HAHNEMANN _LIFE AND WORK

      Samuel Hahnemann the founder of Homeopathy was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1755. Though born to a poor family he was good at study. He studied Chemistry and Medicine at universities of Leipzig, Erlangen and Vienna. He qualified as a doctor in 1799 and set up his practice. 

       He was soon to get disenchanted by the various cruel methods of treatment prevailing at that time and believed that these forms of treatment were more dangerous than the diseases themselves. He supplemented his income from practice with that from translations and writing articles and books on Chemistry and Medicine. He was an advocate of better personal hygiene and good diet. Unable to use the methods of treatment of his time due to his conviction at the harmful nature of them all he gradually withdrew from practice and settled upon translation.

      In 1790 while translating A treatise on Materia Medica by Dr William Cullen, he was struck by an absurdity in the section explaining action of Cinchona on malaria. Cullen stated that this is because of its astringent qualities. Hahnemann decided to test it dosed himself with quinine, the extract from Cinchona. He began developing symptoms similar to malaria for which it was a good remedy. Now seeds of homeopathy were sworn and it revolutionized Life of Hahnemann as well as the concept of disease and treatment.  

    Hahnemann had a life full of dedication to the cause of homeopathy and of humanity. He produced many an original idea and his success was to cause hatred and envy among the apothecaries of his time. He was constantly persecuted and had to flee from place to place and in spite of all these he produced some brilliant works on health disease and treatment which were largely ignored by the orthodoxy due to these ideas being far too advanced than than the best brains of that time could comprehend.