The Homoeopathic Medical Doctrine, or, “Organon of the Healing Art;”. A New System of Physic,

translated from the German of S. Hahnemann, By Charles H. Devrient, Esq. with Notes by Samuel Stratton, M.D. Dublin : W. F. Wakeman, 9, D’Olier-St. / London : Simpkin & Marshall & R. Groombridge / Edinburgh : Maclachlan & Stewart, 1833. First edition in English. Octavo (220 x 140 mm), contemporary half calf over marbled papered boards (heavily rubbed and with some light staining, corner pieces worn), spine in gilt-ruled compartments (leather scuffed) with contrasting leather title-piece stamped in gilt (fine) and old shelf label in manuscript at head of spine (partial loss), front pastedown with original ownership signature of Charles Cummins, pp xxv, [1 errata], 332; numerous pages with Cummins’ underlinings and marginalia; scattered foxing, binding firm; a good, all-original copy, whose first owner appears likely to have been a physician or chemist.

German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) is acknowledged as the creator of the pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine known as homeopathy. Translated from the fourth German edition, Organon der Heilkunst (1829), this is the first edition in English of his text book on the subject, and the first book in English on homeopathy. 

Underlining the importance of Hahnemann’s work is the fact that the rare first German edition of 1810, Organon der rationellen Heilkunde, is noted in Printing and the Mind of Man. However, copies of the first English translation are comparably scarce.

Garrison-Morton 1966; Norman 964; PMM (Printing and the Mind of Man) 265 (for the 1810 German edition).