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Christian Friedrich Samuel HAHNEMANN

Hahnemann Hospital, 1907

"...The origins of Hahnemann Hospital trace back to a debate that divided Rochester's medical community during the late 19th century. It pitted advocates of allopathy, the belief in using medicine to treat the symptoms of illnesses, versus adherents of homeopathy, the practice of treating the causes of disease through natural cures.

Complicating matters further, in the 1880s, Rochester's homeopathic community found itself torn from within. A subgroup of so-called "liberal homeopaths" opened a hospital on Monroe Avenue in 1887, where they occasionally administered pharmaceuticals to patients. A smaller splinter sect of homeopathic purists, self-described as Hahnemannites, refused to stray from the original naturalist ideals of movement-founder Dr. Samuel Hahnemann.

Altogether nine rebellious Hahnemannite physicians signed a manifesto committing themselves to founding a new homeopathic hospital that rejected "chasing after every new fad and patent medicine."

Thus the aptly named Hahnemann Hospital opened to patients on April 10, 1889. The original facility on Rockingham Street was the home of Judge Henry Selden, rented out for $200 a year..." democratandchronicle.com



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