Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte : Jahrbuch des Instituts für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung
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Biography Historical Article
[Expulsion from Leipzig? Hahnemann's medical praxis in Leipzig: reasons for transferring to Kothen in 1821 - frequency of patients and polemics].
Recent research has concurred that Samuel Hahnemann enjoyed a flourishing medical practice in Leipzig. However, a close look at the physician's years in Leipzig reveals that his patient list was not exactly growing. Rather, his medical practice followed a trajectory similar to that of a roller coaster: due to crucial events - successful treatment during the typhus epidemic, lecturing at the University of Leipzig, treating influential public figures - Hahnemann was able to restructure the composition of his clientele. ⋯ Hahnemann's reputation attracted patients from all over Germany and even neighboring countries. The improvement in the social structure of Hahnemann's clientele also reflects important changes in the spread of homeopathy. Hahnemann's transfer to Kothen can be explained by a number of factors: his prohibition against dispensing medicines, declining personal prestige, decreasing number of patients and ensuing financial difficulties, fruitless university employment, continually increasing subjective and objective pressures and last but not least, the privileges of leadership.
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Biography Historical Article
["Thus it passes from the patient's purse into that of the doctor without causing displeasure" - Samuel Hahnemann and medical fees].
In 1834, Hahnemann gave the following advice to his pupil Dr. Karl Julius Aegidi: "We are not allopaths who have high medical fees and can legally demand high sums for evil deeds. We must take what we have earned on the spot, since we are not considered worthy of ordinary justice." In an earlier letter to the same addressee, Hahnemann wrote: "No one enters my house if he does not have with him the money to pay me, unless he is paying me monthly, in advance [...]." There can be no doubt that in Hahnemann's times, fees were the most important component in a physician's income. ⋯ However, he used a sliding fee structure to allow for the different economic circumstances of his patients, who came from all walks of life. The very poor he treated for free, while members of the rural and urban middle class had to pay considerable fees. In some cases, Hahnemann was able to charge very high fees, and his numerous enemies used this against him.
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Biography Historical Article
[Hahnemann's youngest patients - an analytic study of the first homeopathic treatments for children].
This article develops a fragmentary history of early homeopathic treatment of children. It begins with an outline of Samuel Hahnemann's perception and treatment of children during the "Medical Enlightenment". This is followed by an investigation of attitudes towards children in early homeopathic literature, in comparison to those of mainstream medicine of the period. ⋯ In response to Hahnemann's queries, many letters contain exact description of somatic and psychic symptoms. Unlike Hahnemann's brief style, many of the parents delve into each detail of the child's condition, and also express themselves emotionally on subjects such as their children, fears of sickness and death. It is also apparent that women, who bore the main responsibility for family life, had a good deal of authority over the course of treatment, as well as the choice of physician.
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Biography Historical Article
[The experience of being ill and the physician-patient relationship in Samuel Hahnemann's correspondence with his patients].
This paper uses on the extensive patient correspondence of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann as the basis for a history of homeopathy from the patients' point of view. The value of these epistolary records is two-fold: first, in order to produce their daily records as requested by Hahnemann, the patients learned to pay attention even to the slightest physical or emotional changes. ⋯ Second, the letters and Hahnemann's answers, as far as they have survived, provide detailed insights into the relationship between the physician and his patients. They help identify, in particular, the strategies used by Hahnemann to maintain his professional dignity, a good level of income, and his patients' trust - even through years of treatment without improvement. The letters also record the patients' response to Hahnemann's unusually authoritarian manners.