

Mèlanie’s old painting teacher, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (see part 8), entrusted his grandchildren to Melanie in his will, and they lived with her and Hahnemann. Ea Lethière became a painter, like her grandfather, but Charles Lethière studied pharmacy, became the Hahnemanns right-hand man, and later qualified as a doctor and a homeopath himself. Mèlanie’s father was treated for cataracts by the Hahnemanns, and several of Hahnemann’s children received treatment through correspondence with him. Only one of his children, Amalie, ever travelled to Paris to see him. He had hopes that expansion of the railroad would eventually allow others to easily visit him, but it never happened.

One patient, Helen Berkley, French-born American author, playwright, actress, and preservationist wrote a detailed account of her consultation with the Hahnemanns. It’s a fascinating read in its entirety, but here I will share her detailed physical descriptions of the pair. She described Mèlanie as “an elegant-looking woman, with a finely rounded form, somewhat above the medium height. Her face could not be called beautiful or pretty, but the term handsome might be applied to it with great justice. Her forehead was full and high, and her hair thrown back in a manner which perfectly displayed its expansive proportions. Those luxuriant tresses of a bright, flaxen hue were partly gathered in a heavy knot at the back of her head and partly fell in long ringlets behind her ears. Her complexion was of that clear but tintless description which so strongly resembles alabaster. There was a thoughtful expression in her large blue eyes, which, but for the benignant smile on her lips, would have given a solemn aspect to her countenance.”

Hahnemann she described thus: “His slender and diminutive form was enveloped in a flowered dressing gown of rich materials, and too comfortable in appearance to be of other than of Parisian make. The crown of his large, beautifully proportioned head was covered by a skull cap of black velvet. From beneath it strayed a few thin snowy locks, which clustered about his noble forehead, and spoke of the advanced age which the lingering freshness of his florid complexion seemed to deny. His eyes were dark, deep set, glittering and full of animation.”

At some point during the consultation, Hahnemann came to realize that Helen had been in Germany and knew the language. “He immediately commenced a conversation in his native tongue, inquiring how I was pleased with Germany, what I thought of the inhabitants, their customs, whether I found the language difficult, how I was impressed with the scenery, and continuing an enthusiastic strain of eulogium upon his beloved country for some time.” Her story shows that Hahnemann clearly felt great nostalgia for his homeland. As much as he had suffered persecutions there, he would always love it dearly.

Next: The Hahnemanns in Paris, part 2 – the last installment of the series.

Hahnemann: The Father of Homeopathy, Part 8

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann expected that his last years on Earth would be spent in Köthen. Widowed at age 75, two of his daughters, Louise and Charlotte, kept house for him. In his mind, his life’s work was done. He had completed his research, published everything needed to keep his medical system alive after his death, and now he whiled away his “dwindling” years by either attending to patients or teaching those who came to Köthen to learn from him. (See part 7.)

He refused to travel, with one notable exception: In June 1834, at age 79, he attended the one-year anniversary celebration of the first homeopathic hospital. Returning to Leipzig for such an occasion must have been deeply satisfying. He had left the city 15 years earlier after a court decision stripped him of the right to dispense his own medicines, and the trial also led to the persecution of all his students (see part 6). But now! The homeopaths of Leipzig had successfully opened a homeopathic hospital the previous year.

An entourage traveled with Hahnemann to Leipzig, and “he was enthusiastically welcomed with befitting ceremony by an address in Latin by (the hospital's) director.” Hahnemann had influenced the appointment of the director, and was glad that his strong opinions on the matter had been heeded. He had been the driving force behind ousting the first director, a man Hahnemann called a “half-homeopath,” who had allowed emetics, venesection, and other Old School treatments in addition to the homeopathic ones. Convinced that the man (and all those like him) would imperil the new doctrine, Hahnemann vociferously campaigned against this “silly confounder of Homeopathy and Allopathy” and won. Unfortunately, the conflict created a further divide in the homeopathic community, widening the rift created by Hahnemann’s book on chronic disease (see part 7). The ousted director continued to practice his version of homeopathy and had more tolerant names for the two types of practitioners: purists and liberals. It’s interesting to note that factions remain in the homeopathic community to this day—the purists, who practice according to strict Hahnemannian principles, and various others.

In October of that same year (1834), Hahnemann met Mèlanie d’Hervilly-Gohier, a French painter and poet, and his life took a sharp turn in a new direction. Mèlanie’s rationale for making the 2-week journey from Paris to Germany varies, depending on the biographer. One stressed that her ill health brought her to Köthen; she wanted to see if Hahnemann could cure a chronic ailment that had baffled her physicians in Paris. Hahnemann’s case files from her appointment describe “a kind of tic douloureux in the right hypogastrium.” And Mèlanie wrote about that time, “my health was impaired as a result of grief caused by the loss of several of my friends.” She had also been unable to paint for three years. Another biographer wrote that, after reading the French translation of the Organon of Medicine, Mèlanie was determined to claim its brilliant author for her own country. It’s true that after reading the Organon, she wrote, “the sun of true medicine had risen for me.” She had been interested in medicine since childhood, but since women were not allowed to attend medical colleges she pursued a career in the arts instead. But the Organon renewed her squelched interest in the topic and, by meeting Hahnemann, she could learn medicine in a new and inspiring way.

Mèlanie was the daughter of a French nobleman who was described as “intellectually unconventional” (Napoleon had given amnesty to the French aristocrats who survived the Revolution). She was educated at home, and is described as “highly precocious.” Her father allowed her to study what interested her, and she did not choose the typical lessons that prepared girls for marriage. Mèlanie had no intention of marrying, and was “the despair” of a vain mother, who reportedly threw a knife at 15-year-old Mèlanie in a fit of jealously over the girl’s spiritedness and good looks. Her father sent her to live with the family of her painting teacher, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, a gifted “history” painter, and this arrangement accelerated her skill as a painter. She also became involved in the politics of the day and wrote poems, not all of which were political, but one of her few surviving poems was L’Hirondelle Athènienne (The Athenian Swallow), published in 1825, which was sold to raise money for the Greek War of Independence. Mèlanie was also a sportswoman who could ride, swim, and shoot a variety of guns.

She traveled to Germany alone, dressed in gentleman’s clothes, which was not unusual for the female painters of the day. They would often don trousers during their solitary jaunts into the countryside to paint landscapes. Additionally, Mèlanie was known to say, “I prefer going about with men, for no sensible word can be addressed to a woman.” But when she met Hahnemann, that fateful day in October, she wore her hair in the latest Parisian style and had on a dress that reportedly “shocked and excited” Hahnemann’s daughters. She was a tall, handsome woman with blue eyes and fair hair, and Hahnemann, though 79 years of age, was “lively and brisk; every movement full of life, his features sharp and animated.”

He found in Mèlanie a kindred spirit; she was intelligent, articulate, energetic, and well-read. She appreciated Hahnemann’s razor sharp intellect and unswerving integrity. Reports state that they became engaged only three days after they met. In any event, they were married 103 days after they met, following a courtship that was kept secret to avoid conflict with Hahnemann’s daughters, as well as his friends. He was more than twice her age, but their love, as soul mates, could not be denied. In one of her letters during the courtship, she writes, “you will always be my husband in my thoughts; no other man will ever lay a profane hand on me, no mouth other than yours will kiss my mouth. I give you my faith, and I swear to you eternal love and fidelity.”

It goes without saying that much of the world did not see the match in a positive light. One of Hahnemann’s detractors, a standard physician, reportedly said that he hoped the old man would finally be carried off; surely, he couldn’t long survive the physical demands of a marriage bed. Hahnemann’s assistant, Dr. Lehmann, called the match a “sacrifice” on the part of Mèlanie. And Hahnemann’s daughters were particularly distraught over it. They worried that their father had fallen into the hands of an adventuress, and worried that his mental faculties were slipping. They could not understand the depth of affection that had sprung up between the pair, and they also worried that their raison d’etre would be stripped from them after the marriage. In truth, it was. Hahnemann bought them another house after the wedding, so that he and Mèlanie could live peacefully together and not be disturbed by the daughters’ interference and jealousy. Mèlanie also wanted privacy, in which to share her husband’s bed without judgement. She wrote of the daughters, “they must believe, as does the whole world, that there’ll be no physical passion between us,” (for it was true that most of the world preferred to think of it as a “platonic” marriage). It wasn’t. In Hahnemann’s will, he wrote, “should my present wife bear me any children, then this child or children, as a matter of course, have the same claims on my property as the children of my first marriage.”

Mèlanie lived in Köthen with her new husband for about six months before she determined that she had to travel to Paris to “settle her own financial affairs there.” Hahnemann went with her and they never returned to Germany. His will, which he wrote before they left, split his assets between his children. Mèlanie had asked him to do so, to quiet the “adventuress” rumors, and his will included this statement: “On the eve of my departure to Paris, where, far away from the country in which I had to suffer so much, I probably shall remain, and where I hope to find with my beloved wife that peace and happiness for which my desired marriage will be a sufficient guarantee, I declare that I have divided nearly the whole of my property among my children solely on the particular wish and desire of my wife, which is proof of her noble disinterestedness.”

Hahnemann took with him only a small amount of money and his personal valuables, which included his medicines and his library. He further specified in his will that all that went with him to Paris would be Mèlanie’s, and that she would have “complete control” over his funeral arrangements.

Next time: The Hahnemann’s in Paris, part 1