World Homeopathy Awareness Week is timed with the birthday of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (April 10, 1755), the German chemist and physician, the founder of Homeopathy.
sharing the post by Miranda Castro
Happy Birthday, Samuel Hahnemann I thought you’d enjoy a few fun facts about Hahnemann. Did you know the founder of homeopathy was a midnight baby? Hahnemann was born around midnight on April 10th, 1755—but church records list April 11th. Hahnemann always celebrated the 10th and this is why there’s a controversy about his actual birthday.
The Hahnemann Monument in DC erected in 1897 (pictured above), shows his birth as April 11th. It is the only monument dedicated to a medical doctor in DC, a foreign one at that!
A true polyglot, Hahnemann was fluent in 8 languages and he put himself through medical school by translating medical and scientific texts.
One of these texts led him to question the standard scientific thinking around how medicines work. This led him to experiment on himself and to develop groundbreaking theories that in turn led to the development of his homeopathic system of healing.
He had 11 children with his first wife, Johanna, two of whom became homeopaths: Amalie and Frederich.
Hahnemann married his second wife, Mélanie, a 35-year-old French artist, when he was 80 years old. She became an important collaborator, transcribing and supporting much of his later work, and becoming the first female homeopathic physician.
Hahnemann is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery to next to Mélanie. His last recorded words are inscribed on his headstone, “I have not lived in vain”.
Hahnemann continuously courted controversy by bucking accepted orthodoxies. His system of medicine challenged rational beliefs and practices, but it worked and so it thrived and happily continues to do so.
Worldwide, over 200 million people in over 100 countries regularly use homeopathy. It is particularly popular in India where over 1 billion people have used it, and in Europe, where 100 million EU citizens use it.
