Organon der rationellen Heilkunde (first edition)

period treatise · 1810

type:period treatise

year:1810

citation:Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon der rationellen Heilkunde. Dresden: Arnold, 1810. Later editions carried the title Organon der Heilkunst; the sixth edition was completed in 1842 and published only in 1921.

LINK

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/a25fj8te

SUMMARY

Hahnemann's systematic exposition of homeopathy and the primary doctrinal source for this case. The first edition appeared in Dresden in 1810 from the publisher Arnold under the title Organon der rationellen Heilkunde; the imprint (title; publisher Arnold; place Dresden; date 1810) is copied from the Wellcome Collection catalogue work a25fj8te. The Organon sets out the three load-bearing claims of the system: the law of similars (similia similibus curentur); the doctrine of the minimal, serially diluted and succussed ('potentized') dose; and the vital force (Lebenskraft) as the seat of disease and of cure. Wellcome also holds an Organon der Heilkunst printed at Dresden and Leipzig by Arnold in 1833, the title later editions carried. The sixth edition was completed in Paris in 1842 and published only in 1921 (per Mix and Cameron 2011, separate source entry). The work contains no controlled outcome data; its evidence base was Hahnemann's drug 'provings' (symptom records from dosing the healthy) and cured-case reports.

NOTES

The Organon der rationellen Heilkunde (Dresden: Arnold, 1810) is the founding systematic text of homeopathy and the primary source for the doctrine as Hahnemann stated it. It generalizes the principle he had first published in 1796 into a complete system of practice resting on three propositions: that like cures like (a medicine that produces a symptom-picture in a healthy prover cures a disease of like symptoms); that the medicinal power is developed and the material dose minimized by serial dilution with succussion, a process Hahnemann called potentization; and that disease and cure are derangements and restorations of the vital force (Lebenskraft), the same vitalist principle that anchors the contemporary Hufeland macrobiotics case. The imprint is copied from the Wellcome Collection catalogue record (work a25fj8te: Organon der rationellen Heilkunde; Arnold; Dresden; 1810); a later Organon der Heilkunst printed by Arnold at Dresden and Leipzig in 1833 is also held there. The text offers no controlled outcome evidence; its support is the provings and individual cured-case narratives, which cannot establish efficacy against the natural course of illness or against placebo.