born April 10, 1755, Meissen, Saxony
died July 2, 1843, Paris, Fr.
German physician, founder of homeopathy .
Struck by the similarity of the symptoms quinine produced in the healthy body to those of the disorders it cured, he theorized that "likes are cured by likes" and proposed his doctrine that substances used this way are most effective in small doses. His chief work, Organon of Rational Medicine (1810), expounds his system. His Pure Pharmacology (6 vol., 1811) details the symptoms produced by testing a large number of drugs on healthy subjects.