Johann Siegmund Hahn

Johann Siegmund Hahn, co-founder of water medicine in Germany

Johann Siegmund Hahn (born November 13, 1696 in Schweidnitz ; † July 27, 1773 there ), doctor of philosophy and medicine, was a doctor and successor to his father of the same name as the city physician of Schweidnitz. He was the teacher of Johann Christian Anton Theden (1714–1797), who later became Friedrich the Great's personal physician . Johann Siegmund Hahn was one of the founders of water medicine in Germany.

family

Hahn was a son from the second marriage of the Schweidnitz doctor and city physician Siegmund Hahn .

He was married to a pastor's daughter from Sebnitz in Saxony, whose name is unknown, and had six children with her, of whom only three daughters (without descendants) survived.

Life

Johann Siegmund Hahn was - together with his father - the pioneer of naturopathic and scientific hydrotherapy in Germany. He became known as the author of the book published in Breslau and Leipzig: (Original title) " Teaching strength and wetting of fresh water in the bodies of people, especially the sick, when it is used internally and externally (...) ", which was first published in 1738 and was published in its 4th edition while he was still alive. In this, Hahn combined his own practical research knowledge and experience from applied hydropathy with the statements of earlier domestic and foreign, especially English colleagues.

But it wasn't until a good 100 years later in 1848 that a young philosophy student at the University of Munich named Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897) found this little book in the court library in Munich. Kneipp had had lung disease for years and had to constantly interrupt his studies. But now he tried the recommendations of the doctor Johann Siegmund Hahn while bathing in the Danube and soon got well again. Through his own experience, convinced of the effectiveness of hydrotherapy, the later pastor Kneipp developed it for his Kneipp cure , which is now named after him, and thus achieved worldwide renown.

Works by Johann Siegmund Hahn

Lessons of power and wicking of fresh water Bey its internal and external use, Schweidnitz 1738
- Digital collections of the University Library Erlangen-Nuremberg

Teaching the strength and thickening of fresh water into the bodies of people, especially the sick, when it is used internally and externally
- 1st edition, Breslau & Leipzig: Pietsch 1743 Google (National Library of the Czech Republic)
- 3rd, increased edition, Breslau & Leipzig: Pietsch 1749 Google (Austrian National Library), Google (State Library Regensburg), Google (BSB Munich)
- 4th, increased edition, Breslau & Leipzig: Pietsch 1753 Google (BSB Munich)

literature

Alfred Brauchle : The two taps Dr. med. Siegmund and Dr. med. Johann Siegmund Hahn. Starting point for both scientific and natural healing water treatment in Germany. In: the same: history of naturopathy in life pictures . 2nd ext. Ed. By Große Naturärzte . Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1951, pp. 62-69

Web links

Short biography ( memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library

Individual evidence

↑ Johann Siegmund Hahn: Lessons on the healing power of fresh water (revised by Prof. Oertel in Ansbach). Nuremberg (1831) 1834.

personal data
SURNAME	Hahn, Johann Siegmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German doctor and city physician in Schweidnitz, co-founder of hydrotherapy in Germany
DATE OF BIRTH	November 13, 1696
PLACE OF BIRTH	Schweidnitz
DATE OF DEATH	July 27, 1773
Place of death	Schweidnitz

[1] Johann Siegmund Hahn: Lessons on the healing power of fresh water (revised by Prof. Oertel in Ansbach). Nuremberg (1831) 1834.