Bach Flowers  History

Dr Edward Bach, born in 1886; he studied medicine at the University College Hospital, London, and was a House Surgeon there. He worked in general practice, having a set of consulting rooms in Harley Street, and as a bacteriologist and later a pathologist he worked on vaccines and a set of homoeopathic nosodes still known as the seven Bach nosodes.
Despite the success of his work with orthodox medicine he felt dissatisfied with the way doctors were expected to concentrate on diseases and ignore the people who were suffering them. He was inspired by his work with homoeopathy but wanted to find remedies that would be purer and less reliant on the products of disease.
So in 1930 he gave up his lucrative Harley Street practice and left London, determined to devote the rest of his life to the new system of medicine that he was sure could be found in nature.
Just as he had abandoned his old home, office and work, so now he abandoned the scientific methods he had used up until now. Instead he chose to rely on his natural gifts as a healer, and use his intuition to guide him. One by one he found the remedies he wanted, each aimed at a particular mental state or emotion. His life followed a seasonal pattern: the spring and summer spent looking for and preparing the remedies, the winter spent giving help and advice to all who came looking for them. He found that when he treated the personalities and feelings of his patients their unhappiness and physical distress would be alleviated as the natural healing potential in their bodies was unblocked and allowed to work once more.
In 1934 Dr Bach moved to Mount Vernon in Oxford shire. It was in the lanes and fields round about that he found the remaining 19 remedies that he needed to complete the series. He would suffer the emotional state that he needed to cure and then try various plants and flowers until he found the one single plant that could help him. In this way, through great personal suffering and sacrifice, he completed his life's work.
Dr Bach passed away peacefully on the evening of November 27th, 1936. He was only 50 years old, but he had left behind him several lifetimes' experience and effort, and a system of medicine that is now used all over the world.

Whilst working as a pathologist and bacteriologist at the London Homoeopathic Hospital he read 'The Organon', written by Samuel Hahnemann (the father of homoeopathy).  
Using the theory 'treat the patient, not the disease', he began preparing vaccines homeopathically.
The result was the group of seven oral vaccines or Nosodes, which became known as the Seven Bach Nosodes.
Dr Bach reached the conclusion that certain types of people reacted similarly to different illnesses and treatments. He developed a theory of types, dividing people into seven groups, each corresponding to one of the seven Nosodes.  He found that by prescribing according to his patients' reactions to their illnesses themselves, the diagnoses were more effective than those based on clinical examination.

The treatment, however, was still for the physical complaint, but he knew his work would not be complete until he found a treatment for the negative moods and emotions that were responsible for the breakdown in health in the first place.  
It was the search for these new, simpler and more natural medicines that took Dr Bach out into the countryside. In Wales he found Impatiens and Mimulus growing wild. He returned to London, prepared the remedies and prescribed them according to the personality of his patients, with immediate and remarkable results.
By the 1930's, he had identified 38 basic negative states of mind and created a plant or flower based remedy for each one.  
It is the total and absolute focus on the mental state alone, which makes Dr Bach's approach to health so exceptional.
Dr Bach based his work on a profound philosophy:

The Bach Flower Remedies are 38 plant and flower based remedies which are beneficial in meeting the demands in everyday life.  Each remedy aids a specific emotion, but they can be taken individually or a combination of remedies can be used