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Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) is the founder of modern homeopathy,
although its roots go back to Hippocrates in the 4th Century BC.
Hahnemann was a German physician, but he found the
medical system of the time (blood-letting, purging etc) too barbaric.
When he found himself unable to treat his own family
with conventional methods he gave up medicine to try to find a gentler
way of treating the sick.
As a talented linguist, he supported his family by
translating medical and scientific texts and, through this work,
he remained aware of advances in medical thinking.
He also worked as a chemist and studied the effects
of poisons on the body, such as mercury and arsenic, which were
often used by doctors of the day to treat sick patients.
Hahnemann began experimenting with medicines to try
to find a link between them and the diseases they were used to treat.
He started with Chinchona Bark, a drug used to treat
malaria, and when he took large doses of the drug he found that
he experienced similar symptoms to those of malaria.
He noted down the symptoms he experienced and built
up a profile of Chinchona and how it could be used to treat a sick
person.
This was the first 'proving' of a substance.
Hahnemann and a growing group of volunteers went on
to prove other substances (mainly concentrating on poisons, as their
effects on the human body were quite marked) and so began to draw
together a number of substances that could be used therapeutically.
The system of provings and the remedies proved by
Hahnemann and his followers are still in use today.
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