Observations on Pharmacographic & Repertographic records of Hahnemann
George Dimitriadis
BSc.(UNSW), DHom.(Syd), DHomMCCH(Eng), M(Hon)JPHMA (Jpn), LiRF(HISyd)
Over the past several years, we have focused on Hahnemann’s pharmacographic record with the aim to republish a modern, easily readable and most accurate reproduction.
Not wishing to add an inaccurate or superfluous work to the literature for our profession, we specifically undertook to examine every symptom listed by Hahnemann in each edition of his works, checking their rendering chronologically, from Fragmenta… (1805), through Reine Arzneimittellehre (RA, 1811-1833), into his Die Chronischen Krankheiten (CK, 1828-1839) where applicable, and as far as is possible, against the original sources cited by Hahnemann for those symptoms derived both from homoeopathic contributors, and from the “old school.”
In this way we have all but completed several medicines, but have also looked at the greater number of other medicines in Hahnemann’s pharmacographies, and those to which he contributes symptoms outside Fragmenta,RA, or CK.
This process has allowed us to gain an appreciation as to the way Hahnemann proceeded in obtaining and rendering these records, and of the changes (if any) of the same symptoms over time.
We are now in a position to express with certainty that these works of Hahnemann (RA & CK), which together represent his life’s work towards gathering the information necessary to apply his realisation of omoion as a general principle of therapeutics, remain the most accurate and painstaking works of a single observer on pharmacodynamics, unparalleled not only in being borne of a fundamental shift from the paradigm of mainstream medical therapeutics and requiring the collection of theory-free (‘pure’) substance effects, but equally incomparable in terms of faithfully representing the information of other authors from which he liberally borrows objective data for the purpose of a strictly homoeopathic application of medicines.
The nature of this work of Hahnemann, the necessary sifting of reports to remove the conjectures and imaginings of old school authors14 and to identify only the pure, definite, consistent (characteristic) effects of each substance which accorded with his own methodically conducted provings trials, as well his use of assistants at various times in compiling or finishing manuscripts in readiness for the printer, more especially the numerous and imprudent mistakes introduced by Jahr into the second edition CK, not to mention the sheer volume of information worked continuously over a prolonged period of time and without the aid of today’s computers – all this provided many opportunities for error, and it is no surprise to have indeed uncovered a variety of (more or less significant) mistakes which we continue to address in our ongoing work – here are some examples of our findings.
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