Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann

Details

The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann, collected and translated by R. E. Dudgeon, was published in 1852.

This compilation of essays and other writings is an excellent chronicle of the development of Hahnemann's thought, from conventional doctor to homeopathic physician.

Included within is "Essay on a New Curative Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Power of Drugs", Hahnemann's essay that first defined homeopathy. Also included is the "Medicine of Experience", the predecessor to the Organon.

These and the other works included provide a clear picture of the evolution of homeopathy.

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Heritage

A collection of essays and letters, edited by Robert Ellis Dudgeon, MD.

This contains a number of valuable essays, including his first major essay that defined homeopathy "Essay on a New Curative Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Power of Drugs" (1796) and many others, including:

"Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever" (1801)
"Aesclepius in the Balance" (1805)
"Medicine of Experience" (1805)
"Contrasts of the Old and New Schools of Medicine" (1825).

Julian Winston writes:
The first book to pull together all of Hahnemann's other writings. It is still in print and remains the primary source for studying the development of Hahnemann's thought.

From:
The Heritage of Homoeopathic Literature
copyright 2001 by Julian Winston
Reprinted with the permission of the author

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Author

Dr. Samuel Christian Frederic Hahnemann, M.D.

(1755 - 1843)

Samuel Hahnemann was the founder of Homoeopathy. He established the fundamental principles of the science and art of Homoeopathy.

He is called the Father of Experimental Pharmacology because he was the first physician to prepare medicines in a specialized way; proving them on healthy human beings, to determine how the medicines acted to cure diseases. Before Hahnemann, medicines were given on speculative indications, mainly on the basis of authority without experimental verification.

Hahnemann discovered the remedial powers of drugs and inert substances such as gold, platinum, silica, vegetable charcoal, lycopodium, etc. By preparing the medicines through potentization, these inert and insoluble substances became soluble in alcohol or water and were charged with medicinal force.

Dr. Hahnemann espoused the law of cure known as "Similia Similibus Curentur", or "Like Cures Like". This means that a remedy that produces symptoms in a healthy person will cure those same symptoms when manifested by a person in a diseased state. This law of cure has been verified by millions of homoeopaths all over the world since the time of Hahnemann.

Hahnemann discovered the primary and secondary actions of remedies. The primary action results from the first encounter between the vital force and the external agent, and the secondary action is a result of the vital force's reaction to the symptoms of that primary encounter. This discovery led him to the curative powers of poisonous substances.

Dr. Hahnemann described the different aspects of 'acute' and 'chronic' diseases. Acute diseases are transitory; they have a beginning and an end, whereas the chronic diseases are co-existent with life. Either they are present in a manifest or a latent state. From this work came the chronic miasms of Psora, Syphilis, and Sycosis.

Dr. Hahnemann was the progenitor of several modern medical approaches. Deeming the treatment of insane patients to be cruel and harmful, he advised a humane treatment for the insane. He cured many insane patients with homeopathy, and became famous for this success.

Dr. Hahnemann was quick to recognize poor hygiene as a contributory cause to the spread of disease. His success with cholera and typhoid fever was in part due to this recognition.

Hahnemann also emphasized the importance of nursing, diet, bed rest, and isolation of patients during epidemic diseases. Hahnemann described 'Noxious' principles as the precursors of certain disease states.

Hahnemann's three major publications illumine the development of homeopathy. In the 'Organon of Medicine' (revised six times), we see the fundamentals laid out.

'Materia Medica Pura' records the exact symptoms of the remedy provings. In his book, 'The Chronic Diseases, Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homoeopathic Cure', he showed us how the natural diseases become chronic in nature when suppressed by improper treatment.

Dr. Hahnemann treated thousands of difficult and chronic cases that defied the best care from allopaths all over Europe. Thus, he became so famous that physicians from Europe and America came to him for coaching in the new science and art of healing, called Homoeopathy.

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Contents

Instruction for Surgeons Respecting Venereal Diseases (1789) -- 1-154
The Friend of Health, Part 1 (1792) -- 155-199
The Friend of Health, Part 2 (1795) -- 200-242
Description of Klockenbring During his Insanity (1796) -- 243-248
Essay on a New Principle for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs, with a Few Glances at Those Hitherto Employed (1796) -- 249-302
Case of Rapidly Cured Colicodynia (1797) -- 303-306
Are the Obstacles to Certainty and Simplicity in Practical Medicine Insurmountable (1797) -- 307-321
Antidotes to Some Heroic Vegetable Substances (1798) -- 322-324
Some Kinds of Continued and Remittent Fevers (1798) -- 325-340
Some Periodical and Hebdomadal Diseases (1798) -- 341-343
A Preface (1800) -- 344-349
Fragmentary Observations on Brown's Elements of Medicine (1801) -- 350-361
View of Professional Liberality at the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century (1801) -- 362-368
Cure and Prevention of Scarlet-Fever (1801) -- 369-384
On the Power of Small Doses of Medicine in Gerneral, and of Belladonna in Particular (1801) -- 385-388
On a Proposed Remedy for Hydrophobia (1803) -- 389-390
On the Effects of Coffee, from Orginal Obserations (1803) -- 391-409
Esculapius in the Balance (1805) -- 410-434
The Medicine of Experience (1805) -- 435-475
Objections to a Proposed Substitute for Cinchona Bark and to Succedanea in General (1806) -- 476-478
Observations on the Scarlet-Fever -- 479-483
On the Present Want of Foreign Medicines (1808) -- 484-487
On the Value of the Speculative Systems of Medicine -- 488-504
On Substitutes for Foreign Drugs (1808) -- 505-510
Extract from a Letter to a Physician of High Standing on the Great Necessity of a Regeneration of Medicine (1808) -- 511-521
Observations on the Three Current Methods of Treatment (1809) -- 522-551
To a Candidate for the Degree of MD (1809) -- 552-554
On the Prevailing Fever (1809) -- 555-565
Signs of the Times in the Ordinary System of Medicine (1809) -- 566-568
Medical Historical Desertation on the Helleborism of the Ancients (1812) -- 569-616
Spirit of the Homeopathic Doctrine of Medicine (1813) -- 617-630
Treatment of the Typhus or Hospital Fever at Present Prevailing (1814) -- 631-634
On the Treatment of Burns (1816) -- 635-645
On the Venereal Disease and its Ordinary Improper Treatment (1816) -- 646-658
Nota Bene for my Reviewers (1817) -- 659-663
Examination of the Sources of the Ordinary Materia Medica (1817) -- 664-694
On the Uncharitableness Towards Suicides (1819) -- 695
Treatment of the Purpura Miliaris (1821) -- 695
Preparation and Dispensing of Medicines by Homeopathic Physicians -- 696-711
Contrast of the Old and New Systems of Medicine (1825) -- 712-723
The Medical Observer (1825) -- 724-727
How Can Small Doses of Such Very Attenuated Medicine as Homeopathy Employs Still Possess Great Power? (1827) -- 728-734
Impregnation of the Globules with Medicine (1829) -- 735
Allopathy: A Word of Warning to All Sick Persons (1831) -- 736-752
Cure and Prevention of the Asiatic Cholera (1831) -- 753-755
Appeal to Thinking Philanthropists Respecting the Mode of Propagation of the Asiatic Cholera (1831) -- 756-762
Remarks on the Extreme Attenuation of Homeopathic Remedies (1832) -- 763-765
Cases Illustrative of Homeopathic Practice (1833) -- 766-772
Two Cases from Hahnemann's Note Book (1843) -- 773-776
Index -- 777-784

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