Organon 6th ed. (Naude)

From the Book

In the early 19th century, Samuel Hahnemann, a German medical doctor, discovered that he could profoundly stimulate healing by giving his patients very small amounts of carefully chosen substances.

He used these successes to establish the discipline of homoeopathy, and he set down its principles in this book, the Organon of Medicine. Now, nearly 200 years later, people are finding in these teachings a powerful weapon against the acute and chronic diseases of modern civilization.

"The Organon of Medicine is the most important book in homoeopathy. The translation by Kunzli, Naude and Pendleton is the only integral English translation of the final edition of this work. It is brilliantly translated. This book is indispensable."
Daniel Cook, MD
Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy

"There is not and cannot be another authentic source for the principles and practice of homoeopathy, nor any work that better captures the spirit and force of Hahnemann's polemic."
Roger Cooter
Times Literary Supplement

"...this new book is apparently unique in being a direct English translation of the VIth edition.... The standard English version has been the Vth edition with additions from the VIth, but this work has been translated directly from the original text of the VIth edition.... I would recommend this new translation of the VIth edition to all students of homoeopathy, whether just beginning or well advanced in its practice."
Dr. Andrew Lockie
British Homoeopathic Journal

"The whole presentation makes for easy reading, both of the main paragraphs and the footnotes. . . . The 6th edition of the Organon is thought by many people to represent a climax in Hahnemann's expression of his understanding of the philosophy relating to homoeopathy. This presentation of it is therefore an important and welcome addition to homoeopathic literature."
Anne Clover MBBS, DPM, FFHom British Homoeopathic Journal

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Details

Paying homage to the fact that everything ever written on homeopathy proceeds from Hahnemann’s Organon, the translators subtitled this version The First Integral English Translation of the Definitive Sixth Edition of the Original Work on Homeopathic Medicine.

The standard English version of the Organon until 1982 had been a nineteenth-century translation of the fifth edition, to which a translation of the important changes introduced by Hahnemann in the sixth edition were later added in an effort to bring it up to date.

Unfortunately, this translation was very tedious and difficult to read because it approximated in stilted Victorian English, the dense and cumbersome style of Hahnemann's German.

Hahnemann's language is difficult even for a modem German ear, and its literal equivalent in English is a formidable obstacle to understanding. Furthermore, there are serious errors in the translation and in the additions made to it. Naude, et al made a completely new translation from the original text of the sixth edition which was in the possession of the School of Medicine of the University of California in San Francisco.

See all editions of the Organon

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Heritage

The first "new" translation of the text. It was undertaken by Alain Naude, and Peter Pendelton, and was checked and corrected by Jost Künzli in Switzerland. It does not contain the lengthy introduction offered by Hahnemann. The work was done from a microfilm of the 6th edition at the University of California. Unfortunately, the translators did not know that when the book was being microfilmed, some paragraphs that were pasted on pieces of paper into the original by Hahnemann were not folded out, and thus not recorded.

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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Reviews

From:
HOMEOPATHY TODAY
FEBRUARY 1994

Julian Winston

Until this edition was released ten years ago, the only translation of the Organon available was the Dudgeon translation of the 5th edition with the additions from the 6th edition added by William Boericke in 1921.

A careful comparison of the above translations with this new one, can give many insights into the meaning of the 291 aphorisms.

The book also includes an index, which is extremely useful when trying to find a specific word or idea within the text of the book.

For scholarly work, I'd still prefer the combined 5th and 6th edition that is published in India, through which you can see the changes that Hahnemann made to each aphorism and footnote through the varying editions.

Even so, I still keep a 1982 copy of this present translation nearby to compare with the earlier translations.

My only complaint about this edition (and of the earlier one too) is that Hahnemann's long introduction is missing from it. The introduction serves to place the book into the historical context of medicine, and outlines not only the medicine of Hahnemann's day, but gives, in his own words, the practices which led him to write the Organon in the first place.

Aside from that shortcoming (which is why I have and use the earlier editions alongside this one), the Kunzli, Naude, Pendelton translation provides a clear and thought provoking translation of this seminal work in homeopathy.

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