Rev Hist Pharm (Paris). 2002 ; 50(335): 427-38.
[Prosecution of Mélanie Hahnemann in 1847 at the court of Paris: illegal practise of pharmacy and medicine]
Recently married, the Hahnemanns came to Paris in 1835. The great man, 80, was authorised to practice in France. His wife Mélanie always assisted him in writing prescriptions, and in recruiting patients. When he died in 1843, she was continuing to practise assisted or not by a physician, Deleau or Croserio. A young pharmacist, Charles LeThiére, lived close to her as her adoptive son, grandson of the famous painter Guillaume Guillon-LeThière who was the director of the French Academy of Fine Arts of Rome at the Villa Medici, grandson as well of the Roman pharmacist Giuseppe Meli. Early Charles remained orphan and was educated by Mélanie. In 1844, he obtained his pharmaceutical graduation at the Ecole supérieure de Pharmacie de Paris. In 1847, she was accused of illegal practising of medicine and pharmacy. She claimed that she held the degree of doctor in homeopathy granted to her by the Academy of Pennsylvania. The court condemned her on the medical side considering that she earned money without legal certification in medicine. But as the drugs were prepared by a pharmacist, and delivered free of charge to the patients, no sentence was pronounced against her neither against LeThière. However, the court tempted to object that LeTière did not meet all the legal requirements for practising his pharmaceutical activity, especially aruging that he did not own an open shop of pharmacy, and that he did not declare his activity to the authorities in Paris. This point underline the fact that during the XIXth century the French law (21 germinal An XI- 1803), obliged the starting drug industry to be in dependence of the shops of pharmacy opened to the public, owned by a graduated pharmacist. As defender Mrs. Hahnemann chose the quite known solicitor Chaix d'Estange. Many testimonies came for justifying her capability of medical prescribing from artists, officers, writers and several aristocrats. From abroad came the supports of American doctors, Hempel, Hering and Hull. But the core question motivating her sentence came from the medical lobby acting in Paris led by the professor Orfila. Among the adepts of the homeopathy themselves, raised division and rivalry, but all considering that Mélanie Hahnemann's behavior was criticable. The court fined her for hundred francs that she paid. Then, she kept the circle of her friends and continued in medical counselling.
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