Similia similibus curentur hippocrates biography

In fact, henceforth both principles were used by Hahnemann in the sense of omnes morbi similibus curentur versus omnes morbi contrariis curentur. This overworking of the maxim similia similibus on the part of Hahnemann beyond its conceptual scope may be the reason he had invoked it so seldomly in his published works. Also in the introduction and preface of the Organon the short phrase similia similibus occurs only in a few passages never in the main part of the Organon and never in all six editions.

To comprehend how Hahnemann came to his reformulation and amplification of meaning of the Principle of Similars, a short look at the background of Hahnemann's work may be helpful. It may be revealing to trace Hahnemann's change of attitude within some 10 years in terms of how he presented his new principle: from a modest first proposal of a hermeneutic principleto a progressive extension of its range of indication —to a conclusive certainty of having found the only true and possible way of healing In the course of profound political, social and economic change, such as the French Revolution, emancipation of the bourgeoisie, and early industrialisation, as well as intellectual movements, such as Enlightenment, German Idealism and German Romantic, by the end of the 18th century, representatives of all sciences attempted to expand the realm of a modern rationality in their disciplines as far as was possible.

Just as Immanuel Kant — tried to raise philosophy to the rank of a rational science, physicians endeavored to do the same for medicine. What Hahnemann, as a protagonist of that era, had achieved in this respect is remarkable and hard to better in terms of rationality and relevance for practice. This is not least because Hahnemann went to work with an ethical severity and a noble concept of mankind inspiring his critique of and attempt to reform medicine.

The physician's ethos and task to cure sick humans prohibited Hahnemann both to conduct medicine according to primarily economic considerations as well as to let pass unchallenged the sloppiness of physicians and pharmacists, who administered mixtures of widely unknown substances for abstract names of diseases. Nor was it compatible with the dignity of medicine to rely on superstition, chance findings, crude empiricism, speculations of natural philosophy, romantic infatuation, or mechanic—materialistic reductionism.

In distinction from all competing approaches and in permanent reference to practice, Hahnemann instead suggested plain pragmatic measures, such as the usage of single remedies, drug provings with healthy humans, differentiation of disease states and effects of drugs in terms of symptoms, and self-manufacturing of drugs. From initial observations of a correlation between drug proving symptoms and cured disease symptoms, the similia similibus curentur hippocrates biography arose of a practically applicable regularity.

In the same year, Hahnemann declared that—apart from so-called stable diseases that have an obvious cause or arise from an infection with a miasm, such as syphilis or scabies—all other diseases differ from each other so manifoldly that each of them must be seen as an individual. To substantiate why his new doctrine may be appropriate for all the disparate individual diseases lacking a stable cause and name, Hahnemann now introduced several theoretical postulates into his hitherto mainly empirical approach.

If two stimuli are dissimilar, they would suspend each other. If they are similar, the weaker one would be removed or annihilated by the stronger one. Under these theoretical premises, Hahnemann now generalised his initially hermeneutic principle to factual theses and, henceforth, recognised no borders regarding the scope of its application.

The range of indication of curative remedies was therefore explicitly extended to also include acute diseases. To underline his claim of validity and exclusiveness of healings by curative remedies according to the Principle of Similars scientifically, Hahnemann began at that time to quote evidence from literature or from daily life.

Some loopholes, however, were left in this otherwise closed system. Hahnemann bluntly admitted that his first materia medica Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis had come about in this mixed way. And still, not only the picture of the disease in its signs, but also the knowledge of its occasion and original cause, was considered to pertain to the rationale of healing.

As evidence, Hahnemann quoted more than authors confirming his claims by taking the example of almost 50 medicines. Only rhetorical enhancements may at best be found, e.

Similia similibus curentur hippocrates biography: The Principle of Similars may be

Hahnemann's claim of having found the only true and possible way of curing all diseases except for surgical and life-threatening emergency situations did not remain unopposed. From the s, it was in particular the question of the scope of application of the Principle of Similars that caused first schisms and emancipation movements within the young homeopathic community.

As it may be shown in the following, most of the ensuing controversy was conditioned by the parties' misunderstanding regarding the epistemological status of their claims. Generally, the frame of thought of that time was predestined by the alternatives induction versus deduction or empiricism vs. Thus, a sober discussion seemed impossible.

This stalemate and disability of communication and structural intolerance towards competing methods, in which homeopathy seems forever to be stuck, may meanwhile be resolved by taking into account new approaches of epistemology and theory of medicine. After neither the positivism of the Vienna Circle around Moritz Schlick — [ 49 ] nor the critical rationalism of Karl Popper — [ 50 ] [ 51 ] could survive, the liberation of epistemology from any kind of methodological bondage by Paul Feyerabend — [ 52 ] and the criticism of ideology of knowledge for the sake of control by the Frankfurt School[ 53 ] [ 54 ] led to the consensus that science may not generate anything like absolute knowledge, but rather be comprehended as a social process.

Because a new theory, however, can in no way be present in encountered data, its discovery by abduction cannot be systematically reconstructed, algorithmised, operationalised or simulated. That is why this notion and this process—contrary to induction and deduction—is strongly neglected in the conventional theory of science. Although there is no rule according to which abduction, i.

For example, to bring down disparate symptoms of a patient to a common denominator, i. According to the recent understanding in the theory of science, abductive conclusions always need to be checked recursively, by deducing further particular cases.

Similia similibus curentur hippocrates biography: The principle of therapeutic

Because of the error-proneness of abduction as a form of conclusion, from any theory achieved in this way, concrete expectations are to be formulated by way of deductionwhose accordance with particular observations has again to be proven by the way of induction. Thus, ideally a circle is formed that keeps the scientific process running. Nevertheless, among scientists there may be personalities who are inclined towards one of the three complementary forms of conclusion to a special degree.

Hahnemann's strength may well have lain in his creativity and disposition as an artist, hence in the realm of abduction. When he was still a pupil and student, he was exempted by his teachers from regular requirements and was permitted to teach himself the subject matter autodidactically and however he preferred. Remarkable as his semiotic, stimulation-based, and teleological theories and explanations may have been in the context of the scientific discourse at that time, for homeopathy as a practice having worldwide therapeutic relevance even today, they may prove to be secondary or even expendable.

What remained, what has spread, and what is still yielding fruit, may have been passed on—scientifically largely unknown until the present day—less by his similia similibus curentur hippocrateses biography but rather by his practical instructions. A closer look at the materia medica homoeopathica may for example show that even Hahnemann himself—contrary to his rational public image—did not only use pure proving symptoms of drugs, but also so-called curative effects and observations of patients: a practice that—strictly speaking—had relativised his own theory.

When Hering stood up for the art of proving, observing, taking drug pictures, and healing, this position proves compatible with recent developments in the theory of medicine, which, since several decades ago no longer considers the status of medicine—as it was in the preceding years—as an applied science, but rather as a practical science sui generis in its own right.

On the grounds of the structural difference between knowledge and action, purposeless science, which is about pure knowledge, may never be the basis of a reflected self-conception of medicine which has a clear purpose: to help sick human beings. Its scientificity may therefore only consist of developing criteria for purposeful actions that are practically viable.

Before medicine, in the 19th century, had set about to see itself as an applied science in misjudgement of its genuine practical natureHahnemann had already perfected the programme of medical theory prevailing today. As a true artist of healing, in his aspiration for perfection of the art of healing, by means of his fortunate abduction, he set about to discover a way to cure diseases quickly, gently, and permanently, and to give concrete instructions for this.

In fact, they are less concerned with the practical, goal-oriented artist, than with the rationalist, who is tempted or forced to prevail—within the contemporary scientific discourse—against refutations by advocates of competing systems, on the level of rational notions and binary logic. Such a clarified, sovereign distance towards theories that Hering was displaying from America could, in fact, not be expected from Hahnemann, not least because of the tenseness of the German culture of conflict.

For Hahnemann, until the end, it was seemingly obvious that his cures as well as the cures of his disciples who followed his instructions were based on his theory, according to which cured patients had symptoms that were similar to those that the remedy had elicited in drug provings with healthy humans. These and other theoretical explanations by Hahnemann—since they were not recognised and resolved as such—ensured fiery academic controversies and ultimately a year-literary tradition of criticism and apologies.

As suggested by recent developments in the theory of medicine, medicine in general and homeopathy in particular may be well advised, regarding their self-conception, to think of themselves not in terms of contingent theories, but of their practical task and the concrete tools at their disposal. For homeopaths, these consist of the directives of Hahnemann and his successors regarding a detailed individualising case-taking with emphasis on subjective changes of affectivity, a differentiating study of drug effects according to localisation, sensation, modalities and concomitants, and a hierarchisation of peculiar and characteristic signs and symptoms.

This has been—from a pragmatic perspective—the common denominator of homeopathy for the past years. Whilst the healing artist's primary interest is to cure sick humans by obeying practically approved rules, the scientist, however, may be anxious to determine the possibilities and limits of the respective procedure. Historically, one of the first reflections of this aporia of medical theory is recorded from the circle around Hippocrates — BCthe ancestor of occidental scientific medicine.

Similarities are not an objective feature, but created by pattern recognition in the brain and depend on the oberserver's knowledge and abilities of observation.

Similia similibus curentur hippocrates biography: The Principle of Similars, similia similibus

It depends furthermore on type and quality of the inspection. Taken serious scientifically, the principle is easily disproved. It does not take more than to come up with one disease which cannot be cured by similars. One such example is sufficient to falsify disprove a theory expressed so broadly. Even viewed as a mere rule of thumb, it may be expected to find a vast majority of diseases which will be cured by remedies causing similar symptoms.

However, such a general proof of efficacy could not be provided. Therefore, the law of similars corresponds to magical thinking and has no relation to science. Samuel Hahnemannthe founder of homoeopathy, referred to his successful chinchona test which had inspired the Law of Similars. This experiment, however, could not be replicated, and is to be seen as one of the errors of homoeopathic doctrine.

The Law of Similars already had been discussed prior to Hahnemann, but was made popular first through homoeopathy. Category : Homoeopathy. Hidden categories: Deutsch Multilingual.