Constantine Hering was born on January 1st, 1800 in Oschatz, Saxony, and today is the anniversary of his death, July 23, in 1880. He was a boy with a great interest in learning, and went to medicine, studying at the University of Leipzig. Like many, Hering was a skeptic of this new field of medicine, homoeopathy, and he decided to repeat Hahnemann’s original proving with Cinchona in order to discredit him. Shortly after that he received a wound on his …
Homeopathy Awareness week started on Wednesday, which was Samuel Hahnemann’s birthday. I have a lot on my plate so I’m a couple of days late but this is your reminder to be out there and proud, share your love for and success with homeopathy this week in particular to raise awareness with everyone. It is over 200 years since the organon was originally published, and over 100 years since the 6th edition, Hahnemann’s final version was published nearly 80 years …
This is a belated International Women’s Day post- written for Friday, but life is busy and I forgot to set it up in advance. A few days late, but this is my annual post about an amazing woman in the history of Homeopathy: this year I’m writing about Dr Margery Blackie, who was best known as the Homeopath to the Queen. Margery was born on 4 Feb 1898 to a family with a strong knowledge of homeopathy. Her Uncle was …
Happy Birthday to Dr Edward Bach, who was born on this day in 1886, in Moseley near Birmingham in England. Most people know about Dr Bach from his work with flower essences- and even if they don’t know his name, know of Rescue Remedy- but there was another important contribution he made to Homeopthy: the Bowel Nosodes. Tomorrow I will do a post on the Bowel nosodes, and on Monday come back to learn more about Bach’s flower essences. At …
On this day, 20 July 1840, James Compton Burnett was born in Redlynch, near Salisbury, England. Dr Compton Burnett was an allopathic doctor who trained in Vienna and Glasgow, and then completed his internship at a hospital and asylum in Glasgow. He was an amazing Homeopath who contributed much to the modality. It was during his internship that he was introduced to Homeopathy, after the death of an orphan who caught a cold, and then pleurisy. Dr Compton Burnett believed …
Today is International Women’s Day, so I want to talk about a controversial but hugely important woman in the history of Homeopathy- Melanie Hahnemann, the first female Homeopathic Doctor. Melanie d’Hervilly was born on the 2nd of February, 1800 in Paris, France, and she grew up in a time after the Revolution when there had been some social change, women were still expected to learn just the skills they needed to become wives and mothers and manage a household. Melanie …
On this day, 201 years ago Dr Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler (often written in English as Schuessler) was born in Zeischenahn in Germany. While you may not know his name, you are more likely to know of his work and the products that are still used over nearly 150 years since he first published his paper on them – Schuessler’s tissue salts, or cell salts. Schüßler was good at languages in school, and as an adult worked as a clerk and …
Things have started to calm down on the media MonkeyPox front, but here are my homeopathic musings. Monkeypox is an orthopoxvirus which is the same family as smallpox – however this does not mean that it is as virulent or dangerous as smallpox; cowpox is another orthopoxvirus which can be passed onto humans and was used as the first type of vaccination. (Incidentally this is why we call it vaccination, as “vacc” refers to cows). Traditionally, monkeypox has been passed …
For those of you who like history. The Spanish Flu has been brought up numerous times with this latest pandemic. It was a world tragedy, with estimates of 500 million people (1/3 of the worlds population) catching the flu, and 50 million people dying from it. In New Zealand an estimated 9000 people died of the Spanish Flu, schools and workplaces were shut down and events cancelled to try and mitigate the spread. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/influenza-pandemic-reaches-peak-mortality The statistics were grim. There was …
Has Homeopathy moved on? Why do we still refer to the Organon Homeopathy has its roots over 200 years ago, and we still refer to Hahnemann’s words as he wrote in the Organon. Many of these aphorisms are as relevant today as the day Hahnemann wrote them. Aphorism 1: “The physicians highest calling … is to make sick people healthy, to heal. This is something that is fundamental in both conventional and alternative medicine.” Further on there is discussion on …
Today marks the beginning of World Homeopathy Awareness Week, and it is the anniversary of Samuel Hahnemann’s birth on 10th April 1755. Samual Hahnemann was the founder of Homeopathy, but it was serendipity that led to him experimenting and development of the theory. Hahnemann was proficient in many languages, as well as a qualified medical Doctor. He would augment his income by translating text books, and in one such book he disagreed with the text he was translating. It was …
Today is Global Handwashing Day, so here is a little history for you. Hand hygiene and hand washing is one of the most important things you can do to prevent the spread of disease. It is not the biggest contributor to the decline in mortality over the last two hundred years- that prize goes to clean water and sanitation – but it’s importance is uncontested- now. Unfortunately that wasn’t always the case, the “father” of modern hand hygiene was Ignaz …
This is something that gets bandied about a lot. But what is informed consent, and what is the history behind it? Hippocrates talked about consent in Ancient Greece. While the Hippocratic Oath is the most well known of his writings, he had others as well. One of these was the Aphorisms. The first Aphorism said “The physician must be ready, not only to do his duty himself, but also to secure the cooperation of the patient.” Unfortunately that term “secure …