Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of homœopathic medicine.

  • Samuel Hahnemann
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Samuel Hahnemann's Organon of homœopathic medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    PREFACE TO THE BRITISH EDITION. An accidental interview with a Russian physician, in the year 1828, made me acquainted for the first time with the medical doctrine of homoeopathy; the principle of which is? that certain medicines, when administered internally in a healthy state of the system, produce certain effects, and that the same medicines are to be used when symptoms similar to those which they give rise to occur in disease. This doctrine, directly opposite to that which hitherto formed the basis of medical practice in these countries, attracted my attention. I immediately procured Hahnemann's Materia Medica Pura, in which the doctrine is partially explained, with the view of investigating the system experimentally, and reporting my ob- servations thereon, free from theory, prejudice, or party. The first inquiry was, whether the proposition similia similibus cu- raniur was true. This investigation was confined to a single substance at a time. To ascertain the effects of sulphate of quinine, healthy individuals were selected, to whom grain doses of the medicine were administered three times a day. After using it for some days, stomach-sickness, loss of appetite, a sense of cold along the course of the spine, rigour, heat of skin, and general perspiration, succeeded. Effects similar to these are often observed when this medicine is injudiciously selected in the treatment of disease. It sometimes happens, that the symptoms of ague are aggravated by the prolonged use of sulphate of quinia, and soon after it is withdrawn, the disease gradually subsides. The result of experiments and observations on this remedy elucidate its homoeopathic action. Mercurial preparations, when administered internally, pro- duce symptoms local and constitutional, so closely resembling
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