the Organon

270 years ago tomorrow, Samuel Hahnemann was born. I, for one, am very thankful that he was born on April 10th, 1755. Without Dr. Hahnemann, homeopathy as we know it, just wouldn’t be.

I will skip over his early years (there is plenty of information on line about him: here, here and here and here and here to get you started) and pick up in 1784, where he is 29 years old, an on again/off again allopathic physician and not a fan of bloodletting. He begins “attacking the medical practices of his time…attracting notoriety, ridicule and rejection by his colleagues” (De Schepper 2001). However, he had nothing else yet to offer in ways of healing. As an author, a chemist and as he was more than proficient in Latin and Greek, he would translate earlier works for payment. It was during one of these translations (Cullen’s Materia Medica) where he had an aha moment in regard Cinchona bark (a.k.a. China officianalis). It was with this substance he began to experiment on himself and found China could create “the same symptoms it would cure in the sick person” leading to the foundation of homeopathy: Similia Similibus Curentur or, Like is Cured by Like.

Like cures like = a substance that can produce symptoms in a healthy individual can also relieve similar symptoms in someone with a disease.

Not surprisingly, the current medical establishment of the time did not much care for his newfangled ideas.

Fast forward to 1810 when Dr. Hahnemann published his first edition of Organon of the Healing Art. Following both ostracisms as well as some public successes (treating typhus, and scarlet fever, and cholera, to name just a few), Dr. Hahnemann continued to write and to “prove” remedies and to hone his craft.

It is this Organon where I want to focus my thoughts today.

To my knowledge, all students of classical homeopathy are required to read this fascinating treatise. The final edition, the 6th, (the most frequently taught), is the “most complete and best method,” and was published after his death in 1843.

Organon, from Greek, “an instrument of thought, especially a means of reasoning or a system of logic” (Soanes and Angus Stevenson 2006).

Step by step, aphorism* by aphorism, Dr. Hahnemann walks us through his remarkable system of medicine. A how-to manual of homeopathy, really. (*An aphorism (denoted by §), OED tells us, is “a pithy observation which contains a general truth.”)

Before we get to the good stuff in the book, the aphorisms, we learn about previous methods of medicine, as well as Dr. Hahnemann’s views on disease: where they come from and what they are and why the “old school” or the “allopathic” method is flawed in its way of thinking.

He then begins with Part 1, the Principles of Cure, including his first 71 aphorisms.

With that, I have pulled out a few of my favorite aphorisms and plugged them in among the overview of the Organon. (I have many more than 12 favorites, but here are the most generally relevant to non-homeopaths of my favorites:)

§ 1 The physician’s highest and only calling is to make the sick healthy, to cure, as it is called.

§ 2 The highest ideal of cure is the rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health…

§ 9 In health, the life force keeps all parts of the organism in harmony.

§ 11 In disease, the life force is first dynamically mistuned and then manifests its mistunement through symptoms.

§ 12 The manifestations of a disease reveal the whole disease, and their disappearance indicates complete recovery.

§ 18 The totality of symptoms and circumstances in each individual case of disease must be the sole indicator in choosing a remedy.

§ 21 A medicine’s power to cure is revealed in the symptoms it engenders in healthy people. These symptoms reveal the medicine’s particular disease-engendering power which is the same as its disease-curing power.

Part II. Understanding Diseases §72-81
Dr. Hahnemann defines acute and chronic diseases in aphorisms 72-81.

Part III. Taking the Case §82-104
§ 82 Careful investigation of the case is needed for individualized treatment of disease.

Part IV. Acquiring a Knowledge of Medicines §105-145
§ 127 Provers must be both male and female. (I have to say that I love that he figured out that men and women respond differently to remedies and medicines and other substances sooooo long ago!)

Part V. Homeopathic Treatment of Diseases §146-203
§ 148 Natural diseases are dynamically engendered by potencies that mistune the life force. Medicines cure by dynamically overtuning the life force with a similar but stronger artificial disease.

§ 153 Strange, rare and peculiar symptoms are the most important in the search for a homeopathic remedy.

Part VI. The Chronic Miasms §204-209
Dr. Hahnemann describes the chronic miasms in aphorisms 204-209.

Part VII. Mental and Emotional Diseases §210-230
20 aphorisms describing mental and emotional diseases. (Spoiler alert: they are treated the same way as other diseases (§214)).

Part VIII. Intermittent Diseases §231-244
13 aphorisms discussing how to treat diseases that recur at definite and indefinite intervals.

Part IX. Case Management §245-263
§ 261. The best regimen for chronic disease includes innocent diversions, exercise in the fresh air and a good diet, in addition to removing obstacles to cure. (He was so on it and so ahead of his time!)

Part X. Preparation of Medicines §264-271
8 aphorisms to ensure the quality of the remedies.

Part XI. Administration of Medicines §272-285
This is where the classical homeopaths and the practical/clinical homeopaths split in terms of the Organon: §273 Administer only one single, simple medicine at a time and §274 Do not use complex means when simple ones will suffice; The actions of two or more medicines given together have not been determined… (You can see some of my further thoughts on this matter here.)

Part XII. Other Therapeutic Approaches §286-291
Here he talks about magnets, electricity and galvanism (therapeutic use of electric currents), Mesmerism (hypnotism) and warm and cold baths.

He was a pretty clever fellow.

Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath

​#wellnessawaits

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REFERENCES
De Schepper, L., 2001. Hahnemann Revisited. Santa Fe, NM: Full of Life Publications.

Lifeforce Homeopathy, 2025. Dr. Samuel Hahneman, MD, Founder of Homeopathy. Life Force Homeopathy Clinic

Hahnemann, S., 2001. Organon of the medical art. Palo Alto, Ca: Birdcage Books.

Homeopathy UK, 2022. Samuel Hahnemann & the beginnings of homeopathy [online].

MEDICOSAGE, 2021. BIOGRAPHY OF DR. HAHNEMANN - Organon Of Medicine & Philosophy [online]. Medicosage.

Patil, B. K. and Gandhi, M. A., 2024. The Life and Legacy of Samuel Hahnemann: Founder of Homoeopathy and His Medical Philosophy. Cureus [online].

Soanes, C. and Angus Stevenson, 2006. Oxford dictionary of English. Accessed through Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd edition software. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019. Samuel Hahnemann | German physician | Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica [online]. 

De Schepper, L., 2001. Hahnemann Revisited. Santa Fe, NM: Full of Life Publications.

Hahnemann, S., 2001. Organon of the medical art. Palo Alto, Ca: Birdcage Books. Edited and annotated by WENDA BREWSTER O’REILLY, PH.D. (“The sixth edition of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann’s work of genius based on a translation by Steven Decker”)
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Soanes, C. and Angus Stevenson, 2006. Oxford dictionary of English. Accessed through Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd edition software. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.