Organon Of Medicine

Translators Preface

In this new edition of my translation of the Organon I have completely revised the text, in order to make it a still more exact reproduction of the original.  In the Appendix I have given all the more important variations of the previous editions.  I have also indicated the corresponding views as set forth in the Essay of a New Principle  and the  Medicine of Experience, both of which esssays may be regarded as the precursor to the Organon, I have added Hahnemann's later opinions on several subjects treated of in this work.

In the growth of such a complex thing as a new system of medicine, it was inevitable that there should be considerable alterations and improvements effected in the course of fourty-eight years , the time occupied by Hahnemann in the elaboration of his novel doctrine and practice.

     
      His first idea of the homoeopathic rule of practice:  occured to him while translating Cullen Materia Medica in 1790.  The Essay on a New Principle , in which he propounded the homoeopathic therapeutic rule, as yet believed by him to be on only a "partial application.' viz. to some chronic diseases, was published in 1796.  Nine years after this , viz , in 1805, in the Medicine of Experience, he enunciated the rule with no such limitations of its applicability.  This essay contains much of what we find in the first and later editions of the Organon.

The doctrine of dynamisation of medicne by the pharmaceutical process peculiar to homoeopathy, which had only been hinted at in previous editions, is in this edition distinctly stated.  This direction as to the reptition of the dose are also different form those in previous editions.  These is in this edtion are distinctly stated.  This direction as to the repitition of the dose are also different form those in previous editions.  These two last-named points are still further modified in Hahnemann's later work on Chronic Diseases (1838), as will be seen by the quotations I have made from that work.

Thus while the body of this work contains the Organon precisely as it appears in the last edition, the Appendix gives a detailed history of the origin, growth and progress of the homoeopthic system of medicine in themind of its author.

    I have not presumed to criticise the views or statements of the author.  His denunciation of the practice to the old school, though quite deserved when he wrote, are not applicable to the present condition of allopathic medicine.  Is is beyond all question that it was mainly owing to the treatment and practice of Hahnemann and his disciples that the disastrous methods in vogue for centuries previous to and far into his time have been abandond.  It remains, however, doublful if the allopathic methods of the present day have any greater claim to scientific character of success than those they have superseded.  Were Hahamann alive now we can easily imagine how he would have inveighed against the school-medicine of the present day.  The tonic, stimulant, anti-pyretic and narcotic practice of modern medicine is as far removed from the scientific simplicity of homoeopathy as were the venesections, blisters, cauteries, purgatives and mercurialisations abainst which Hahnemann waged sussessful war.  Hahemann's vigorous protest against the dominant medicine of his day is useful as showing the negative good effects of homoeopathy, for almost all the irrational practices he denounced have been abandonded;  it remains for his followers to exhibit its positive effects in the victory of rational and scientific medicines.