accidental discoveries
very early in his medical career samuel hahnemann realized that the practice of medicine was actually very dangerous, even life-threatening, for the patient -- oftentimes a patient was made worse from a physician's treatment. of course, this was back in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when blood-letting was common practice, and medicines were crude, poisonous and prescribed in fairly large doses. firmly believing that the methods he'd been taught in medical school would do more harm than good, hahnemann stopped practicing medicine and instead made his living translating medical and other texts. he was an incredible linguist and was conversant in more than ten languages including latin, hebrew, greek, german, english and aramaic.
while translating a medical text written by the well-known scottish physician william cullen, hahnemann was skeptical of the validity of cullen's claim that the bitter taste of peruvian bark (aka cinchona bark, aka quinine) was responsible for it's efficacy in treating malaria. from the little bit i've read of hahnemann's writings, i have no doubt that his skepticism added to his constantly-growing, lifelong disdain for the "allopathic" medical community. in the sixth edition of his organon, he wrote pages of footnotes with scathing condemnations of his fellow physicians and the methods they employed. yeah, you can imagine how successful he was at persuading people to his point of view.
anyway, hahnemann was curious to discover the real reason for the curative effect of peruvian bark on malaria, so he started taking peruvian bark himself, even though he was perfectly healthy and had never had malaria in his life (he lived in germany and other parts of europe, so not much chance of that!). after taking twice-a-day doses of the peruvian bark for a short period of time, hahnemann started to exhibit the same symptoms as someone afflicted with malaria. as a result of his little experiment, he concluded that peruvian bark cured malaria in a sick person because it caused malaria-like symptoms in a healthy person. this accidental discovery was the beginning of homeopathy, and serves as the basis for the most important of the homeopathic principles, "similia similibus curantur" or "likes are cured by likes".
a more humorous "accidental discovery" in the homeopathic world involves the remedy thuja (thuja occidentalis). a priest came to see hahnemann (i think, maybe it was kent?) one day and described to him the symptoms he was experiencing. as hahnemann made notes, he quickly realized that the symptoms the priest was describing were those of someone infected with gonorrhea. delicately, he asked the priest what he'd been doing prior to the onset of symptoms. of course, the priest insisted he'd been doing nothing different than usual, nothing out of the ordinary. hahnemann reworked the case, trying to consider what else could be causing gonorrhea-like symptoms, to no avail. eventually he told the priest right out what his symptoms meant...that the priest had contracted gonorrhea. the priest insisted he'd kept to his godly vow of abstinence. (heheh. yeah, don't they all?!)
when hahnemann couldn't get the priest to admit to having sex with an infected partner, he decided on another tact and asked for every detail of the priest's recent past. during their conversation it came out that the priest, while on his daily walks, was picking off bits from the thuja trees along the way and chewing on them (maybe he enjoyed the taste/smell of camphor?). aha! thuja is a homeopathic remedy for the treatment of gonorrhea which, obviously, will create gonorrhea-like symptoms in people who are healthy. hahnemann told the priest to stop chewing the thuja and, sure enough, within days the symptoms started to subside and, shortly thereafter, all of his complaints disappeared.
can you imagine being the devout and celibate priest, knowing the local physician suspects you of being a lying slut? *snort*
while translating a medical text written by the well-known scottish physician william cullen, hahnemann was skeptical of the validity of cullen's claim that the bitter taste of peruvian bark (aka cinchona bark, aka quinine) was responsible for it's efficacy in treating malaria. from the little bit i've read of hahnemann's writings, i have no doubt that his skepticism added to his constantly-growing, lifelong disdain for the "allopathic" medical community. in the sixth edition of his organon, he wrote pages of footnotes with scathing condemnations of his fellow physicians and the methods they employed. yeah, you can imagine how successful he was at persuading people to his point of view.
anyway, hahnemann was curious to discover the real reason for the curative effect of peruvian bark on malaria, so he started taking peruvian bark himself, even though he was perfectly healthy and had never had malaria in his life (he lived in germany and other parts of europe, so not much chance of that!). after taking twice-a-day doses of the peruvian bark for a short period of time, hahnemann started to exhibit the same symptoms as someone afflicted with malaria. as a result of his little experiment, he concluded that peruvian bark cured malaria in a sick person because it caused malaria-like symptoms in a healthy person. this accidental discovery was the beginning of homeopathy, and serves as the basis for the most important of the homeopathic principles, "similia similibus curantur" or "likes are cured by likes".
a more humorous "accidental discovery" in the homeopathic world involves the remedy thuja (thuja occidentalis). a priest came to see hahnemann (i think, maybe it was kent?) one day and described to him the symptoms he was experiencing. as hahnemann made notes, he quickly realized that the symptoms the priest was describing were those of someone infected with gonorrhea. delicately, he asked the priest what he'd been doing prior to the onset of symptoms. of course, the priest insisted he'd been doing nothing different than usual, nothing out of the ordinary. hahnemann reworked the case, trying to consider what else could be causing gonorrhea-like symptoms, to no avail. eventually he told the priest right out what his symptoms meant...that the priest had contracted gonorrhea. the priest insisted he'd kept to his godly vow of abstinence. (heheh. yeah, don't they all?!)
when hahnemann couldn't get the priest to admit to having sex with an infected partner, he decided on another tact and asked for every detail of the priest's recent past. during their conversation it came out that the priest, while on his daily walks, was picking off bits from the thuja trees along the way and chewing on them (maybe he enjoyed the taste/smell of camphor?). aha! thuja is a homeopathic remedy for the treatment of gonorrhea which, obviously, will create gonorrhea-like symptoms in people who are healthy. hahnemann told the priest to stop chewing the thuja and, sure enough, within days the symptoms started to subside and, shortly thereafter, all of his complaints disappeared.
can you imagine being the devout and celibate priest, knowing the local physician suspects you of being a lying slut? *snort*