DR. SAMUEL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH HAHNEMANN, M.D.

(1755-1843)

Samuel Hahnemann was the founder of Homoeopathy. He established the fundamental principles of the science and art of Homoeopathy.

He is called the Father of Experimental Pharmacology because he was the first physician to prepare medicines in a specialized way; proving them on healthy human beings, to determine how the medicines acted to cure diseases. Before Hahnemann, medicines were given on speculative indications, mainly on the basis of authority without experimental verification.

Hahnemann discovered the remedial powers of drugs and inert substances such as gold, platinum, silica, vegetable charcoal, lycopodium, etc. By preparing the medicines through potentization.

HOMOEOPATHY

Homoeopathy was discovered by a German Physician, Dr. Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), in the late eighteenth century. It is a therapeutic system of medicine premised on the principle, “Similia Similibus Curentur” or ‘let likes be treated by likes’. Homoeopathy is a method of treatment for curing the patient by medicines that possess the power of producing similar symptoms in a healthy human being simulating the natural disease, which it can cure in the diseased person.

Homoeopathic medicines are prepared from traces of animal, plant, mineral and other natural substances, by a standard method called dynamisation or potentisation. Through ‘potentisation’, attain their potential enhanced enormously to combat ailments while at the same time absence of toxicity is assured. The medicines are usually proved in healthy human beings, to ascertain their curative properties. The system believes in the existence of a regulating force (Vital Force) in the organism, which plays a vital role during health, disease and cure. The symptoms are considered as the body’s natural reaction to the illness and help to find a remedy against the illness. The remedies work by stimulating the body’s defence mechanism to correct itself naturally.

Homoeopathic medicines are most cost effective, palatable, have no adverse side effects, can be administered easily. Homoeopathy has been useful in treatment of psychosomatic disorders, autoimmune diseases, geriatric and paediatric disorders, ailments during pregnancy, obstinate skin diseases, life style disorders and allergies, etc. It also has a positive role in improving the quality of life in incurable chronic diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS, terminally ill patients and incapacitating diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, etc.