Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Homeopathy

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The book comprises lectures delivered at Heinemann Hospital during the session of 1852-53 on the request of those who heard the lectures. This book has been published consisting of same and many more subjects. When you go through these lectures, you will feel that you have been to a journey to meet one century old people and to listen to their reactions an views on revolution in medicine. The book is for those who are desirous of obtaining knowledge of the history and development in homeopathy. The manuscripts have been carefully revised and additions are made by Dr. Dugeon so as to render them complete.

These are now being presented to the profession in an Indian edition published by B Jain Publishing Company. It was through the courtesy of Dr. P. Karishana Chaudhary of Hyderabad that this valuable book was made available to the publisher for preparing the Indian edition.

Dr .Dudgeon: Dr. R.E. Dudgeon, M.D. has been one of the greatest contributions and critic of homeopathic literature. He is the famous translator of Heinemann Organon. His translation of Organon has not been surpassed by anyone and has been accepted as the text book in homeopathic institutions all over world ever since it has appeared. There have been other versions of translations of Oorganon but we cannot dispute the authenticity and the authority of this translation. Very few people are aware that Dudgeon has given series of lectures on the theory and practice of Homeopathy at Heinemann’s School of Homeopathy. These lectures were, later on collected together published as such.

Dr. R.E. Dudgeon, M.D. has been one of the greatest contributors and critics of Homeopathic literature. He is the famous translator of Heinemann’s Organon. His translation of Organon has not been surpassed by anyone and has been accepted as the textbook in homeopathic institutions all over the world ever since it appeared. There have been other versions or translations of Organon, but we cannot dispute the authenticity and the authority of this translation. But very few people know that Dudgeon gave, also a very interesting series of lectures on the theory and practice of Homeopathy at Heinemann’s School of Homeopathy. These lectures were, later on, collected together and published as such. ,these are now, being presented to the profession in an Indian edition published by ‘Jain Publishing Company’. It was through the courtesy of Dr. P. Krishna Chaudhary of Hyderabad that this valuable book was made available to the publisher for preparing the Indian edition.

He gave these lectures about eight years after the death of Heinemann, and thus whatever he has related and quoted must have been in his memory. While going through these lecturers, one feels, as if one has been transported back to about one and a half centuries and meets with people and listens to their reactions to the new revolution in medicine.

In this very critical and searching evaluation of Heinemann’s contribution, the views held by Heinemann and other people who mattered during Heinemann’s time, is a very interesting and stimulating study. He has extensively quoted from the writings and communications of Drs. Hering, Gross, Aegidi, Wolf, Trinks, Henriques, Lippe, Mure, and numerous others. His essays on does, the emergence of potencies and how Hahnemann came to stumble upon the high potencies or dilutions for treating the patients on homeopathic principles is a very relieving study. He has brought out clearly how Heinemann used material or comparatively massive does in the beginning of his practice, and that he was partly and if not wholly driven to use infinitesimal doses because apothecaries of those time were after his blood and it is to escape their persecution and legal implications that he subdivided the does to such an extent that no chemist or pharmacist could discover the quantum of medicine.

We may not agree with everything what Dr. Dudgeon has expressed but one thing is certain that this exposure to such critical discussions should be very stimulating both to medical students and practitioners and helps us in scientific evaluation of what has been written and said about Homeopathy, both by Heinemann and his followers. It is only by this critical analysis that one can move further ahead. Dudgeon, has already mentioned that we need not accept everything what Heinemann wrote and said, but the basic laws enunciated by him cannot be disputed; but there are various other hypothesis, theories or favourite ideas, which have to be accepted after a thorough scientific evaluation.

I am sure the profession as well as the Homeopathic Institutions will welcome the book and consider it a valuable addition to their libraries.

The following lectures were delivered at the Heinemann Hospital during the sessions 1852-3. At the request of several of those who heard them, I have consented to their publication; and in order to reader them more worth of being presented to my colleagues and those desirous of being presented to my colleagues and those de serious of obtaining a knowledge of the history and developments of Homeopathy.. I have carefully revised the original manuscripts and made considerable additions, so as to render them as complete as possible, and bring them up to the date of publication. I have endeavoured to lay before the reader everything of interest and importance connected with the progress of Homeopathy, in a theoretical and practical point of view that has appeared in the literature of our own and of other countries. I have given as succinct and correct an account as I could of the views and statements of the principal writers on Homeopathy and this I was generally enabled to do at first hand, having access to a pretty extensive homeopathic library. Where I have been unable to refer to the original sources, I have availed myself of the abstracts contained in some of the German journals and works on Homeopathy, more especially the last work of the late Dr. Griesselich, whose resumes of the opinions of others I have found wonderfully correct in almost every case where I have compared them with the originals.

I trust this little work may prove of use to the homeopathic student, if not by any originality of the views put forward in it, at least by presenting him with a tolerably accurate coup d’ oeil of the various steps in the progressive development of Homeopathy, and that, besides allowing him the right directions in which the homeopathic art must be developed and perfected, it may serve to warn him from the false paths pursued by many of the nominal adherents of Homeopathy, which only lead to extravagance and the abnegation of all science.

For the imperfections of the work, I must crave reader’s indulgence. The subject is a large and a difficult one, and it is far from improbable that I may have been mistaken in many of the conclusions I have drawn, and oft the opinions I have expressed, however careful and conscientious I have been. Haply, some one more competent to execute the task I have essayed may hereafter write a better treatise on the homeopathic system, and profit by my very failings and errors to render his work more perfect and worthier of the importance of the subject.

In the mean time, and until a more complete treatise shall appear, I believe that the English homoeopathist will find in the following pages many things bearing upon the theory and practice of Homoeopathy which will be novel, and I hope, interesting to him. London, December 1853.

**Contents and Sample Pages**