Koethen has become a place for an expedition in our homoeopathic community. This small city in Germany is the capital of the district of Anhalt Bitterfield in Saxony. It has gained popularity because Dr. Samuel Hahnemann lived, practiced and contributed his best works there.
The house in which Hahnemann lived from 1821-1835 in Koethen, at 43 Wallstrasse, is situated here. This house is now a Hahnemann Museum and is open to tourists. It includes an actual working homeopathic practice. The city has become a national center for homeopathy, a location for congresses, and the seat of the new European Homeopathic Library. Dr. Hahnemann lived here and contributed his great historical works, the “Organon of Medicine”, “Materia Medica Pura” and The Theory of Chronic Diseases”.
The Organon of Medicine 3rd, 4th and 5th editions were published successively in 1824, 1829 and 1833. He also published Materia Medica Pura in six volumes in 1821. Hahnemann studied his patients with chronic diseases for 12 years and the final outcome was “The Chronic Diseases, Their Nature and Homoeopathic Treatment”. It was published here in 1828 and issued in 4 volumes.
In 1830, Hahnemann’s first wife Johanna Henriette Leopoldine passed away. Marie Melanie d’Hervilly first consulted Dr. Hahnemann for her illness in October 1834. They married and moved to Paris in 1835.
Dr. Hahnemann procured this house which had belonged to a Dr. Heinrich. The house has an entry hall with a passage to a consulting chamber, a dispensing room and an outlet to a backyard garden.
The entry hall is connected to the first floor where Hahnemann lived with his family members. The house was recently renovated by well wishers and endowed with a library. Homeopathic consultations are now being offered there.
This wonderful museum is open to tourists and includes Hahnemann’s chair, his stethoscope and medicine kit, books, a tray of remedies, well mounted photographs and a backyard garden. For any lover of homeopathy, being in the house with all these artifacts is an inspiring experience.
The house has an extraordinary hall which was used for communication between rooms. It has Hahnemann’s consulting room and two more rooms with stairs to the first floor. The upstairs was wholly reserved for his family.
On the other side of the house there was a small garden bounded by a high wall. The house boasts no stately external decorations or pompous internal furnishings, but is rather characterized by modest simplicity. The lawn gives a wonderful feeling of serenity with a comfortable place to sit.
Another historic place in Koethen is Lutz hospital. Hahnemann had already established a hospital at Leipzig. He didn’t approve that there was no hospital at Koethen. The successful beginning of a hospital was accomplished by Arthur Lutz, but fully established only after the death of Dr. Hahnemann.
The hospital earned much popularity and considerable financial profit. It is reported that 26,690 patients were given medical care in the outpatient clinic. 51,452 letters with 162,781 case reports were answered. The Lutz hospital was designed with all necessary facilities and included a garden in the middle and a monument of Hahnemann, which was destroyed probably after 1st world war.
Today the Lutz hospital is a center of attraction for tourists. The garden, hospital buildings and monuments can be seen in front of Ducal Palace. There you will find the Goddess of Health in the center, and effigies of Dr. Arthur Lutz on the right and Dr. Hahnemann on the left.
In 2005, the International Homeopathic Medical League (LHMI ) facilitated a visit to Koethen by homeopaths from around the world. Today many homoeopaths, inspired by Hahnemann’s genius, visit these places to connect with the founder.
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This article has been reproduced from the journal Homeo Times
A visit to Dr Hahnemann house was stimulating, it has the effect of visiting a temple.
It is just like Vetcan city of Christhian, Macca of Muslims and Ayodhya of hindu’s. Earlier Dr.D.P.Rastogi has shown us the original photos as they visited along with Dr.Ramji Singh and Dr.S.M.Singh to that place in one seminar presentation at SNPGI.
We have areligios feeling of this place,and a desire to visit that place…..
Dear Mr Gnanasambandam,
Thank you for your article! The history of homeopathy is amazing and it is an outstanding pleasure and source of motivation to visit such original places. Never I will forget the deep impact on my soul, when I was granted a visit of another Hahnemann Haus (in Torgau, Germany) together with the editor of this journal, Dr. Bhatia, my dear friend Manish. Still the emotions return when thinking back to this event. It’s been giving a further aspect of meaning to my life. Unforgettable.
Your descriptions and pictures make me hungry for more details and places. How wonderful it would be if this was the start of a new series in this journal.
In this context, I’d like to recommend a book to all of you wishing to visit such places. Carola Scheuren and Egon krannich have published a travel guide to this and comparable places in the Eastern part of Germany. It is a reliable source of information for you, if you want to visit and feel the places of birth of homeopathy.
Hi Sigi,
Yes, the trip to Torgau with you was unforgettable and I really wish to go to the Koethen house with you some day.
The book by Carola is also great. I too recommend it to those who wish to know more about our history.
Also, we are planning a series of articles on homeopathic history in the ezine soon.
Take care,
Manish
Thank you for this great article.
I get goose bumps just thinking about being in this house.
I hope to visit one day.
Dear R. Gnanasambandam
Hi and thanks a lot for such a beautiful historic article on our great teacher’s house in Kothen. It is wonderful to look at the pictures that remind us of the house in which one of the greatest men ever lived. I hope to visit it once in the near future. God bless Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, you and hpathy managers and all those who live to love homeopathy and present divine health services to their patients through the homeopathic method of healing.
Best Wishes, Seyedaghanoor Sadeghi M.D. & Homeopath