Drexel University College of Medicine - Medic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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,-.......l1.- 1 1. -WK- 4 I 1.0. I. Hahnemann Hospital 2. Bobst Building 3. Medical College Building 4. Klahr Building 5. Nurses' Residence and Class- room Building 6. Ambulatory Patient Services 7. Addition to the Hospital HAHN EM HERITAGE

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9 fx He wants enough books to reach the Iightbulb in his room. No money, no books! Good morning are you up are you sure Dru Gonelia, who's he? are you sure you're sure . .. I'lI call you back . . No, Keilow was kicked upstairs to Jefferson. --For you' boobje' anything,

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Samuel Hahnemann 1755-1 843 Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann, in 1790, while trans- lating Cullen's Materia Medica, attempted to verify the action of cinchona bark by trying it on himself: the drug produced exactly the same symptoms of intermittent fever for which it was prescribed. Hahnemann spent the following years of his life experimenting with the action of drugs on healthy human beings and applying his findings to certain of the sick. Day by day in his medical practice, he became more and more con- vinced that he was on the verge of a new therapeutic law. Born in 1755 in Meissen, Germany, Hahnemann had received his medical education at Leipsic and Erlangen: even in his student days, he was dissatisfied with the doctrine of his pro- fessors. His early experiences in medical practice confirmed his mistrust in the prevailing methods of treatment based on the assumption that disease was a force which must be op- posed by an equal or even greater force. Copious blood let- ting, violent purging, induced vomitting, laborious prescrip- tions with a dozen or more ingredients, and corporeal punish- ment of the insane were all common practices. In 1810, after years of testing for the definitive action of drugs, Hahnemann published the ORGANON, in which he termed his new method of treating disease-Homeopathy, fol- lowing the fundamental law: SimiIia similibus curentur. He proposed that the body has naturally endowed powers of combatting disease and that the objective of treatment should be to stimulate these natural mechanisms. He inveighed against assaulting an already depleted organism and pre- scribed instead single remedies in small doses, carefully se- lected after painstaking inventory of the patient's symptoms and physical findings. Hahnemann enjoyed the reputation of being one of the fore- most scholars and physicians in all of Germany. Despite great opposition to his revolutionary theory, he was able to obtain a license to teach medicine at the University of Leipsic. There soon gathered about him a circle of enthusiasts, and Home- opathy became a distinct and separate discipline of medicine.