A Pioneer in Medicine.

 Inro: A Maverick of the Medical World, Samuel Hahnemann, undoubtedly one of the most polarizing yet vital physicians to ever have lived, transformed medicine by offering an approach that, at a time when treatments were often invasive, crude and downright dangerous, offered a completely new approach based on gentleness, individuality and the natural healing potential of the human body. Today, homeopathy is widely known as a medicine derived from his work. However, his theories involved more than just an alternative approach-he provided a basis to medicine at the time that completely undermined previous methods of treatment in the late 18 th /early 19 th century. At this time, bloodletting, purgation, and toxic medications such as mercury were widely practiced-all of these things could and did weaken, rather than cure the patient. At a time when science and its application into the medical field was primitive, and standard clinical trials unknown, most medicine was based on traditional ideas, not on proven results. Hahnemann temporarily left the practice of medicine, frustrated with this practice but returned with a new plan that was based on observation, experimentation, and reason. His idea that likes cure likes said that substances that produce a specific symptoms in a healthy person may cure that symptom when ingested in the sick in very minute quantities. This new idea looked away from the names of diseases and instead focused on each individual's symptom picture. Along with this idea, he further explained that, as with his theory on symptom picture, two people with the same disease will have a different course of that disease as every person is an individual. This principle of individualised treatment was further refined by the principle of minimum dosage, where medicine should not be in large quantities as the risk and potential harm increases, but in smallest possible quantities necessary to cure the complaint. This theory has been carried into the modern era with the focus of safety in the medical practice. However, this was not only concerned with theories, Hahnemann had an impact on the overall delivery of medicine to the patient. He treated the patient as an individual, not as a disease; his practice involved close observation and communication. It is difficult to determine the value of his work for medicine as homeopathy is still considered controversial in science, however, patient centered care and the observation method can be credited with being introduced by Hahnemann.

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