Dr Samuel Hahnemann

 Dr. Samuel Hahnemann was born in a middle-class family, his father was a pottery painter in the porcelain town of Meissen in Saxony (Germany). As a child, he was excellent in languages as well as in the study of science. He was fluent in 4 languages since childhood namely in English, French, Greek, and Latin. Later as he grew older he became the master of 11 languages. Since childhood, he was drawn towards science and research.

His early years as a student and degree
In 1775 he started studying medicines at the University of Leipzig but he was not satisfied because of poor facilities and lack of clinical and hospital exposure. As he was belonging to a poor family he started doing the translation of books from one language to other to support his education.
In 1777 he transferred his college to Vienna in the quest to gain greater clinical experience. He could not continue long as financial hardship forced him to drop out. In his short stay at college, he had impressed his professor at the royal court, Professor von Quarin that he financed further education for him.
Dr. Hahnemann worked as a family physician and curator of the museum and capacious library for 18 months. Here he learned different languages.  
Dr. Hahnemann registered for the degree of MD at Erlangen only in one term and submitted a thesis on Cramps.  He started practicing in a village in Saxony and obtained various medical positions. He was very dissatisfied with the system of medicine and its imperfections. He moved to Dresden in 1784 but his dissatisfaction had increased as he thought that current system of medicine is harmful and inefficient.
Translation work
He was so dissatisfied that he gave up clinical practice completely and devoted himself to the work of translation. He was famous by this time for his translation work of scientific and medical books from French and English. He started getting translation work in abundance.
This work of translation was sufficient to earn a living but his scientific and research oriented mind was not at ease. During these translation days, he came across many scientific studies on medicines and slowly developed his ideas and started publishing essays based on his studies. He slowly accumulated evidence for radically new medical concepts and methods of medicine and his search was for safer and more efficacious medical concepts and methods.
In his search for better and safe medicines, his translation work proved to be the cornerstone.  He was able to scrutinize every idea and method in medicine and evaluate its usefulness and efficacy. He began to inspect and compare his own research with existing data.
The invention of homeopathic science
In 1790 he began translating William Cullen's Materia Medica. While translating he came across a theory by Cullen's that Cinchona was a specific medicine for Malaria because of its tonic action on the stomach. He was not convinced with this idea but his inquisitive mind did not let him pass on this so easily. He himself took a small dose of Cinchona over several days to observe its effects. To his surprise, he observed symptoms similar to those of malaria including chills and fever. He came to the conclusion that like cures like and developed an axiom "similia similibus curentur".
He became more analytical and started doing further experiments with the help of his family and friends. Slowly he started doing drug provings. He started proving medicines on himself and others on regular basis. He tested many herbal plants to poisonous substances. He used to note down the effects of the experiments and named the book as Materia Medica Pura.
His experiments were continued for 6 long years. In 1796, he published his Essay on a New Principle consolidated the work with Cinchona, extending it into a general principle applies for all drugs, and this laid the foundation for a complete system of medicine based on similia.
Slowly he developed few more principles of single drugs and minimum doses. Dr. Hahnemann developed a system of medicine that was based on single drugs in harmless doses based upon pure observations and experiments. He practically advocated three practices first, he said that the doctor should prepare his own medicines; second, he recommended the use of small doses; and third, he opposed administration of mixed medicines that contained a large number of ingredients.
Laying the foundation of practice
He laid the foundation of practicing homeopathy by writing the principles of homeopathic practice in his book, Organon of medicine. It contained every mode of medical treatment and discussions of why similia and single drugs are superior. He developed two books Materia Medica Pura [1811] and Organon [1810] which proved to be great landmarks in the establishment of homeopathy.
In 1812, he shifted his domain to teaching, teaching his discovery. He faced a lot of criticism for his brazen attacks on the contemperory system of medicine. Hahnemann was attacked from all corners of the system of medicine. In 1820 he started preparing his own medicines. He spent 14 years of his life preparing different medicines. Meanwhile, he continued to publish essays and books, updating his Organon, and Materia Medica Pura.
In 1828 he wrote the Chronic Diseases which opened up an entirely new chapter of exploring the underlying causes of diseases. He wrote his observations that chronic diseases had some connection with previous affections. Here he developed the theory of miasm. theory.
Hahnemann died in Paris of bronchitis, 2 July 1843 and was buried first in Montmartre, but later reinterred in a more grandiose tomb, paid for by American subscription, in the more prestigious Cimitiêre Pere Lachaise, where many famous people are buried.
As homeopathy gave impressive clinical results, it spread rapidly in Europe, Russia, India, and the America.

List of Dr. Hahnemanns publications and books

1. Essay on a New Principle [1796]
2. Are the Obstacles to Medical Practice Insurmountable? [1797]
3. Cure & Prevention of Scarlet Fever [1801]
4. On the Power of Small Doses [1801]
5. Aesculapius in the Balance [1805]
6. Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis [1805]
7. The Medicine of Experience [1805]
8. On the Value of the Speculative Systems of Medicine [1808]
9. Observations on the Three Modes of Medical Practice [1809]
10. Hellebore thesis [1812]
11. Sources of the Materia Medica [1817]
12. Contrast of Old and New Medical Systems [1825]
13. Four essays on Cholera [1831]
14. Organon         Materia Medica Pura
15. 1st edition 1810         Volume 1 1811
16. 2nd edition 1819         Volume 2 1816
17. 3rd edition 1824         Volume 3 1817
18. 4th edition 1829         Volume 4 1818
19. 5th edition 1833         Volume 5 1819
20. 6th edition 1842         Volume 6 1821

Dr. Hahnemann registered for the degree of MD at Erlangen only in one term and submitted a thesis on Cramps. In 1796, he published his Essay on a New Principle consolidated the work with Cinchona, extending it into a general principle applies for all drugs, and this laid the foundation for a complete system of medicine based on similia