Samuel Hahnemann was born on April 10, 1755. He went down in history as the founder of homeopathy, the most controversial medical method, which still has both his supporters and equally fierce critics …
The author drank yada
The history of homeopathy began in 1791 when its author, Samuel Hahnemann, literally "drank yada". Not the most successful doctor with a difficult fate, he traveled across Europe for a long time, learned several languages, worked as a librarian for a Transylvanian baron, taught languages, accompanied doctors during their practice, but he did not receive recognition.
During the translation of medical books, he came across a mention of the symptoms of poisoning with cinchona bark. Quinine in small doses was just being used to treat malaria. Hahnemann, on the other hand, noted that the symptoms of chin poisoning are very similar to malaria.
Then Samuel decided to try a large dose of quinine on himself. It all came together: trembling without chills, thirst, dullness of the senses, stiff joints, numbness - all these symptoms were also in malaria, which Hahnemann himself had once had. So he came to the ancient medical principle of treating like like. He decided that the same substance in different proportions could both heal and cripple.
It is worth saying that in this Hahnemann was not the discoverer, and Hippocrates and Paracelsus were guided in their practice by the same principle. However, it was Hahnemann who was able to develop this principle to the point that he created on its basis a whole branch of alternative medicine.
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Hahnemann did not stop on quinine and began to try various poisons on himself. He tried 60 different substances on himself, which were later included in his four-volume "Pure Medicine".
Homeopathy today cannot be considered a full-fledged component of modern medicine, since it does not have a serious evidence base, does not meet the requirements of an educated, thinking, analyzing doctor of any practice. (V. A. Chipizubov, neurosurgeon)
Ultra-small doses
The principle of ultra-low doses, discovered by Hahnemann, is perceived with great skepticism in today's medicine. The thing is that the substance is diluted in such proportions that in the final composition, according to the Avagadro number, not a single molecule of the original substance remains. Homeopaths have only one answer to these arguments: the memory of water.
It is difficult to go against such a convincing in its unprovability argument, although it is not entirely clear why water should "remember" the original substance, and not thousands of other impurities and chemical elements carried in the air or were once in the water supply system (let's imagine for a second "the purest »Water supply of the beginning of the XIX century).
By the way, experiments carried out in 2005 by Dr. Cowen showed that water molecules can indeed form a molecular metastructure, but it persists for much less than a second.
Birth of a cult
Nevertheless, Hahnemann's technique over time began to acquire the features of a real cult. The traditional physicians, whom Hahnemann contemptuously called allopaths (from the combination of the words "other" and "disease"), Hahnemann hated.
The pharmacists also hated him. This is not surprising - both of them lost considerable profits from the emergence of homeopathy. The hated Hahnemann with a bag full of poisonous substances began to wander around Europe.
The effectiveness of homeopathy was demonstrated by Hahnemann during the epidemic of cholera and typhoid in Europe. Hahnemann was on horseback. In his clinic, each patient was greeted with a kind word, asked about life, children and the weather - Hahnemann was sure that each patient needed an individual approach, so he was both a psychologist and a brother for patients.
Of course, people went to his clinic in droves. The alternative was going to traditional doctors who treated with bloodletting, harsh laxatives, mercury, and hot forceps.
Now homeopathy is the lot of people who are either afraid of doctors, or disillusioned with classical, university medicine, or simply desperate (V. A. Chipizubov, neurosurgeon)
Healthy skepticism and the Russian nobility
Traditional medicine still treats homeopaths as sectarians today, even though not the very last people gave homeopathy its due. In 19th century Russia, Hahnemann's teaching was not even a fashion, but a craze, albeit not without its persecutors.
Representatives of the upper classes of Russian society were delighted with the obscure language of homeopathy, all these flies and flying ointments, which then seemed to be the secret language of alchemy. And many years of family practice in homeopathic treatment emphasized a kind of belonging to the secret circles.
In "War and Peace" there is a lot of evidence of the addiction of the Russian nobility to homeopathic medicine. Even Tolstoy's eternal ideological opponent Dostoevsky paid attention to her. “Homeopathic lobes can be the strongest,” says the writer through the lips of one of his heroes.
The path from the persecutor of homeopaths to their most faithful supporter was Vladimir Dal, who cured even eye diseases with homeopathic methods.
V. I. Dal
In 1898, Dahl's article was published in the journal Homeopathic Physician, which described a case of treating false croup in a child. Dahl treated his own son with homeopathic remedies, and the result of the treatment exceeded his expectations.
The famous homeopath doctor Graufogl was summoned by Alexander II to the king's favorite Count Adlerberg, who was sick in bed and could not even move due to rheumatic paralysis. After 6 weeks, the patient recovered completely, and the doctor was awarded the Order of Anna, second degree. Later, Dr. Graufogl had extensive practice in Finland and lectured on homeopathy at the University of Helsingfors.
But homeopathy cannot be completely discounted and forgotten. There are a lot, albeit scattered, cases when people got better after treatment with homeopathic remedies. Placebo? - possibly. Taking into account that any product must be at least non-toxic, then when recommending homeopathy, the doctor follows the minimum, but at the same time and the main principle of medicine - do no harm. Here is such a "handy thing" - homeopathy. (V. A. Chipizubov, neurosurgeon)
Homeopathy remains a mystery. Doctors are convinced that the whole thing is in the placebo effect, children love homeopathy for the possibility of healing with small sweet peas, and adults, who are convinced from their life experience that the world is not always the abode of logic and common sense, simply believe in miracles.
Alexey Rudevich