Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was born just before midnight on 10 April 1755 in Meissen, the ancient town renowned for its porcelain and situated on the banks of the River Elbe, about 100 miles south of Berlin. He qualified as a physician at the Frederick Alexander University in Erlangen in 1779. In 1790, Hahnemann translated and annotated a materia medica written by the eminent Scottish physician William Cullen (1710–90). Hahnemann disagreed with Cullen’s suggestion that the mechanism of action of cinchona bark in the treatment of marsh fever (malaria) was due to its astringent properties. Because he knew of the existence of several astringents more powerful than cinchona that were not effective in marsh fever, he decided to test the drug by taking relatively large doses himself. He found that the resulting toxic effects were very similar to the symptoms experienced by patients suffering from the disease. Hahnemann then tried a number of other active substances on himself, his family and volunteers to obtain evidence to substantiate his findings. In each case he found that the medicines could bring on the symptoms of the diseases for which they were being used as a treatment. Thus he systematically built up considerable circumstantial evidence for the existence of a Law of Similars (see below) based on the concept of ‘like to treat like’. He called the systematic procedure of testing substances on healthy human beings, in order to elucidate the symptoms reflecting the use of the medicine, a ‘proving’.
In 1810 Hahnemann published his most famous work, the Organon of the Rational Art of Healing (commonly simply referred to as ‘The ared during Hahnemann’s lifetime; the manuscript for a sixth edition was not published for many years after his death. The subject matter in the sixth edition was set out in 291 numbered ections or aphorisms, usually denoted in the literature by the symbol § and the relevant section number.
