Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 51-53. (Budapest, 1969)
TANULMÁNYOK - Antall József: A homeopátia és az orvosképzés Magyarországon (angol nyelven)
HOMOEOPATHY AND MEDICAL EDUCATION IN HUNGARY by JÓZSEF ANTALL HOMOEOPATHY AND HAHNEMANN T he right direction of scientific progress in medical science could not prevent the spread of new "revolutionary" therapeutical methods. The stormy years of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars created a favourable climate for them. Among them homoeopathy, the method of treatment used by Samuel Ch. F. Hahnemann (1755—1843) had the greatest influence on the contemporaries. Hahnemann continued his studies at Leipzig, Vienna and Erlangen. For a while he stayed in Transylvania as the private physician of Baron Bruckenthal. Returning to Germany he continued his practice there while he carried on chemical research and experiments testified by a relatively wide publishing activity. During his experiments he tested the effect of quinquina bark on himself. He found that while in a large dose it caused malaria, a small quantity of it cured that. From this he deduced that medicines which in a large dose cause symptoms similar to some illness in small dose can serve for curing the same. He published his discovery in 1790 in the journal of Hufeland. Continuing his research he built up a whole system from his observations and in 1810 published his main work "Organon der rationallen Heilkunde" in Dresden, which was followed by "Reine Arzneimittellehre" in the following year. The cure called homoeopathy quickly spread, partly due to its novelty, partly owing to the coarseness of contemporaneous practices like the application of emetics, purgatives, sudation, venesection and so forth. According to the conception of Hahnemann illness is caused by the depression of mental vigour. "All illnesses (not only those related to surgery) are nothing else but a strange alteration of our vigour in strength, feelings, and capacities, which introduces itself by perceptibly noticeable symptoms." (Organon, paragraph 24). Recovery can be brought about by an effect similar to the original malady but stronger, or by a similar but artificial process. These can be reached only by such medicines which can originate a similar pathological state on healthy persons. The maxim of his medicating activity: "similia similibus curantur" and the name given to the practice by Hahnemann himself, homoeopathy, refers to that. Thus he discarded the traditional approach which dated back to Galenos ; "contraria contrariis curantur". For the old, contempted curing practice he invented the name "allopathy" thus launching "the struggle of homoeopathy and allopathy" in medical science.
