Volume 1

Organon of medicine ... / by Samuel Hahnemann.

  • Hahnemann, Samuel, 1755-1843.
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Organon of medicine ... / by Samuel Hahnemann. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    but torture them, waste their strength and fluids, and shorten their lives! Can it be said to save whilst it destroys? Does it deserve any other name than that of a mischievous [non-healing] artf It acts, lege artis, in the most inappropriate manner, and it does (it would almost seem purposely) aWola that is to say, the very opposite of what it should do. Can it be commended? Can it be any longer tolerated? In recent times the old school practitioners have quite surpassed themselves in their cruelty towards their sick fellow-creatures, and in the unsuitableness of their opera¬ tions, as every unprejudiced observer must admit, and as even physicians of their own school have been forced, by the pricks of their conscience (like Kriiger Hansen), to confess before the world. It was high time for the wise and benevolent Creator and Preserver of mankind to put a stop to these abom¬ inations, to command a cessation of these tortures, and to reveal a healing art the very opposite of all this, which should not waste the vital juices and powers by emetics, perennial scourings out of the bowels, warm baths, dia¬ phoretics or salivation; nor shed the life’s blood, nor torment and weaken with painful appliances; nor, in place of curing patients, suffering from diseases, render them incurable by the addition of new, chronic medicinal maladies by means of the prolonged use of wrong, power¬ ful medicines of unknown properties; nor yoke the horse behind the cart, by giving strong palliatives, according to the old favorite axiom, contraria contrariis curentur; nor, in short, in place of lending the patient aid, to guide him in the way to death, as is done by the merciless