" Organon der Rationellen Heilkunst," or "Organon of Rational Healing."

It required a grateful patient to print the ‘Organon ;’ it was nine years before the first edition was sold. It is disgusting to state how it was received ; it was, and it remains forever, an inexcusable meanness of the whole profession.”

This is considered the most important of all Hahnemann’s books by the members of the Homeopathic profession, as in its pages he has fully explained his law of cure.

It has been called the ” Bible of Homoeopathy.” It contains a complete and exhaustive exposition of Hahnemann’s discoveries, experiments, and opinions, concerning the healing of the sick.

The title page of the first edition bears the following motto from the poet Gellert :

“The truth we mortals need

Us blest to make and keep,

The All-wise slightly covered o’er,

But did not bury deep.”

This motto is changed in the other editions to the words “Aude sapere” ; and the title itself becomes : “Organon der Heilkunst.”

He says in the preface :

“The results of my convictions are set forth in this book. It remains to be seen, whether physicians, who mean to act honestly by their conscience and by their fellow creatures, will continue to stick to the pernicious tissue of conjectures and caprice, or can open their eyes to the salutary truth.

“I must warn the reader that indolence, love of ease and obstinacy preclude effective service at the altar of truth, and only freedom from prejudice and untiring zeal qualify for the most sacred of all human occupations, the practice of the true system of medicine.

” The physician who enters on his work in this spirit becomes directly assimilated to the Divine Creator of the world, whose human creatures he helps to preserve, and whose approval renders him thrice blessed.”

The book consists of two parts: the introduction and the Organon proper. The introduction is first devoted to an analysis of the imperfect and erroneous method, distinguishing the old school of medicine.

This he calls :

” A mode of cure with medical substances of unknown quality, compounded together, applied to diseases arbitrarily classified and arranged in reference to their materiality, called Allopathy.”

The second part of the introduction is filled with examples from medical writings of cures unwittingly made by physicians in accordance with the law of the similars.

These quotations are made from the writings of the ancients, from Hippocrates down through the great list of medical writers, with, as usual, careful references to each one.

HelleborusIt is as much a wonder of intimate research and acquaintance with the medical literature of the past, as is his essay on Hellebore.

He concludes :

“Thus far the great truth has more than once been approached by physicians. But a transitory idea was all that presented itself to them ; consequently the indispensable reform which ought to have taken place in the old school of therapeutics, to make room for the true curative method, and a system of medicine at once simple and certain, has, till the present day, not been effected.”

The Organon proper is divided into paragraphs, each one of which contains one or more aphorisms in regard to the law of Homoeopathy, and the way in which it should be practiced.

He gives full and careful directions for preparing medicines homeopathically ; states the proper size of the dose, expounds at length the doctrines of Homoeopathy ; explains why such small doses can, and do, cure quickly ; gives full directions for proving : in fact it is a full exposition of the new law, as Hahnemann understood it.

Dr Samuel LILIENTHAL (1815-1891)To any one who wishes to become more familiar with the teaching’s of the “Organon” explained in a simple and plain manner, it may be stated that this can be found in an article by Dr. Samuel Lilianthal, published in the California Homoeopath, for March, April, May and June, 1889, under the title :

” A Catechism of Samuel Hahnemann’s Organon,”

and which was also published in the Homeopathic World, for June and July, 1889, as ” The Essence of Samuel Hahnemann’s Organon.” Its tenets may here be found in a nutshell.

The five editions of the Organon, that were published in Hahnemann’s lifetime, differ somewhat from each other, the first edition is not as full as is the fifth, but the teaching is the same ; that the duty of the physician is to cure the sick as easily and as speedily as possible.

It may be mentioned here that the Organon has been translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Danish and Swedish.