The Father of Homoeopathy

Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann was born in Meissen, Saxony on 10th. April 1755, the son of porcelain painter. His early education was at home where his father taught him never to learn passively but to question everything.

By the age of 12, he was already teaching Greek to other pupils, and at 20 he had mastered eight languages and began to study medicine first at Leipzig and then at Vienna and Erlangen where he qualified in 1779.

In 1782, at the age of 27, Hahnemann married Johanna Henrietta, the daughter of an apothecary. Hahnemann became medical doctor in 1791 and quickly established a reputation as a kind and conscientious physician, who despite his own lack of wealth, often refused to accept fees for his work. Once in practice, Hahnemann became disillusioned with the medical practices of the day. Eventually he ceases to practice and pursued studies in chemistry and earned a living from his linguistic skills.

In 1790, he discovered the principle of 'likes cure likes' and then devoted himself intensively to testing out homoeopathic remedies and after 6 six years, published an article on this principle in a leading medical journal. He later published 'treatise on organon of rational medicine and materia medica'.

He accused the hostility of apothecaries and physicians and at their instigation, in 1820, Government granted an injunction against Hahnemann dispensing his own medicines.

He took refuge in Cothen and acted as the court physician to the Duke of Anhalt Cothen in 1821, where he found many pupils and followers. He published his work on chronic diseases in 1828.

His wife died in 1830 and he married for the second time to French woman, Marie Melanie d Hervily and went to live in Paris. There he had an illustrious practice with rich and poor alike receiving treatment daily in his rooms in the Rue de Milan. He died in 1843 at the age of 88.