Introduction: a medical revolutionary.

 

It would be difficult to overstate the influence, both controversial and positive, of Samuel Hahnemann on medicine. When medicine was an often violent, invasive and dangerous pursuit with few effective treatments to show for it, Hahnemann proposed an entirely different, gentle and personcentered philosophy based on the body’s inherent capacity for healing. This philosophy would later be the basis of homeopathy which is still used today.

In the late 18th century, when Hahnemann developed his philosophy, mainstream medical approaches did not incorporate systematic evaluation, were often crude and did more harm than good. Methods such as bloodletting and dangerous and even poisonous substances, such as mercury, were common, and it was only logical for someone such as Hahnemann to ask whether these methods were really making people healthier. Though, of course, there was no basis for rigorous clinical trials or other systematic ways to determine medical benefit, the medicine of the era was largely based on logical reasoning, experimentation, and empirical observation, qualities that Hahnemann certainly upheld, even if he took them down a different road.

Some core principles behind his philosophy include that like cures like (meaning that substances that cause illness symptoms in healthy individuals, given in small doses, should be capable of treating the same symptoms in the sick), that individual care and a very minimum dose is necessary, and that a careful and observant rather than violent and intrusive method is necessary.

Hahnemann was truly influential in the development of medical thought. While still hotly debated today, he did contribute a method which took observation and safety into account, and was, above all, individual and holistic.

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