Samuel HahnemannDied 2 Jul 1843 at age 88 (born 10 Apr 1755). Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann was a German chemist and physician who founded the system of therapeutics known as homeopathy. Hahnemann's methods aroused controversy among his contemporaries and he was forced to leave his practice in Leipzig, eventually settling in Paris. His system was one of complementary medicine, after Hahnemann observed that quinine (an anti-malarial drug) taken by healthy patients produced symptoms similar to those of malaria, and proposed that any compound that produced symptoms similar to those of an illness could cure the illness. This 'proving' is the basis of modern homoeopathic practice; compounds are taken in very small doses. Homoeopathy requires the practitioner to treat the patient as a whole, rather than a specific symptom. |
