Christian Heinrich Hahn 1802 – 1868

Christian Heinrich Hahn 1802 – 1868 was an orthodox military physician who converted to homeopathy.

Hahn wrote an article in the German medical press detailing his experiments and clinical trials into homeopathy, which had convinced him of the truth of homeopathy.

… in 1835, a military doctor, Christian Heinrich Hahn wrote about his positive experiences with Hahnemann’s medical approach in the medical journal Bibliothek for Laeger edited by Carl Otto… He had to concede, however, that his treatment had not been effective in all cases.

Hahn described his journey to some of the most outstanding homeopaths in Germany. He had visited, amongst others, Samuel Hahnemann in Köthen as well as Paul Wolf and Karl Friedrich Gottfried Trinks in Dresden.

Because of numerous contradictions, the article did, however, fail to attract the interest of leading Danish medical circles despite of the fact that the author ultimately emphasized the general correctness of the simile principle.

One young physician, Carl Kayser, at least, took it on himself to accuse Hahn of methodical negligence. One of the points he made was that placebos had not been used in the drug tests and that the tests had not been performed on healthy people as requested by Samuel Hahnemann.

The early allusion to placebo controlled studies and clinical trials is remarkable at a time when these methods were tested for the first time by homeopaths and their critics in Germany