Hahnemann: The Father of Homeopathy - Part 6

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann was 57 years old when he earned the right to teach at Leipzig University by giving a brilliant thesis on Helleborism of the Ancients (see part 5). He did not reveal that he would be teaching homeopathy—there was no mention of homeopathic truths in his thesis—but that is exactly what he did. His plan was to teach malleable minds, since he had given up on reaching the closed-minded established physicians. He wrote, “No, it is only the young whose heads are not deluged to overflowing with a flood of everyday dogmas, and in whose arteries there runs not yet the stream of medical prejudice; it is only such young and candid natures, on whom truth and philanthropy have got a hold, who are open to our simple doctrine of medicine.”

Hahnemann gave two weekly lectures during his time as a professor in Leipzig (1812 – 1821). His classes were attended by students, some physicians, and by a few non-medical people as well, such as Baron Ernst Georg von Brunnow, a law student whose “bodily sufferings” Hahnemann’s remedies helped greatly. The lectures were well-attended at first, because Hahnemann was making wonderful cures in Leipzig. However, his lectures contained vociferous attacks on the old methods, leaving no doubt that he thought them antiquated, dangerous, and lazy. Perhaps if he had been more temperate in describing them, he might have attracted more adherents, but his strict code of truth did not allow him to whitewash the Old School’s ways.

[An aside: Baron von Brunnow gave up his career in law due to his delicate constitution and devoted his life to literary pursuits. He became an "ardent champion of the cause," and translated Hahnemann’s “Organon of Medicine” into French and assisted with the translation of Hahnemann’s Materia Medica into Latin. He was also a poet and a novelist.]

It was during these Leipzig years that Hahnemann, with a loyal group of students nicknamed The Provers' Union, experimented with medicines to the point of being able to publish a huge amount of information about them (see part 4 to better understand provings). This extensive symptom documentation has been the means of “removing much suffering from humanity,” because this bank of symptoms, when searched with a specific patient in mind, points the way to a well-selected remedy. [Homeopathic repertories have organized the symptoms so that they are easily searchable.]

We owe a debt of gratitude to one of Hahnemann’s “most zealous” students, Franz Hartmann, who was part of The Provers' Union and went on to become a renowned homeopath. He documented his time with Hahnemann in great detail, writing, “when I made Hahnemann’s acquaintance, his fame was widespread, and he performed cures which bordered on the incredible, and which established his reputation more and more permanently.” And wrote, “He took pleasure in conversing with me on the sciences, and was always most enthusiastic when on the subject of Materia Medica and therapeutics. I always took especial pains to add fuel to the fire, partly because his fiery zeal was entertaining, and partly because I acquired thereby such a knowledge of Homeopathy, and for many practical observations upon Homeopathy I am indebted to these explosions.” He also gives a detailed physical description of Hahnemann in these years, as “a small, thick-set man, constrained in his gait and bearing, with a bald head and a high, beautifully formed forehead.” And when in the midst of his fiery zeal, “the blood at such times crowded up to his head, the veins became turgid, the brow was flushed, his brilliant eyes sparkled, and he was obliged to take off his little cap to admit the cool air to his heated head.” But when outside the classroom and surrounded by those he trusted, he displayed “the mirthful humor, the familiarity and openness, the wit.” Hahnemann's choice of clothes also demonstrated the difference between his professional and his home life. In his classroom he dressed simply, in a dark coat. When entertaining friends at home, he preferred a “gaily figured” dressing gown.

In 1813, a typhus epidemic came to Leipzig and Hahnemann’s success in treating it silenced his critics for a time. He lost only two patients, whereas the other physicians lost many more than that. He gained many “followers,” but eventually the Old School once again tried to stop his progress. Baron von Brunnow (mentioned above) writes, “His flourishing practice and numerous adherents had become too alarming to his adversaries not to prompt them to take such active measures for his suppression as lay within their power.” Hahnemann was, once again, in trouble for dispensing his own medicines, just as he had been in Konigslutter (see part 5). The year was 1820, but Hahnemann got a small reprieve from the court proceedings because one of the heroes of the Napoleonic war, Field Marshal Prince Schwartzenberg, asked Hahnemann to help him recover from a life-threatening ailment. He initially asked Hahnemann to visit him in Vienna, but Hahnemann responded that “his many literary and scientific labors would not permit so long an absence from Liepzig.” So this celebrated war hero came to Hahnemann, which created quite a bit of jealousy amongst the other physicians.

Homeopathy helped Prince Schwartzenberg recover to some extent, but his hedonistic lifestyle had worn down his body and he eventually died. Brunnow wrote, “To the astonishment of all, the patient felt himself better from day to day, and he was seen driving about after a little time; but the powers of life had been too much weakened to permit of his recovery.” And, “Although the post-mortem proved that no medical skill could by any possibility have been successful in the case, yet the issue of it was very injurious to Hahnemann.” Prince Schwartzenberg’s physician claimed that Hahnemann’s refusal to employ “powerful measures” hastened the prince’s death, despite the fact that the physician had also continued to bleed him. In any event, his death caused the suspended legal processes against Hahnemann to resume with increased vigor, and he was ultimately ordered to stop dispensing his own medicines.

With the persecution of Hahnemann came the persecution of many of his students. To give one example, Christian Gottlob Hornburg, a medical student at the University of Liepzig, especially loved Hahnemann’s lectures and grasped the topic so thoroughly that he was able to achieve several astounding cures himself. He had already earned his baccalaureate, and was doing work towards his medical degree so, strictly speaking, he was not supposed to be seeing patients. Other medical students, who were not proponents of Homeopathy, also gave medical advice and escaped reproof, but because his cures were homeopathic, Hornburg was persecuted. He was fined, and the authorities even went so far as to take his homeopathic medicines from his home and publicly burn them. Worse, and in large part because he spoke so critically about the old methods, he was never awarded his medical degree. He tried in several universities and failed; the “powers that be” wanted to make an example of him. He eventually gave up trying to earn a degree, but never stopped practicing homeopathy. Unfortunately, his tormentors never stopped either, always looking for ways to punish him. In 1833, about fifteen years after his remedies had been publicly burned, he was condemned to two months’ imprisonment for treating a woman with pneumonia who later died at the hands of regular physicians. They knew she had worked with Hornburg and blamed her death on him. The news of this judgement devastated Hornburg. He was recovering from influenza when he learned of it, so not in perfect health, and the shock—and very possibly the imprisonment itself—caused him to go into a decline. He was dead six months later. Fortunately, many of those in Hahnemann’s Provers' Union sidestepped or survived the Old School’s persecution and carried on practicing homeopathy quite successfully, including Hartmann (mentioned above).

All Hahnemann ever wanted to do, always for the absolute good of humanity, was to dispense the simple medicines that he so thoroughly understood, that he himself had made so that he could guarantee their quality, and to share his new method with anyone who was open to learning it. But after nearly ten years of teaching at the University of Leipzig, his dream came to an end. This last battle was the final straw for Hahnemann, who was now 66 years old. He determined to move his family once again, and sent out enquiries to find a place in which he could attain the peace and quiet he needed to continue his research and practice homeopathy without the constant battles. In the spring of 1821, the Grand Duke Frederick of Anhalt-Coethen invited Hahnemann to become private physician to himself and his wife and, perhaps more importantly, gave him free reign to “practice according to the feelings of his heart.”

Next: Hahnemann’s Coethen years, part I