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Samuel Hahnemann(10th April 1755 - 2nd July 1842) -- R. E. Dudgeon, M. D. |
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Another quality of Hahnemann’s mind conscientiousness, is strikingly displayed in his abandoning the lucrative practice of medicine when his faith was shaken in it and supporting his family for some time upon the proceeds of his chemical discoveries, and by the tenfold greater labour of translating book for the publisher. This quality is also shown in the refusal to adopt any mode of avoiding the persecution of the apothecaries, which he might readily have done, either by setting up an apothecary of his own or by dispensing his medicine secretly. Another, if possible, still more striking trait of conscientiousness which I have not found alluded to elsewhere, is this. After his first discovery of the homoeopathic therapeutic law, he contented himself for some years with making a collection of the morbid effected of various poisonous and medicinal substance from the writings and observations of the more ancient and the modern toxicologists and experiments. In this way he collected together a tolerable pathogenesis of many powerful substances, and on this basis he endeavored to practice. He published the results of his first trial of his systems upon these data in 1796 and the two following years. But he soon found that the records of the toxicologists and others were inadequate to afford him sufficiently accurate pictures of morbid states corresponding to the nature diseases he had to treat, and he saw that there was nothing for it but to test the medicines and poisons accurately, carefully, and systematically upon the healthy individual. As yet he knew not if such trials might not be fought with danger to his constitution and shorten life; but he did not shrink from what he considered a sacred duty, and he boldly set about the gigantic task-a task, I may safely say, from which any ordinary mind would have recalled in dismay. How he executed his task I need not relate. The ten volumes of provings he has left us are an external monument to his energy, perseverance conscientiousness, and self-sacrifice. "When," says he, "we have to do with an art whose end is the saving of human life, any neglect to make ourselves thoroughly master of it becomes a crime!" We may form some idea of Hahanemann’s immense industry when we consider that he proved about ninety different medicine, that he wrote upwards of seventy original works on chemistry and medicine, some of which were in several thick volumes, and translated about twenty-four works from the English, French, Italian, and Latin on chemistry, medicine, agriculture, and general literature, many of which were in more then one volume. Besides this he attended to the duties of an immense practice, corresponding and consulting, and those who know the care and time he expended on every case, the accuracy with which he registered every symptom, and the carefulness with which he sought for the proper remedy, will be able to estimate what a Herculean labour a large practice so conducted must have been. When I add that he was an accomplished classical scholar and pathologist, and that he had more than a superficial acquaintance with botany, astronomy, meteorology, and geography, we shall be forced to acknowledge that his industry and working power bordered on the marvelous. His goodness of heart and generosity appear on various occasions. In the fragment of autobiography I have before alluded to, after relating that he was swindled out of the hard earned gains by means of which he hoped to pursue his medical studies in Vienna, he says that the person who injured him was afterwards sorry for what he had done, so he freely forgives him, and will not mention either his name or the circumstances of the transaction. His enemies and some of his professed friends have accused him of avarice, founding this charge on the fact that the he demanded high fees, made his corresponding patients pay for the consultation on receipt of the letter, and that he lived in a style not to his wealth. His frequent struggles with the direct poverty had no doubt taught him, by many cruel lessons, the value of money, and we can scarcely wonder that he was rather economical and saving, more whom especially as he had a large family, nine of whom were daughters, from whom he might any day be cut off and whom he would not like to leave partialness. That this was his motive in evident from the circumstances that when he left Coethen for Paris he divided his fortune, amounting to 60,000 thalers, on about £ 10,000 sterling, among his family. If he took large fees he did so both because he had a very high idea of the dignity of his profession, and because he well knew the value of the services he rendered to his patients, and the amount of labor he had undergone in order to be enabled to render such services. To the poor he was liberal, in giving them the benefit of his advice gratuitously. As for the other charge brought against him of making the patients pay for the consultation on receipt of the letter, I think that was an arrangement which concerned Hahnemann’s patients alone, and if they did not object to it, surely his colleagues had no occasion to find fault, Hahnemann, rather deserved the thanks than the censure of his colleagues for devising and introducing a method whereby the just interests of the profession were protected. |
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