Samuel Hahnemann
The Organon is Samuel Hahnemann's statement of the theory behind homeopathy and a fundamental text of the new movement. It went through five different editions during Hahnemann's lifetime and was widely translated; new editions and translations continue to be published today. In the introduction to the first edition, Hahnemann formulates the law of similars—"similia similibus curentur"—and also the Greek expression "omoion pathos," from which the term "homeopathy" is derived.
The fifth edition of Hahnemann's Organon was translated into English by Conrad Wesselhoeft of Boston. It is clear from his introduction, however, that while still critical of allopathic practice, Wesselhoeft was not a homeopathic fundamentalist: "Although the Organon has been and is our principle text-book for the present, it has not been republished under the impression that all its doctrines and principles are to be accepted literally and unconditionally. As each one has a style of his own, the details in the application of the principles of the Organon must necessarily vary with different individuals. While admitting these, we should also allow a certain latitude in the interpretation of various dogmas advanced in the Organon."
This particular copy was owned by Grace Ella Cross (1863-1953) while she was attending the homeopathic medical school at Boston University in 1885.
After a course of cupping, blistering, and taking the waters at the German spa of Wiesbaden, the unnamed subject of this diary sought relief from his rheumatism by coming under the care of Samuel Hahnemann in Paris in 1838.
This fragment of a manuscript letter of Samuel Hahnemann concerns the homeopathic prevention and treatment of cholera using powder of copper.