Hahnemann: The Father of Homeopathy - Part 1

I just finished reading "The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann" by Thomas Lindsley Bradford, and it has inspired me to write a series of blogs. This first one is about Hahnemann's younger years. The description "genius" can sometimes be applied without merit but, even as a boy, Hahnemann gave indications that he was a truly brilliant person.

When he was a grade-school boy, growing up in Meissen, Germany, his father would sometimes pull him out of school when the tuition money ran out (school was never free in those days). However, the "great men of the little German village" urged Hahnemann's father to keep him in school, granting Hahnemann scholarships and giving him (at 12 years of age!) the task of teaching basic (101) Greek to the other children.

His father came from a long line of tradesmen (he was a porcelain designer), and he could not envision any future for his son outside of that realm. He might have agreed to the school scholarships, but he discouraged Hahnnemann from devoting any additional time to books. But Hahnemann was determined, and devised a way to sneakily study at night. He handcrafted a small lamp out of clay so that his father wouldn't notice that a household lamp was missing. The lamp was shielded on three sides so that the light could not easily be seen through a window blind or from under a door.

At fifteen, his father insisted he learn a trade and sent him off to Leipzig to apprentice with a grocer. Hahnemann tried to comply but was miserable. He finally ran away from the grocery store, back to his home, and he hid from his father while appealing to his mother. She convinced her husband that, as a grocer, their son would not be following one of the fatherly principles he had tried to instill, which was "to live and to act without pretense or show." Once that pivotal episode resolved (with the help of Hahnemann's most prominent teacher, Magister Müller), the boy attended a boarding school for gifted students, more or less on scholarship.

His dream was to become a physician, and at the age of twenty, with letters of recommendation from all his teachers, and 20 thalers from his father, he left for Liepzig to attend the university there. At this point, he already knew English, French, Greek, Latin, Hebrew - in addition to his native German. He had also studied history, physics and botany, but his favorite topic was medical science. [Side note: The thaler was, more or less, Europe's first Euro. It gave Europe a standard unit of trade and was used for roughly 400 years. In Hahnemann's day, it was reportedly worth about a week's wages for a skilled laborer, so Hahnemann's father was as generous as his modest income would allow - a sign that he had finally accepted his son's destiny. But I digress....]

Despite the money that his father gave him, Hahnemann did not have a free ride at the University of Leipzig. He attended lectures during the day but he also worked most nights. Thanks to his excellent knowledge base, he was able to procure a job doing English-to-German translations. He also took on pupils who wanted to learn either German or French.

At the age of 22, he moved to Vienna to gain more extensive, firsthand knowledge of medicine. A celebrated physician, Dr. Von Quarin, became his mentor, and he was so impressed by Hahnemann's ability that he made him his protege and took him on visits to see private patients (something he had never done before). When Hahnemann's meager funds ran out, Dr. Von Quarin secured for him a paid position as family physician and librarian to the governor of Siebenburgen, Baron von Bruckenthal.

Hahnemann took full advantage of his status as librarian and read extensively, becoming proficient in additional languages - Italian, Syriac, Arabic, Spanish and even a little Chaldaic. He gained an excellent, self-taught classical education, acquiring a diverse knowledge of ancient literature and the occult sciences. It was with reluctance that he left this wonderful job to finish his degree at Erlangen University. But leave he did, and he was finally awarded his long-awaited medical degree in August 1779 at the age of 24.

He started his medical career in the mining town of Hettstadt, where he continued to enhance his knowledge, this time by reading about mining, smelting and chemistry. Less than a year later, he left for the town of Dessau, where he met (and later married)

19-year-old Miss Johanna Kuchler, the daughter (and step-daughter) of an apothecary.

Next time: Hahnemann's early life as a physician and husband.