Book review

Samuel Hahnemann. By Trevor M. Cook. Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1981, Pp. 188. s

It is nearly fifty years since a biography of Hahnemann last appeared in English. Trevor Cook's new book has therefore appeared at an opportune moment, when popular interest in all forms of alternative medicine, including hom0eopathy, is on the increase, and it will be of much value to everyone who wants a concise, read- able account of the main events of Hahnemann's life and a general impression of the man and his character.

What I find particularly good about Cook's approach is the background historical detail. Some of Hahnemann's earlier biographers, including Haehl, con- centrate so much on the man that they say little about the times in which he lived. Before reading Cook, for example, I had not fully realized that while Hahnemann was living at Leipzig one of the major battles of the Napoleonic Wars was fought almost on his doorstep, nor had I been aware how difficult, even perilous, it was to travel in nineteenth-century Germany- -a fact that makes the almost continual peregrinations of the Hahnemann family all the more remarkable. Cook brings all this out very well, and sets Hahnemann convincingly in his historical context. He has relatively little to say about hom~eopathy itself, but instead shows how Hahnemann's ideas fitted into his life as a whole and what kind of reception they had from his contemporaries. It is interesting that, contrary to what is sometimes said, the first edition of the Organon attracted relatively little attention, either favourable or hostile.

Cook presents a clear picture of how surprisingly long it took Hahnemann to formulate hom0eopathy after his famous Cinchona experiment, and of the steps by which this came about; but he also makes clear how little we really know about this crucial period in Hahnemann's life. His account of the provings correctly indicates that those of the Materia Medica Pura were made in material doses, a fact that seems not to be generally known among homoeopaths.

All in all this is a pleasant and useful study, which can be confidently recom- mended as an introduction to Hahnemann and his times.

ANTHONY CAMPBELL

Volume 71, Number 2, April 1982 79