Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler — also spelled ''Schuessler'', particularly in English-language publications — (21 August 1821 – 30 March 1898) was a German
medical doctor in
Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to:
Places
*Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica
*Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany
**Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony
*Olde ...
who searched for natural remedies and published the results of his experiments in a German
homeopathic
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dise ...
journal in March 1873, leading to a list of 12 so-called "biochemic cell salts" that remain popular in
alternative medicine. Although he was firmly within the homeopathy movement of his day, the modern definition of
homeopathy tends to exclude his concept of
homeopathic potency, which favoured remedies which, while very dilute, still retained small amounts of the original salt.
Influences and history
Samuel Hahnemann
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (; 10 April 1755 – 2 July 1843) was a German physician, best known for creating the pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine called homeopathy.
Early life
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was ...
had proposed
homeopathy in 1796, based on the idea of using very dilute remedies including salts. An 1832 paper in Stapf's Archiv suggested such salts would be "essential component parts of the human body".
Schüßler was influenced by an 1852 paper by the Dutch physiologist
Jacob Moleschott
Jacob Moleschott (9 August 1822 – 20 May 1893) was a Dutch physiologist and writer on dietetics. He is known for his philosophical views in regard to scientific materialism. He was a member of German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 1884).
...
(1812–1893). Serious discussion began only after Dr Lorbacher of
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
critically considered his ideas five months later. An English translation appeared in the Medical Investigator in May 1873, then in "The Twelve Tissue Remedies" by Dr C. Hering, and in 1888 in a book of the same name by
Boericke and Dewey, two medical doctors in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
.
Around the beginning of the twentieth century,
Eli Jones and other doctors studied Schüßler's ideas and derived new ones;
by the end of that century Schüßler's name (in various forms of spelling) and list of twelve "tissue salts" were commonly found in health shops and
alternative medicine books.
Schuessler salts are discussed in Western Australia's Government Gazette of 12 April 1946:
Works
* ''Eine abgekürzte Therapie: Anleitung zur biochemischen Behandlung der Krankheiten''. Schulze, Oldenburg 42nd ed. 191
Digital editionby the
University and State Library Düsseldorf
See also
*
George W. Carey
References
External links
Dr. WH SchuesslerList of Schuessler Cell Salts and pharmacological picturesBiography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schussler, Wilhelm Heinrich
German homeopaths
People from Oldenburg (city)
1821 births
1898 deaths
19th-century German physicians