Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by

S. A. GEORGE & CO.,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

INTRODUCTION.

N place of the usual formal Introduction, which in this case would be a résumé of the principles of Homœopathy, of its early struggles in this country, and of its present proud position, it has been deemed that the most fitting prelude to the record of the life-work of the most prominent homoopathic physicians and surgeons in the United States would be a rapid glance at the chief incidents in the career of their immortal teacherHahnemann. Such a prelude is in strict accordance with the character of the work itself, while it enables the formation of the most adequate conception as to the origin, peculiar character and advantages of homoeopathy, with the difficulties attending its early practice and dissemination; just as the succeeding biographies best indicate the obstacles that beset the introduction and establishment of the new system in this country, and trace the rapid progress it has made in public estimation. Accordingly, the following brief but carefully compiled and comprehensive sketch of the career of the great founder of homœopathy is here presented:

AHNEMANN, SAMUEL, was born on the 10th of April, 1755, at Meissen, in Cur-Saxony, one of the most beautiful regions of Germany. Among the papers left behind him is one, dated August, 1791, which affords us some interesting particulars respecting his family and early youth. He says in substance: "My father, Christian Gottfried Hahnemann, who died four years ago, was a painter in the porcelain manufacture, and had written a little work on that art. He had the soundest ideas on what was to be reckoned good and worthy in man, and had arrived at them by his own independent thought. He sought to implant them in me, and impressed on me, more by action than by words, the great lesson of life, 'to act and to be, not merely to seem.' When a good work was going forward, there, often unobserved, he