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Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, developed homeopathy early in the 19th century. A trained physician, Dr. Hahnemann became dissatisfied with the medicine of his day, especially the impurity of drugs and the imprecise way they were combined. He also felt that bloodletting, purgatives and other therapies were useless, even harmful, and were prescribed without coherent theoretical justification. By studying earlier medical writings and experimenting on himself, Hahnemann established his new idea, captured in his major work Organon der rationellen Heilkunde (1810). Dr. Hahnemann concluded that a sick person could be cured of a disease by a drug that in a healthy person produced symptoms similar to those of the disease. He also concluded that very small doses worked better than the large doses used by most physicians.
In a time of inquiry and exploration, 19th century American physicians also sought an alternative to heroic medicine. Dr. Constantine Hering, a German immigrant, founded the first successful homeopathic medical school in Philadelphia in 1848, the Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, later Hahnemann Medical College. Samuel Hahnemann’s approach to healing played a significant role in the evolution of medicine.