The Friend of Health, part 1

My new series will showcase Dr. Samuel Hahnemann's two-part book, The Friend of Health. He wrote part one in 1792, when his disillusionment of standard medicine was growing but he hadn't yet matured his homeopathic method. The book shows what treatment practices he employed when homeopathic medicines were not yet available to him. And the fact that his ideas on hygiene, diet and the environment are still relevant today says much about his perspicacity.

I'll let Hahnemann speak for himself now, and only provide a few modern edits (in parentheses) for clarification. He wrote in the preface of the book:

"When we behold the large family of mankind acting as they do, when we see with what perseverance they go through their more or less important spheres of action, which some (compelling emotion) often traces out for them, when we see how they all strive after the attainment of some kind of happiness, be it ease, rank, money, learning, amusement or excitement, scarcely deigning to cast a single glance towards the real blessings of this world, wisdom and health, which beckon them back to Eden, we can scarcely refrain from pitying a race of such noble origin and high destiny...

(It is my mission) only to preach upon the greatest of corporeal blessings, health, which scarcely any take the trouble to seek after, and few know how to value until it is lost.

We indeed hear it occasionally remarked that this or the other article of diet is wholesome or hurtful, that this or that remedy is a specific for this or that disease, that this or that habit is injurious...people interest themselves with fashionable modes of treatment, (impressive) diseases, cases of sudden death, beautifying remedies, and anecdotes about physicians. But all this is vain trifling.

The lover of highly spiced dishes exclaims against the indigestible nature of puddings; the tea-drinker can speak like a book about the evils of (drinking alcohol); the lady who has a weakness for coffee talks learnedly on the coarse juices of her who has a liking for beer; the guzzler of puddings declaims upon the poisonous nature of mushrooms.

Hearken to that gouty fellow how well he can describe the hurtful character of the day-labourer's life; to that young gentleman with his pimpled face, how he depicts the disadvantages of a sedentary life; hear how that lady who sticks close to her tapestry work inveighs against the dangers of dancing; and how the dancing nymph points out that much sewing causes (anemia). All know something, only not what is wholesome for themselves....

I should like to know if there is any condition in life, where some medical knowledge and some care for our own...health are not necessary....

Oh! that in the following pages I were so fortunate as to be able to contribute something to the happiness of mankind, if they would listen to the voice of a warm friend of his fellow creatures, as if it were the voice of a friend!"

This blog series won't cover every chapter of Hahnemann's book. Some chapters are truly obsolete, like the one on hydrophobia - a disease that was horrible in Hahnemann's time since there was no reliable cure. But I'll pick out the parts that still apply today, detailing them here one at a time. I hope you enjoy the new series!