Article
S. Nithya, III .BHMS,
Dr. Hahnemann Homoeopathic Medical College,
Rasipuram,
Nammakal – 637 408.
Tamil Nadu.
Johan Ernst Stapf was the first to embrace the principles of Hahnemann. Stapf is the most ancient disciple of Hahnemann and more celebrated than the others. He began his homeopathic study in 1811, and in 1812 practiced only with the remedies mentioned in the first volume of the Materia Medica Pura. He was at the time the only partisan of our method, and he developed it well. It is reported that eventually he only used olfaction of the higher potencies to administer the remedies. He commenced his studies of the high potencies in 1843 and published the results in June 1844.
Johann Stapf started the first Homeopathic journal. In 1822 he became
the editor of the ‘Archiv fur die homoopathische Heilkunst’.
It was published at Leipsig, three times a year. He continued as its editor
until 1839. It was the journal of the German Homeopathic Union. He also
published several pamphlets upon the subject of Homeopathy. In 1829 he
collected and edited the writings of Hahnemann which he issued under the
title: Kleine medicinische Schriften, von Samuel Hahnemann. Dresden. Arnold.
1829.This book was presented to Hahnemann on the occasion of his fiftieth Doctor-Jubilee, August 10, 1829. He also published a book known as Stapf’s additions to the Materia Medica Pura. It is a collection of the proving originally published in the first fifteen volumes of the Archiv.
He was a prover of 32 medicines and enthusiastic about his use of Lachesis. In 1830, Hering introduced this remedy to Europe through Stapf, who prepared it for the German Homeopaths. Stapf, like Hahnemann, considered the habits of the patient regarding coffee, wine, and tobacco. Being Hahnemann’s first pupil Stapf was much loved by him. Hahnemann continued to correspond with him until the day of his death, and always showed the greatest confidence in him and his medical methods.
While with most of his pupils he was at times cold and distant, nowhere in his writings is shown the least difference of opinion between Hahnemann and Stapf. It was to Stapf, in connection with Gross, that Hahnemann first revealed the secret of the chronic diseases, or psora theory, calling them to Koethen.
Johan Ernst Stapf was born on September 9, 1788, at Naumburg. His father, Johann Gothofredus Stapf, was first pastor to the church of Mary Magdalen. In 1806 Stapf entered Leipzig University. Stapf died at Kosen, on July 11, 1860, in his seventy-first year. Lutze thus chronicles his death:
