Aude Sapere

These Latin words appeared on the title page of the 2nd edition of Organon
of medicine, the meaning of which is “Dare to be wise” or “Bold and sensible”.
After observing the poisonous remarks made by the allopathic physicians on his
system, Hahnemann realized that the truth is not the current coin of the world.
Even in history Socrates was made to drink the hemlock poison, Servetus was
punished and Christ was crucified only because they preached the truth. Hence,
Hahnemann continued to work to improve what he found to be true. He
encouraged his fellow physicians to “dare to be wise”.

After the publication of the 1st edition, allopathy strongly criticized,
ridiculed and abused Hahnemann. Three monthly journals were started only to
denounce homeopathy. Professor Becker of Berlin wrote a separate book against
homeopathy. Most of the Hahnemann’s followers were terminated from their
medical practices and prosecuted by the law. Hufeland the owner of the
Hufeland’s journal thought “if homeopathy succeeds the scientific medicine
would die”. He called homeopathy “the grave of science”. He wrote an essay
called “Die homeopathy”. A monthly journal “Anti-Organon” was published in
1810 A.D. Dr. Simon started another journal by name “Anti Homeopathic
archive”. Dr. Hornburg a follower of Hahnemann was jailed and his chest of
medicines was confiscated and subsequently buried with public celebration in a
burial ground.

Hahnemann was aware of the dangers of being a wise man. His father’s
moral teachings gave Hahnemann the courage to face the adverse conditions.
Hence Hahnemann used the word “Aude sapere”. He got these words from the
old church of St. Afra, near the Prince’s school of Missen. The quotations of the
roman poet Horace’s book “Odes” was used by Hahnemann for the first time on
the title page of “Medicine of experience”. These words pleased Hahnemann so
much that he retained these words up to the 6th edition of Organon.

Significance of “Aude sapere” in today’s world

Even today homeopaths are criticized as “placebo doctors”. The media and
the majority of the dominant medical fraternity are denouncing the system. Only
dare to be wise attitude can allow the true homeopaths to practice their
discipline. We have to remember that homeopathy is a theory of cure, not a
theory of disease. The dynamic homeopathic medicines are intended to cure the
patients and not prepared to test their efficacy in the laboratories. The many
number of patients getting benefited by this system are the standing examples of
its superiority over other system. But the above state is slowly changing as the
physicians of dominant school started realizing the efficacy of homeopathy in
the field of therapeutics.