Between the years 1789 and 1806, at which latter date the German army met with a disastrous defeat at the hands of the French (battle of Jena), the almost constant warfare brought all official university work to a stop. But Reil was not idle during this long period, for it was at this time that he devoted himself chiefly to laboratory research work with reference to the anatomy and physiology of the brain and nerves. The products of this work are recorded in the Archives of Physiology which Reil published in 1796 in association with Autenrieth, and they are pronounced by Sudhoff to be masterly. One of the cerebral structures which Reil was the first to describe is that known to all anatomists as “the island of Reil.”
Another important series of studies which were made by Reil were published by him under the title: “On the Diagnosis and Treatment of Fevers” (Halle and Berlin, 1799–1816; 3d edition, 1820–1828).
Finally, mention should be made of a memoir on “Vital Force” which Reil published in the first volume of his Archives, in July, 1795; an essay which—according to Sudhoff—should be read with very close attention, for it, more than all his other published writings, has carried Reil’s name (and will continue so to carry it in the future) triumphantly through the history of the science of biology. The author states his final conclusion as to the nature of vital force in the following words: “Every part of an organism accomplishes its work through its own inherent power, and the latter is a characteristic phenomenon that is dependent upon the manner in which the material of which it is composed is mixed and also upon the form that it takes.” Dezeimeris gives a slightly different rendering of this passage, viz., “It is absurd to search for the source of life (vital force) elsewhere than in the tissues themselves, and in them the vital phenomena vary partly according to the manner in which their elements are mixed and partly according to the form in which they are arranged.” Farther on in this volume, as I shall show, Claude Bernard, the distinguished French biologist, furnishes a third definition of “vital force.”
When the terrible fighting that occurred at the battle of Leipzig in 1813 necessitated the rapid construction and organization of hospitals large enough to accommodate the many thousands of sick and wounded[[4]] that had accumulated after this battle, the King of Prussia promptly assigned to Reil the entire management of this important business; and the result proved that he had entrusted this work to the right man.
Reil’s death from typhus fever occurred at Halle on November 12, 1813.
Sudhoff thus sums up the most striking traits of this distinguished physician’s character: “He was never satisfied with half-way measures, and bold schemes and great undertakings occupied his thoughts at all times. At the bedside he gave himself up unreservedly to the interests of the patient.”
Samuel Hahnemann was born at Meissen, Saxony, in 1755. Although his parents were poor he managed to obtain a good education, not only in the fundamentals usually taught at the schools, but also in the knowledge of the various languages, such as Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, English, French and Italian. In his medical training he advanced so rapidly that already at the comparatively early age of thirty-five he was recognized as one of the leading physicians of Germany. Even Hufeland, who at this period (about 1790) was the highest medical authority in the nation, accorded him full confidence both as a man and as a chemist; and yet at the same time there is no evidence to show that he frankly adopted his teachings with regard to the new doctrine of homoeopathy.
Hahnemann’s first experiments in relation to the action of drugs—says Wheeler, the most recent translator of the “Organon”—were made upon cinchona bark, which at that period was universally admitted to possess remarkable power in relieving and curing “ague,” as the usual form of malarial disease was then termed. “Hahnemann’s experiment”—he goes on to say—“consisted in taking a large dose of cinchona bark while he was in good health and noting its effects upon his healthy body. To his surprise he found reproduced upon himself all the chief phenomena (and even many of the minor symptoms) of a paroxysm of ague. When the attack passed off, a second dose produced a second paroxysm, and Hahnemann was presently face to face with the fact that this drug, which so often cured ague, was capable of reproducing in his own healthy body the phenomena of ague. Like, in fact, cured like.... As soon as the cinchona experiment suggested to Hahnemann the possibility that the principle of like to like (similia similibus) might prove a general law of healing, he began a systematic study of the records of medicine in the search for instances.... Over and over again he found that a drug prescribed empirically had proved itself capable of curing conditions similar to those which it could produce. The records of medicine, in fact, gave plenty of encouragement to his now dawning belief that similia similibus is a genuine Law of Cure.”
It is at this point, as it seems to me, that Hahnemann displays the first and most important defect in his reasoning machinery. He allowed what seemed to him to be a most important and highly beneficent therapeutic truth immediately to take possession of his whole being,—indeed, to take such complete possession that, from this moment forward, throughout the remainder of his life, he was utterly unable to weigh with a calm and unprejudiced mind the various facts and considerations which ultimately relegated homoeopathy to its proper place in the medico-historical museum, alongside those hoary relics of methodism, incantations, the weaving of charms, Stahlism, Brunonianism, etc. In short, he lacked those immensely important mental characteristics which enabled Harvey to discover the more important facts relating to the circulation of the blood, and which made it possible for Jenner to place in the hands of his fellow men an effective weapon of defense against the deadly ravages of small-pox. If asked to say what are these characteristics, I would reply: A state of mind so open and so unprejudiced that it can weigh with absolute fairness all the evidence laid before it, and an imagination so clever and so fertile in resources that it is able to invent the means of reproducing at will all those phenomena which it is desirable to study more closely. These, I believe, are the characteristics which Hahnemann lacked and which are absolutely necessary for the creation of a permanently useful creed and principles of therapeutics.