The Homoeopathic Medical Doctrine, or, "Organon of the Healing Art;" A New System of Physic, Translated from the German... by Charles H. Devrient, Esq. with Notes by Samuel Stratten, M.D.

Dublin: W.F. Wakeman, 1833. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. 8vo (230 x 140 mm). xxv [1], 332 pp. 12 pp. publisher's advertisement bound in before title, errata on final preliminary page. Original publisher's card boards with original paper lettering piece on spine (upper joints cracked but cords holding firmly, lettering piece rubbed and chipped, spine ends scuffed, corners bumped, paper soiled and spotted). Protected in modern clamshell box. All pages uncut. Internally crisp and bright throughout, light dust-soiling to edges. Provenance: Library of William von Valtier. A very good copy internally. ----

RARE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, translated by Charles Devrient from the fourth German edition of 1829. "Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, embodied his theories in the Organon. The minute doses set down by him did much to correct the evils of the polypharmacy of his time, in which overdosage was pervasive. He professed to base medicine on a knowledge of symptoms, regarding investigation of causes of symptoms as useless; he thus rejected all the lessons of pathology and morbid anatomy. There are several English translations, the first of which appeared in 1833" (Garrison-Morton-Norman).
"Hahnemann was convinced that minute doses of drugs in greatly attenuated concentrations were efficacious cures. When modern practice is compared with the indiscriminate and massive prescriptions of his own day it will be seen how much closer we are to his views than to those of his contemporaries. Certainly his treatment showed that the vis medicatrix naturae, given a chance, with occasional and gentle assistance, often suffices to effect a cure. He gave great prominence to therapeutics, introduced many new specifics, but ignored the growing science of pathology. In his emphasis on the importance of studying the patient as a whole, he foreshadowed the psychosomatic component of modern medicine" (PMM).
References: Garrison-Morton-Norman 1966; Wellcome III, p. 192; PMM 265 (first edition). - Visit our website to see more images!