Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte : Jahrbuch des Instituts für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung
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Biography Historical Article
[Samuel Hahnemann: physician and adviser to the Princess Luise of Prussia from 1829 to 1835].
The nearly 500 pages of letters (edited and commented in a medical dissertation by the author), written by a Prussian Princess in the 19th century to Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy, provide a fairly complete patient history thanks to the homoeopathic method which obliges patients to observe and describe the complaints and the changes they experience during treatment. The achievements of Hahnemann's therapy were so remarkable that the patient engaged his disciple Dr. ⋯ It was less so in taking verum, applying mesmerism and changing her lifestyle. The success of the treatment was limited by the Princess's court and family circumstances and probably by Hahnemann's restriction to psora theory and C30 potencies. The dissertation is the most extensive patient history from Hahnemann's medical practice ever published.